The Murky Depths

Lazarus Taxon

2011-04-04T13:10:00.001+02:00

Lazarus Taxon

“It was December 1929 when I met him,” continued Wiseman," on a hot, clear Summer’s evening in Mananjary. Never shall I relish and lament any moment more than I do that brief, fortuitous, tragic chapter in not only my life, but in life itself as we know it - or thought we knew it."

I regarded Wiseman with interest (and dare I say, a hint of scepticism,) sat back in my chair and prepared for what portended to be a highly intriguing account of the events that were to unfold from this first meeting between Charles Wiseman and the mysterious Jérôme Lazare.

The credibility of his tale as yet remained uncertain, but for now he had my most unflinching attention...

Wiseman's Account

I had arrived a few days earlier on a trading ship from Durban. In those days the most reliable form of long-distance transport were the trade lines commissioned by the large import-export companies. Far from luxurious, I’m sure you understand, but every effort was made to ensure the safe passage of the merchandise, and thus of the crew and any passengers aboard, albeit in rather uncomfortable conditions.

On the evening in question I had dined in one of those French colonial affairs, and was languidly sifting through notes and drawings before preparing to retire, when I became aware of his presence. In a far corner of the dimly-illuminated pergola, his image flickered in the golden glow of the oil lamp before him. In retrospect, he appeared almost comical. Münchausenesque, one might even say, as if Doré himself had been inspired by this enigmatic individual. The very epitome of a well-to-do French nobleman – superlatively bohemian in mien and countenance, yet bronzed and weathered as the experienced explorer that he later proved (or at least claimed) to be. He absent-mindedly preened his impossibly huge Imperial moustache, staring in no particular direction with a distinctly triumphant air, amid slowly dispersing cloudlets of richly-scented pipe-smoke. Even from those several yards away, his eyes gleamed with an inherent fire unfitting with his age-marred visage.

“Paraguayan,” I called over to where he sat. “With a definite hint of Latakia.”

“You know your tobacco, Monsieur,” he replied, pausing briefly before glancing over towards me. “Would you care to join me and offer your esteemed opinion of my blend?”

“It would be my pleasure, Monsieur –“

“Lazare. Jérôme Lazare, a vôtre service.”

“Charles Wiseman,” I extended him my hand in greeting as I approached his table, though I could not help but feel I should be bowing in such aristocratic presence. He stood and shook my hand warmly, and fixed his gaze upon me with dark, piercing eyes that seemed to unsettle, assay and becalm me all at once.

“S’il vous plaît, Monsieur,” he gestured that I be seated, and did so himself. “What brings you to Madagascar, might I enquire?” He glanced over to where I had left my papers on the table behind me.

“I am a zoologist, of sorts,” I replied, bringing my chair closer to the table. “I docked from Durban two nights ago. My research has led me to believe that on the island I will find some of the species that I desire to study, if indeed they do exist.”

“Ahh, the trésor par excellence!” Exclaimed Lazare. “I trust you have already sought out the elusive Tokoloshe?”

“I beg your – oh, no, no,” I laughed, somewhat nervously, “The species to which I refer are indeed real, or at least they were once. My task is to trace these species to their points of origin, in the hope of uncovering evidence that will disprove their extinction.”

Lazare gave me a look of pleasant surprise and at once a knowing glint lit up his onyx-like eyes. He rolled the tip of his moustache between thumb and forefinger in a pensive manner.

“I leave the Loch Ness Monster and Giant Squids to researchers of the paranormal,” I continued, trying to exude a more jocular air. Again, though, a knowing smile. “These last few months in South Africa have proved unfruitful in my search for the Quagga, the Blue Antelope and the Serval, amongst others. All I came up with was a handful of red herrings and tales of the Tokoloshe and the Impundulu!”

Suddenly, a mild gust of wind blew the papers from my table onto the floor of the pergola, and in unison Lazare and I moved to pick them up.

“An honourable undertaking, Monsieur Wiseman, but alas one in which history does not avail you. These creatures that you speak of, they – how does one say – went the way of the dodo a very long time ago.” He chuckled, apparently quite pleased with his use of this English idiom.

“That,” I smiled, “is precisely what I seek to prove, Monsieur Lazare. That they did indeed go the way of the dodo, but that the way of the dodo was not the path to extinction. My next port of call – though many months away – is in fact Mauritius, where I intend to seek out evidence that the dodo is indeed extant, albeit in severely decremented numbers or even having evolved into a new species.”

Jérôme Lazare looked nonchalantly at a few of my sketches, and appeared to be suppressing the urge to enquire further as to their purpose. I obliged him forthwith, but not before subtly reminding him of his invitation to savour his most excellent tobacco.

______________________________________________

The night proved long, and at around two o'clock in the morning the rich, heady smoke and lack of sleep began to take their toll. We had pored over my sketches and briefly touched upon some of my writings, and my esteemed new friend turned out to be no ignoramus on such subjects as palaeontology, taxonomy, and others more unfamiliar to myself such as anthropology, botany and even some occult practices of the region. We talked long and at times laughed heartily like old friends. I felt honoured to be in the presence of a man who could not only converse at my level on these matters, but also seemed to be able to enrich my own knowledge of them. He made me feel respected as a professional (something not common amongst my zoologist peers) and at the same time humbled as an apprentice with so much to learn from his mentor.

He took a particular interest in my drawings and theories relating to cladistics and taxonomy of ‘extinct’ species, and how I believed they could have evolved over the last two or three hundred – or thousand – years (assuming that they were still in fact extant) and means to track down these species by looking for them as they could be now, rather than basing my search on historical, no doubt equivocal records and images.

“I myself harbour certain – theories regarding some of these species, Monsieur Wiseman,” said Lazare at one point, “theories on which I would be most honoured to receive your esteemed professional opinion, should you deem it convenient at some time during your stay.”

“It would be mon plaîsir.” I replied amicably, and we agreed to meet again in a couple of days’ time. Little did I imagine the nature of these ‘theories’ which Jérôme Lazare spoke of, and the catastrophic consequences of our liaison.

As I trudged through the moonlit streets of Mananjary among rice lofts and lean-tos, heading for my accommodations, a strange sense of detachment overcame me; I felt at once distant and yet that I was closely and fixedly watching myself, as if I was not really there - this was not happening to me. I put it down to fatigue and perhaps to some mild effect from the pipe-smoke, and thought no more on the matter. The morrow would be an important day of preliminary research in Mananjary, and this was no time for self-appraisal and introspection. I barely undressed before retiring, and scarcely had my head touched the pillow when a dark, dreamless sleep engulfed me.

The next day was spent (or perhaps wasted) following up leads I had established prior to leaving London all those months earlier. My intention was to interview a number of French officials, scholars and labourers, all of whom could purportedly enlighten me to some greater or lesser extent as to the nature and whereabouts of certain archaeological and zoological trouvailles. Alas, most of these leads led to nought; many officials were loath to acquiesce, some scholars had moved on, and several labourers had met with untimely demise. Even when I did manage to glean snippets of information from those few who acceded to my questions, I had trouble concentrating on their answers. My senses opaqued and I scrawled blankly at my notebook, jolting back to reality to find that all I had been thinking was of Jérôme Lazare and my future meeting with him. It was as though my journey to Madagascar had indeed been to fulfil this unexpected convention, and that every moment spent attending to other affairs was frittery and procrastination.

I resolved to put paid to the matter post-haste, and sent a message to Lazare via the local errand service, requesting audience with him the next day. I in fact wrote it out several times before deciding on a version that was neither excessively supplicant nor flippant:

Esteemed M. Lazare,

Owing to my entirely fruitless endeavours to-day, I have decided to take a couple of days to rest before resuming my labours. I will therefore be in Mananjary, and more than happy to convene with your good self and further discuss the myriad themes we touched upon yester-eve.

Be so kind as to reply via this errand boy, should this be convenient to yourself.

Awaiting your response, your friend:

Charles Wiseman

Within an hour I had received a response:

Esteemed Mr. Wiseman,

It would be a pleasure to enjoy your company on the morrow. Meet me at the jetty on the wharf as soon as you are able. Breakfast well.

Your friend and colleague, J.L.

A boat trip was not what I had had in mind, but it would nevertheless prove a necessary distraction from my work. Far more so than I could possibly imagine.

___________________________________________

"Heureuese reencontre, Monsieur!" exclaimed Jérôme as I neared the jetty. The morning sun was still low in the eastern sky as I shook his hand with my right, shielded my eyes with my left.

Upon my approach I had become aware of the presence of a large aeroplane at the end of the jetty, some 30 yards out into the golden-hued water. We ambled hastelessly along the jetty, and came to an aircraft some fifty feet long - a hideous monstrosity of a contraption, with four huge motors atop its fuselage. As we approached, the thing coughed and spluttered its way to life.

"The CAMS 53 flying boat. A beastly contraption, but indispensable in my line of work!" Lazare echoed my thoughts over the roar of the engines.

I had never flown before, but was only vaguely aware of my apprehension through the haze of awe and intrigue. An eerie fear came over me, and I felt strangely detached from my surroundings, like a child who joins a new school half way through the term - not quite sure what to make of everything, nor whom to trust, yet resigned to following blindly though devil be his guide.

"Lamentably, Monsieur Wiseman," said Lazare as we boarded the aircraft, "I must blindfold you for the duration of the flight, as I could not allow our destination to become known to the outside world. I am sure you will understand."

I assented somewhat dubiously, and contented myself with the fact that what I could not see would not disturb me. After a decidedly harrowing takeoff the vehicle settled into a rough purr for what seemed an interminable time (but was probably no more than three hours) in what I can only guess was an eastwardly direction. I know now that this could situate our destination anywhere in a three-hundred mile hemi-radius of Mananjary, and my disorientation was further exaggerated upon disembarking on the tiny islet, from where to my discomfort no sign of mainland could be descried on any side. During the flight Lazare spoke little (and I less) but what he did say only heightened my sense of apprehension, and his attempts at allaying my fears were all but futile. We were travelling to a highly confidential location to see his collection de trésors, and under no circumstances would he allow this location to be revealed.

______________________________________________

"On arrive, Monsieur, à Tarasque." declared Lazare as the clamour jittered to a halt. "Please, remove your blindfold and again accept my apologies for such crudity. I am sure you will presently comprehend my motives." I blinked slowly as the door to the craft swung open, and the pilot (whose name, I later learned, was Manus; a burly mute of perhaps Hispanic origin) beckoned me to dismount.

We were 'moored' (if one may term it so) a few yards from a rocky overhang which appeared to be at one extreme of a small island, and which obscured the rest of said island from view. The three of us walked along a short jetty, and thence followed a dusty foot-trodden pathway which skirted the foot of the outcrop. The trail rose sharply and doubled back towards the top of the rocky prominence, from where at last I beheld a breathtaking panoramic view of our destination and the infinite aquamarine void on all sides. I recall that I at once felt limitless and trapped, myself an island; awestruck by the sheer endlessness of the ocean around us, and walled in by the minuscule pinpoint of terra firma which I now surveyed. A feeling of great solace came over me, and again I felt that odd disassociation, as if I viewed this scene passively from within a glass jar.

The islet can have been no more than a few hundred yards from one extreme (where we now stood) to the other. The rugged land sloped gently away from us towards the north (the sun was past its zenith and hung to our left) and was made up of dark volcanic rocks interspersed with colourful flora and vegetation. The dusty track meandered downwards and disappeared amongst the igneous outcrops. In the distance I could make out the golden-white brushstrokes of a nameless beach .

"Come, Monsieur Wiseman." Lazare's voice broke my daze, and as Manus led the way my distinguished host versed me briefly on the botanical rarities which lined the way. Being no botanist, much of it meant little to me but I do recall that I particularly impressed by the Acalypha rubrinervis, the Tyranicius rastimolous and the most singular silphium. A number of times the silence of the island was momentarily disrupted by a deep, raucous cawing, followed by a rat-ta-tat like the percussion of hollow sticks.

The entrance was just the other side of an elevated mound. Pushing aside the fronds of a large bush, Manus revealed an opening in the rocks which, after some clambering, led us into an underground passage. Dim electric lanterns lit the way down and to the east, along a passageway hewn roughly from the living rock, and I had to stoop to avoid scalping myself.

After some minutes the passage widened, and before me I beheld the subterranean kingdom of Jérôme Lazare! A labyrinthine network of gangways and bridges, iron walkways and brass-banistered stairwells in a vast, sprawling, vault-like cavern of immemorial volcanic creation. At its heart lay a dome of bluish glass and polished brass, connected to the surrounding gangways by four iron footbridges. At regular intervals around the cavern wall and along the walkways hung more lamps, pulsating dully in unison, which were in turn mirrored dimly in the dark water ten feet below.

I rubbed my eyes and blinked, half-certain that I must be dreaming; this was evidently some figment of my imagination, inspired by Verne or even Poe, and could not feasibly exist in waking. Yet awake I was, and here I stood in awe of Lazare's creation. Again that childlike resignation tugged at my conscience - once again accompanied by a distinct fear of lurking danger. Why had I been brought here? Who was this Jérôme Lazare, and what were his intentions? Moreover, why and how had he constructed this Leviathan observatory beneath a nameless island in the middle of the Indian Ocean? The mounting sense of fear knotted in my throat and in my mind I began erratically to devise a means of egress. But escape was futile. Where could I go from this uncharted speck of dust in the endless oceanic void? I started violently as something touched my shoulder.

"Allay your fears, Monsieur Wiseman," Lazare's voice was reassuring, his expression genuine and serene. "This is something of a novelty for me, also. Never before have I received visitors unto my secret domain. Please understand that I am taking a great risk in allowing you to behold such a sight and, as you will soon see, this is merely the tip of the iceberg."

"What is this place?" I could barely speak, and had to swallow awkwardly. A bead of sweat rolled off my brow.

"Bienvenu, mon ami, au Royeau des Trésors Perdus! Welcome to the Kingdom of Lost Treasures! No, Monsieur Wiseman," he chuckled, "not pieces of eight and 'X' marks the spot! I refer to the trésor par excellence. That which you seek is mine to share - or at least to show. Come!" And he set off at surprising speed across one of the bridges towards the central dome.

Manus was already there, checking and adjusting a spectacular byzantine array of dials and instruments in what could have been the control room of the very Nautilus. Brass gauges, levers, meters, rods, pipes and handles lined the far wall of the cupola, while the other three quarter-segments housed the enormous blue-tinged windows I had seen from the gangway. Control panels replete with still more intricate-looking instrumentation stood waist-high against each pane, and the four access bridges led off in all directions through arched, doorless openings. Manus lumbered off and returned some minutes later with a tray of meagre refreshments - salted fish, unleavened bread and a jug of greenish juice. I ate and drank as heartily as I might without appearing uncouth (I had not eaten since breakfast,) and felt somewhat more myself. Meanwhile Manus continued his checks and adjustments.

No sooner had I finished that awful-looking (but delightful-tasting) beverage, than Jérôme sprang spritely towards one of the exits and beckoned me to follow.

Crossing the footbridge, we rounded the gangway to a tunnel leading off into the rock and downwards towards the northern edge of the island.

"I must forewarn you, Monsieur, that what you are about to see, no-one has laid eyes on in the last two-and-a-half centuries, and even then not in such 'intimate' circumstances. I have brought you here because I believe you are worthy of such an honour, and that this singular secret will be safe with you. Voilà!" he exclaimed as we reached a cul-de-sac in the tunnel, and pulled aside a heavily woven curtain to reveal a thick glass window to the outside world.

Peering through the glass, mere murmurs of sound filtered through from outside. To the left rocky mounds, surmounted by that now familiar vegetation, formed the backdrop to a tiny patch of beach, gently washed by the fading celestine sea. The sun, now lower in the sky, cast long shadows eastwards across the cove. We were at the far northeastern tip of the island, looking out from a glass jar.

Then I heard it.

A hurried scurrying and mildly raspy breathing. A hollow tapping. A raucous caw.

What I then saw defied all logic. Into view shuffled a large, cumbersome-looking birdlike creature standing some two feet tall. Its huge greyish bill held a fish which it at once swallowed whole. Almost immediately another arrived, this time three feet tall, considerably more corpulent and with slightly darker plumage around the neck. Facing each other, they flapped their comically short wings, squawked ungainly hoarse-voiced squawks and chattered their bills together. They were playing. They were raphus cucullatus - Dodos! And they were definitely not extinct. I understood immediately. But, of course, I understood nothing. I recall that I wept.

For what seemed like hours I gazed awe-smitten through the glass at the gradually darkening vista beyond. The pair of dodos came and went from view, but were never far from our hideout. A surreal, ineffable joy came over me. I had travelled back two, maybe three-hundred years and was observing the legendary dodo at ease in nature, unmolested by Man and his club and blunderbuss - his insatiable need to destroy and take for his own all that he surveyed. Even the last men on Earth to see the dodo alive had never witnessed it on such terms.

They had laughed at its clumsy lope as it squawked and flapped its useless wings, cast it as dumb (its name may originate from the Portuguese word for fool,) and above all mercilessly hunted it, for what? Its meat was vile, its song was vulgar and its plumage was no finer than that of a common gull. How many stuffed dodos have you ever seen? Even that false perpetuation now called taxidermy could not further its memory and it dwindled beyond recovery - dumb and dead as a dodo.

They were territorial creatures, explained Lazare, hence they never strayed far from their home. Their decline, he said, was due as much to changes in their habitat as to outright slaughter. Monogamous, sociable and above all intelligent beings - a trait hitherto contrary to popular belief. They ate fish, fruit and even insects, though I could not establish whether this had always been the case. The last surviving pair of dodos in the world may have been forced to adapt and evolve in ways both physical and psychological as the world around them grew harsher and more cruel, and these, as Lazare proceeded to inform me, were but two of twelve surviving examples on his island - the seventh generation since the decline of their Mauritian kin.

Later, back in the observation room, my eminent host related to me how he had, many years earlier, brought a single pair of dodos from Mauritius - the last surviving pair - and how, after very nearly losing them, he had managed to have them settle, feed and mate here in their new home. It was at this point that I questioned, as no doubt you are now, the feasibility of such a declaration. "Many years ago? Many, as in over two hundred?"

Lazare laughed and preened his moustache. "Monsieur, I am sure that you are already aware that there is more to Jérôme Lazare than meets the eye, and all will become clear in due course. But first, a promenade, Monsieur Wiseman. May I call you Charles?"

And we again exited the machine room, heading this time for the western wing of the observatory. I positively leapt to my feet. What new marvels awaited me this time? My fear had utterly left me, replaced by a childlike excitement. I cursed myself for thinking ill of Jérôme's intentions. I withheld the myriad questions I yearned to ask, and made way for another undoubtedly astonishing revelation. I was not disappointed.

______________________________

A Side Note.

Wiseman's account was compelling, to say the least, but compellingness was not necessarily denotive of veracity. While there were no conflicting statements, he had yet to offer up any real evidence that his claims were not merely the rantings of a half-starved castaway. A secret island, hitherto unknown to mankind? An ageless collector of extinct plants and animals in a hidden underground laboratory? Surely the man was out of his mind? Days, maybe weeks adrift at sea must have addled his senses and left him delirious. But I again reclined in my easy chair, intent on hearing Wiseman out. I needed to be sure...

__________________________________________

Deeper

The passageway was better hewn than the one to the north, and opened out into a spacious, well-lit room with a white marble-tiled floor. At the far end stood a large white screen, and opposite this was a splendid-looking twin-reeled moving picture projector. Clinically spotless white tables lined the walls, and on them lay several other contraptions. Being something of an ignoramus on such artifices I took very little notice, but my attention was drawn to a remarkably modern-looking cinema camera and a number of polished brass diving helmets, suits and cylindrical canisters.

"Please, do be seated, Charles." Jérôme said calmly.

Suddenly all the lights went out, and the projector flickered and whirred its way to life. On the screen was pictured a bleak, yet beautiful landscape of tundra-covered islets. The seemingly impossibly-positioned camera circled the archipelago and homed in on the far side, where to my surprise and delight was an entire colony of great auk! Again, a tear of joy welled in my eye.

"This island is not my only, shall we say, project, Charles." said Jérôme quietly, so as not to disturb the birds, it seemed. "Long ago, I took upon myself the titanic task of preserving life - of taking that which was in danger of dying out, and ensuring its survival. Today you bear witness to some of the fruits of this labour, both here and on the other side of the world."

Again I realised that all attempts at questioning him were useless. It would take a lifetime to explain how he had achieved so impossible a feat, and I contented myself in the knowledge that I, of all people on this fair Earth, had been privileged with the chance to see these things with my own eyes. I simply gazed enthralled as the great auks went about their business and the cinema reels fluttered to an eventual halt.

The lights returned with a buzz and a dull hum, and I now saw that Manus stood just beside us, poised as if awaiting orders from Lazare. At a nod from my host, his aide unhooked a whitish overall from the wall, and handed it to his master. Another he gave to me, and I rose tentatively to receive it.

You may use the vestiary over there." Jérôme indicated a small door on one side of the room.

"Where are we going?" I enquired nervously.

"I wish to show you one of my most audacious projects, but I assure you it is merely a precaution. Don the protective suit, but do not concern yourself with the scaphandre. Manus will see to that for now.

I did as I was bid, and as I exited the changing booth I saw Jérôme dressed likewise, and Manus holding two brass schaphandres, one in each hand. They must have weighed a hundredweight each! He lumbered (though seemingly unperturbed by his load) along the gangway to the dome, turned right and through the southern archway therefrom. Here, overhanging the water to our right, was a large semicircular metal platform inlaid with brass pattern-work. Here Manus laid down the helmets, shuffled back to the dome and began busily pulling levers, cranking handles and checking dials.

Loud hisses as of released pressure were heard, and suddenly from the depths came an eerie moan and a tremendous bubbling. The water seemed to boil beneath us and I could but gaze in terror as a monstrous, gaping-eyed head emerged and surfaced before me!

"Do not look so shocked!" laughed Jérôme as the water shed from the thing, exposing it to full view. "You look like you've seen the Kraken! Behold the Bathysphere!

I checked myself and felt decidedly foolish as I realised that the thing was in fact a large spherical contraption, not unlike those diving helmets in form, yet quite tarnished and well over two yards in diameter. A number of flexible tubes and cables protruded from its top, and several foot-wide portholes were positioned around its body, each surrounded by small electric lamps which throbbed dully in unison with those of the cavern walls.

"I apologise, Jérôme, for my foolishness, yet I fear all this is rather bewildering. I am not a man of machinery and engineering, and despite being a scientist - and your revelations to-day have proved beyond doubt the credibility of my chosen science - I am quite a-loss for any rational explanation as to the things I have seen. All these contraptions and artifices are quite beyond my comprehension! Before we continue any further, I beseech you, enlighten me as to how all this is possible?

"Climb aboard, Charles," Jérôme said reassuringly as Manus unclamped a hatch atop the orb, and during our short journey I promise to answer with absolute frankness any questions you see fit to ask."

______________________________________________

Like a trembling child I clambered into the Bathysphere and sat opposite Jérôme Lazare. The sense of detachment now overwhelmed me, leaving me numb and dizzy. Lazare briefly explained that the device was completely watertight, and that a constant air supply was maintained by inlet and outlet tubes. We would be descending to a depth of some eighty fathoms by means of a sturdy winch, and would be in permanent contact with Manus via a voice transmission system as an additional safeguard. He himself had made the descent on numerous occasions, and had never experienced so much as a hiccough. All machinery underwent stringent maintenance, and there was absolutely nothing to fear. I myself was not so easily convinced, but by now I was well past worrying.

Manus clamped down the hatch and readied himself in the control dome. At Jérôme's command he released a lever and the vessel jolted downwards. The descent was slow, and after the initial realisation that I was indeed still breathing a few minutes into our journey, I began to feel a little more at ease, and endeavoured to learn all I could about Jérôme Lazare's impossible past and present.

He told me that he had been born into a humble yet comfortable family in a small town in Israel. Having been taken gravely ill, he was saved from death by a benefactor of undisclosed identity, and thenceforth became strangely 'immune' to all ailments - including death itself. You may deem it strange that I did not disbelieve such a claim, but as I you can imagine I was ready to believe anything at all or cast off as hallucination all I had seen. Lazare had left his home and travelled across the sea to Cyprus, where he first began his work.

Having witnessed centuries (centuries!) of war, death and destruction, Lazare had set about selecting endangered species, harbouring and nurturing them to prevent their inevitable extinction. Every single species of flora and fauna on his island had been technically 'extinct' for hundreds of years, sometimes longer. But Jérôme Lazare had dedicated his entire life to their furtherance and conservation, away from the murderous eyes of Man. Some he had personally saved from extinction - as was the case of the dodo - and others he had merely discovered in such remote places as this, in the fathomless depths of the sea. His tale would seem impossible, but I had seen the evidence with my own eyes! What alternative did I have but to believe him? A two-thousand-year-old immortal altruistic genius on an interminable mission to stay the destructive hand of Man against nature? Surely the man was insane, as you think I am! But there I was in a cast metal orb in the depths of the Indian ocean, on my way to witnessing who could tell what further wonders of Jérôme Lazare's magnificent opus! Believe it I did.

A muffled grinding noise interrupted his account, and the vessel ground to a halt. The lamps within pulsated and faded to black, and the external lamps sent a faint light struggling through the murky depths.

"La pièce de résistance," whispered Lazare almost inaudibly, "is alas unreachable even by these means, but to-day you shall witness one of my personal favourite discoveries. Attends!"

Silent minutes passed like aeons, and as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I felt I descried dark shapes moving through the surrounding gloom. Tricks of the light perhaps, or swirls of murk. The submarine globe cast a tenuous glow throughout what revealed itself to be an underwater cave some fifty yards in diameter. I recall an odd sense of twofold claustrophobia as I strained to see the surrounding cavern walls through the lugubrious blue-black murk. The glass jar analogy had never been so poignant. Just then my breathing stopped as I saw, mere feet from my porthole, the icy stare of the coelacanth!

It had been extinct for millions of years, yet here it was before my very eyes, feeding in its natural habitat! Even in my wildest conjectures I could not have begun to imagine such a possibility. My work revolved around creatures which, although apparently extinct, I believed to be still extant - all I had to do was prove it. But the coelacanth had died out at the end of the Cretaceous Period, and now two, five, perhaps a dozen of them swam before me, unchanged and unmarred by millions of years.

Lazare relayed to me the peculiar habits of these ichthyic marvels of prehistoria. Cave-dwellers, territorial and fiercely independent, these coelacanth were in fact not the same species as those discovered fossilised, but rather one of only two species of a sole surviving genus, distantly related to its Devonian forefathers. Shunning daylight, they dwelt in caves by day, and rose to shallower waters by night in quest of sustenance. Cunning hunters, they fed upon fish, eels, squid and even small sharks. They were very sensitive to changes in temperature, and any attempt - Jérôme interjected - to bring a specimen to the surface for examination would prove fatal. Thus the only means of study was in-situ as he put it, and even so detailed study was impossible 'until later technologies become available'. We were to be thankful that the temperature in this cavern was idoneous for the coelacanth, for otherwise they would have fled even the faint light emitted by the Bathysphere. They would wait until past nightfall before venturing outside for the hunt.

Despite their territorial nature, the coelacanth would instinctively move on to more favourable environs should temperatures or food supply become inadequate. Unthreatened by other predators at this depth, they had presumably been at the top of the food chain for several million years, but my remark to this effect was met with a mischievous glint from Jérôme's eyes, strangely piercing despite the almost absolute darkness within our jar. I refrained from further comment.

What I shall most clearly remember of these fascinating specimens is the twinge of latent fear instilled in me by their stare. Within those expressionless eyes lay countless aeons of predatory instinct, of existence immemorial, and yet something deeper - something not of this world, as if this denizen of the deeps had been put here not by our god, but by some other, more ancient entity. It was as though this was the last tenuous link between our world and the distant, unimaginable, godless time before life as we know it, like staring into the eyes of a dinosaur. I knew that I did not belong in its world.

Immersed as I was in this train of thought, all the more shocking was the deep, occluded throb that suddenly pervaded the lugubrious cavern, as the very walls seemed to tremble with some almighty force. A groan of metal, and we were thrown violently sideward. The Bathysphere had come loose! A seaquake had struck, and now one of the support cables had snapped, leaving us dangling by the other. Panic seized me.

"Manus, adopt emergency surfacing procedures!" called Jérôme urgently through the communication tube. "Charles! Don your scaphandre and I shall clamp you in. Manus! Pull up! We have lost a cable. Pull up!" He struck a lever and light returned to our chamber. I was frozen with fear. Was this jar to be my doom? I fumbled with the helmet, but all strength had forsaken me. I could not lift it!

Hope, too, soon left me as Lazare's unerring composure now faded from his face, usurped by fear and dismay.

"The communication tube," he sighed, peering through the glass. "Look."

I looked out to see the communication tube drifting laxly downwards through the gloom, and fell to weeping.

"Charles Wiseman, don your scaphandre or you are doomed!"

But still I wept.

Lazare snatched up my helmet with unnatural strength, clamped it firmly over my head, engaged its clamps and moved to take up his. Just then, some enormous force shook the Bathysphere, throwing us violently sideward. The metal support structure had crashed down upon the Bathysphere, and complete detachment from the cables was surely imminent.

My helmet had taken the brunt of the blow to my head, but my friend, host and only chance of survival lay motionless before me. In hindsight I should have attempted to revive him, but just as strength and hope had forsaken me, so too had science and common sense, and I was again that accursed child, helpless and pathetic in the face of overwhelming fear and certain doom.

I was briefly aware of a coelacanth that paused outside a porthole as if to scorn me, and as I met its gaze a chill traversed me like a rapier - a huge black shape lurked just behind it, just out of view, and both were gone.

But I now faced a more imminent danger. The impact had rent a crack in the husk of the Bathysphere, and water was slowly invading the chamber. Grasping frantically at some levers, I noticed something break away beneath me, and a feeling of buoyancy came to the sphere. By degrees, I felt the Bathysphere begin to rise!

Aeons passed as we drifted gradually upward, amid intermittent temblors and hunks of rock and debris. Some at times seemed to endanger its very integrity as they struck the hull of the sphere. The island was coming down around us! Then one almighty crash sent us reeling through the depths as our final lifeline was smashed from its anchoring, leaving the Bathysphere to float aimlessly upward with scarce minutes of air with which to do so. Peering upwards through a porthole, I descried a glimmer of light that crawled its way down through the murk. But was it too far? The sphere was rapidly filling with water, leaving moments of breath at best, and hampering our progress with every passing second. Only one course of action remained. I had to escape the Bathysphere!

Tinkering madly with the clasps on my scaphandre, I managed to free myself of it, and proceeded to tug at the fixtures on the hatch. All the while, Lazare’s unconscious form lay slumped against the side wall, and I did all I could to keep his head above water. I would have to haul him up with me when I opened the hatch. Finally, the water level rose so high that I could barely keep my own head above water. I gasped desperately as the last few seconds of air were shunned and I could push open the hatch.

A gloopy silence engulfed me as I wriggled through the hole into the watery void. I kicked frantically and grabbed Lazare’s hand in an attempt to pull him out. But as I did so, he must have become snagged on something, and my attempts were futile. My tragic moan was lost to the depths, and valuable air with it, as the Bathysphere slipped silently down whence it had come. I struggled blindly upwards and prayed. At the end of all things, when science and hope had forsaken me, I prayed.

The last thing I recall was waking momentarily amid a vast oceanic wasteland, grasping a piece of floating debris. Not a trace of land could I descry, nor any sign of life. My world fell black.

_____________

Charles Wiseman's account was certainly harrowing, and recounting his tribulations had obviously taken its toll on his nerves, as the old man fell to sobbing like a frightened child. True, too, that while far-fetched (or perhaps more aptly ludicrous) his tale held a certain consistency that could not be struck off as the machinations of a common-or-garden raconteur. Veracious or not, Wiseman firmly believed every word of it. But the issue at hand was not whether he was lying, but rather whether it was true, and not the twisted concoctions of a mind insane.

The odds were by no means in his favour: one the one hand - and perhaps most importantly - no physician, judge or layman in his right mind would even begin to entertain the possibility of this undying French scientist of which he spoke, but this aspect was in no way conclusive. Such a statement would cast serious doubts upon the sanity of its claimant, Monsieur Lazare, but not so of the listener, Mr. Wiseman.

The clinical evidence brought little to light, save the repeated references to what could have been the beginnings of Dissociative Disorder. Wiseman had stoically maintained his story since he was found floating off the coast of Madagascar all those years ago, but otherwise displayed no symptoms of mental illness. This too was insignificant, as most paranoid delusionals are (at least on the surface) of sound mind and body. The most tangible argument against Wiseman's "fantasy" was the absolute inexistence of any proof in its favour. No records had been found of any such island between Madagascar and Réunion, nor anywhere in the Indian Ocean.

In the 1920s and 30s, sending out a reconnaissance party to investigate the area would have supposed prohibitive expenditure on what at the time were laughed off as the rantings of a lunatic, and as such no search was ever made. Nor had anyone endeavoured to establish the veracity of Wiseman's claims to have witnessed extinct species of flora and fauna on that islet.

The historical evidence had been conclusive enough to commit Charles Wiseman: the dodo was extinct; the great auk was extinct; some of the botanical species he mentioned had not flourished on the Earth since pre-Roman times. And the coelacanth? Next he would be claiming the rebirth of the dinosaurs! For forty years the sheer incredibility of Wiseman’s tale had been enough to keep him in a secure establishment where he would receive the care he needed, although this was indeed doubtful, given the "prehistoric" methods employed by some institutions. But Charles was a threat neither to himself nor others, and doctors and fellow patients alike enjoyed hearing of his adventure - up until the moment when he broke down and wept like a shivering wreck, at which point hospital staff would have to calm not just him, but a dozen other patients who would wail uncontrollably as collective hysteria reigned in the dayroom.

Not all, however, had been decided. The discovery, some years after Wiseman's ordeal, of a coelacanth off the coast of South Africa, had gained worldwide acclaim as a Lazarus Taxon - a species which disappears from fossil records (in some cases for millions of years) only to reappear as if "back from the dead". And now with the growing trend for "cryptozoology" some specialists had again begun investigating the possible extancy of other species, the dodo among them. One such specialist had heard of Charles Wiseman’s story, and decided to track him down to interview him regarding his experience, with the inevitable consequence that his mental health was again in doubt - but this time in his favour.

Research into Wiseman's case turned up some curious etymological data. His reference to Doré's bust of Baron Münchhausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen) sparked a mild curiosity amongst investigators who realised that the forename Jérôme is in fact the francicised version of Hieronymus - the name by which the eccentric noble was known to his friends. Von Münchhausen was most notable for his extravagant tales of impossible deeds and even immortality. That, coupled with the surname Lazare - Lazarus, whom Christ brought back from the dead - set off a number of alarm bells amongst those concerned. Assuming Wiseman already had a predisposition to mental illness, (manifested by dissociative disorder and its related tendency towards delusionary fantasy) his tainted psyche could quite easily have concocted the fictional character of Jérôme Lazare from fragments of childhood memory and a kind of subconscious word-image association.

Still more controversy, particularly amongst religious groups, was fuelled when one researcher picked up on the name of Lazare's island: Tarasque - the legendary sea-beast from Provence tamed by St. Martha, Lazarus' sister. He also pointed out that Lazarus became the first Bishop of Marseille and of Larnaka in Cyprus, where he is said to have died. Lazarus was of course born in Bethany, a small town in Israel.

The references to certain technological devices in Lazare's "hidden realm" were also the matter of some debate. A self-confessed technophobe, Wiseman had described the artifices in very superficial detail, but from what could be gleaned from his statements these were devices that were not widespread until some years later, and some not at all. Results of further research brought to light that the so-called scaphandre, the twin-reeled projector and the cine-camera were all dated back to the late twenties and early thirties, which would prove the possible existence of some items, while seeming to render impossible that of others. This very hospital, some years later, had been in possession of a projector of similar ilk, which would indicate a possible stimulus for such a description, but Wiseman' testimony predated the acquisition by several years, and had remained unaltered throughout his internment here.

The CAMS53 Flying Boat was indeed in use by French postal services at the time, but the aerial filming equipment suggested by the great auk footage was not available until many years later. All told, doctors and researchers alike were at a loss as to the veracity of Wiseman's account, and thus as to his sanity.

_________________________

As I watched him through the one-way observation glass, I remarked to myself on the bitter irony of tables turned. Charles Wiseman was now the specimen under the scrutiny of the experts, but he could not see me, and I momentarily mused that I was inside the jar looking out at him.

Meanwhile, things were astir in the adjacent conference room. Two burly nurses took Wiseman back to his quarters and the Hospital Administrator entered the observation room to report their findings to me. He appeared discontent.

"Forty years at this centre, Doctor Lazenby, and I have never met anyone like Charles Wiseman. I was a mere porter boy when they brought him in, and was captivated by his humility and apparent lucidity, not to mention his extraordinary tale!

"Poor old soul never did any harm to anyone, and I've always believed in my heart of hearts that he shouldn't be here at all. But he had no family and nowhere to go. Perhaps he's better off here after all. Apart from a few startling discoveries like the extancy of the coelacanth, forty years have unearthed no concrete evidence to support his story. Not enough to commit a man for, to be sure, but as I said, where would he go?

"I have decided to sign the report reaffirming that Charles Wiseman is clinically insane, and based upon more modern psychological classifications, that he suffers from Delusionary Dissociative Disorder. Though reticent to pronounce such a diagnosis, neither is there any clinical, historical or scientific evidence against it, and I feel that in many ways it is for the best. I'm sure you understand."

"The Health Service is not a refuge for the homeless, Dr. Aldridge." I replied firmly. "We cannot keep anyone here who is not in need of the medical attention the Centre provides. It is a waste of manpower and government resources!"

Aldridge regarded me guardedly, evidently now not so sure that I agreed.

"However, given the circumstances," I continued, "and the lack - as you put it - of evidence conclusive to Wiseman's sanity, I too shall put my signature to your report."

"Thank you, Dr. Lazenby!" Aldridge declared, beaming with delight, yet swallowing a distinct hint of remorse. He obviously held Wiseman in great esteem, as too did I. He placed the report on the table and left, closing the door quietly behind him. A lull of silence pervaded the room.

___________________

The decision had not been an easy one for the committee to take, but one that was without doubt "for the best", and they knew not the half of it. When news hit the press that Wiseman's case had resurfaced at the proliferation of cryptozoology, I knew I would have to intercede forthwith. Had Charles been proclaimed sane, the consequences could be disastrous, but now that the casebook had been closed and public curiosity abated, I could sink back into obscurity at least for a time. No matter how unjust and harrowing a conclusion this might be, it was a small price to pay that Charles Wiseman once again be declared by the country's leading physicians as clinically insane.

Only I knew otherwise.

With the merest wince of remorse, I uncapped my fountain pen and signed Aldridge's report.

Dr. Jeremy Lazenby

Stowaways

2011-04-04T12:59:00.001+02:00

Stowaways

"It's a sphere, you see? Time is a sphere. An infinitely expanding, all-encompassing sphere."

The monocled professor shifted his considerable weight in his chair as the interviewer feigned both interest and comprehension.

"For centuries, Time - and I use the upper case most deliberately - was believed to be a straight line; a one-way tunnel with no alternative direction and certainly no return.

"Then came thinkers of the school of Chaos, and we began to entertain the idea that the course of Time - or at least the events which take place during it - had no fixed direction, and that any one event can have numerous consequences, each in turn giving rise, hypothetically, to numerous successive consequences, ad infinitum. Ergo, events which occur during the course of Time do obviously not go in a straight line, or at least it would be safe to say that the likelihood of them doing so is equal to that of them following any other given course: infinitely slim.

"As I have previously said, Time was thought of as a unidirectional 'tramway'. It began at the beginning, set out on its predetermined course and heads inexorably onward to an unknown (or inexistent) destination. Events and entities which come and go throughout Time's duration are merely 'passengers' for a limited section of the route. The Chaos theory (and I do not refer to Poincaré's chaos theory) merely throws in a number of variables, thus tracing an irregular, winding tramway as opposed to a perfectly straight one; more akin to the course of a river - it could go in either of the possible directions, but only goes in one.

"Now that's all very well, but if we picture Time as a river and events as little boats upon it, we are being blind to the fact that, beyond our single-track existence, other events are not happening, while Time goes on regardless. Alternative routes are available at every juncture, but we simply do not take them. So if we take that same starting point, and instead of tracing an apparently chaotic line towards infinity we describe a sphere around it, then 'inflate' that sphere towards infinity in all directions, we begin to envisage a more realistic image of Reality. The boats only follow one of the courses, but the other courses are still there for the taking.

"As an aside, I would like to mention the fact that not everything is possible; England cannot beat the West Indies at cricket without even playing them! (In fact lately we haven't been able to beat them at all, but I parenthesize.) This was one of the arguments that caused the downfall of Bosch's Randomness Theory back in the year twenty-three. Everything happens for a reason, and no matter how chaotic things may seem, or how unexpected they may be, the course of events is entirely logical and certainly not random.

"We at the Maasberg Institute have mapped out this sphere of Reality with all its possible trajectories, and I have with me a HoloSim presentation of it. Yes," he interjected amid quizzical expressions from at least half the audience, "that's capital 'H' and 'S', for those who didn't know. The italics are merely for emphasis. Education just isn't what it used to be is it? But that's another debate entirely, and I digress; something I am not wont to do, at least on public televi..."

"And we are rather pushed for time, professor," interpolated the presenter, adjusting his earpiece. "That's 'time' with a lower case 't'!" This raised the murmur of a laugh amongst several members of the audience - mostly those previously displaying quizzical expressions - at which he grinned dazzlingly, his protagonism momentarily restored. A brief drum roll and clash of the hi-hat rounded up the gag.

"Behold, the Perisphere!" Professor Cribbins fumbled a moment with his QSB™ MemStick, found the right button, and after a few inaudible mumblings the HoloSim burst into life.

Suspended before him was a semi-translucent globe, some two feet across and bluish in colour, which at first sight resembled an antique twentieth-century lightning orb. From the central point of the sphere came numerous tendrils of orange light, each branching off at irregular intervals like placentae, creating a labyrinthine web stretching outwards to the perimeter of the globe.

"You will observe, Michael," continued Cribbins, pushing another button on the MemStick and thereby causing the sphere to revolve, "that the courses are clearly discernible, despite the reduced scale on which this model is built."

The presenter nodded sagely.

"This is because this particular model covers only the first twenty-five years after the beginning of Time; the Big Bang, as it is occasionally termed. By laymen, I might add, but I shall continue to do so for the sake of our audience. Now, we all know how and where the Big Bang took place thanks to Randolph and Singh, and when was of course at the beginning of Time, so this," he zoomed in and highlighted the centrepoint of the orb, "this is the Focum. From this point, everything stems. Everything, everyone, everywhere that ever existed began here, at this point. And this, if I can just highlight... there, this is where our universe was twenty-five years later."

A bright red line was traced from the Focum to the outer edge of the translucent sphere, and it indeed resembled a river on a map. It began fairly straight and uncomplicated, but as it made its way outwards its trajectory became ever more complex, more chaotic, as it twisted and meandered its way through Time.

"Yet it could have been at any point along any one of these courses. Here we see the Nodes or 'turning points' if you will, at which the course of events changed." A number of green dots lit up where other tendrils branched off from the red line. "And here," thousands of other green dots lit up at every intersection along the orange tendrils, "we see all the Nodes that had become available during the first twenty-five years after the Big Bang.

"This all very interesting, Professor, but do get to the point of the matter; how exactly does the Maasberg Institute intend to use this data for the good of Mankind? You previously claimed that you had a theory whereby we could change the course of History. I'm assuming that's with a capital 'H'."

"I'm coming to that, Mr. Leever." He fiddled with the MemStick once more. "If I now expand the Perisphere to the middle of the Devonian Period, like so," here the orb expanded to nearly the size of the studio, causing not little consternation amongst those present, and several members of the audience to shift backwards in their seats; "we get a reasonable idea of the sheer magnitude of Possibility within the sphere of Reality. While at the earlier stage not much could really happen, with the introduction of Life into the universe, the possibilities are mind-boggling. For some. Now, if I scale it back down and accelerate to the Present Day," the orb shrank, boomed back out and again contracted to the size of a small living room; "we see the moment this programme began: twenty-one hundred hours Global Mean Time on the eighteenth of August, two thousand and ninety-seven, Standard Terra. That's 18-8-97 at 9 pm for those who had trouble keeping up. Any Americans watching can change things round as they deem fit."

Several gasps rose up from the audience as Professor Cribbins' presentation suddenly became more tangible, closer to home. Half an hour had barely passed since the moment that now glowed before them on the HoloSim, but few paid attention to the apparently diminished number of tendrils stemming from this point in their little red stream. Fewer still noticed that not far back along the red line, several of the tendrils had come to an 'untimely end'.

"Few of you will have noticed," said Cribbins, addressing the audience, "that several of these Event Lines have indeed dissipated to nought, mere centuries ago, and more so in recent times."

Few nodded.

"Zooming in, we see that things have managed to stay on track, but that all too frequently in the last few thousand years, Events could have taken a turn for the worse, so to speak, and ended quite literally... well, ended. Quite literally. Had the little boats taken either of these routes through Time," he highlighted what looked like the crown of a tree, but by now everyone knew what it was; "we would not be here prattling on about it tonight. And these Eventualities are becoming ever more frequent, Michael."

"So we are quite literally running out of Time, Professor? Capital 'T'? Not just on tonight's show?"

"Bloody right we are!" exclaimed Professor Cribbins. "And there's only one thing to do about it!"

"And what might that be? Go back and start again?"

Not back. Sideways! Start again from right now, but in an alternative Present. One where Events have less likelihood of going awry. By analysing all the possible courses, we have been able to single out nodes at which Humankind has most chances of survival. If we stay when we are, the world could end within years, or if we look here," he zoomed in on the HoloSim, "within months!"

The audience gasped in unison. Within what was discernibly a very short period of time, many of the orange strands of light dwindled and fizzled out to nothing.

"Countless attempts have been made to save Mankind by going back and starting again, but we just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Man will just not learn; no matter how many times we send someone back in History to rectify Events, the inherent problem is that they are going back through the same course of History. What minimal changes have been made have come to nothing, and Events always find their way back on course. You cannot imagine the number of times we've tried to manipulate the U.S. election results! But human is as human does, and History remains the same.

"Everyone knows that time travel has been proven possible using the 'swivel' technique as described by Benitez. That method was honed to perfection over a century ago, but while originally employed as a means of observation, in recent years several governmentally-funded campaigns have been deployed to put Mankind on the right track. All, as you can quite clearly see, have failed.

"Now a new campaign, spearheaded by the Maasberg Institute, has been launched with a fundamentally different approach: to jump to a node in an alternative present. Right here, to be precise." He zoomed in on one of the green nodes, from which there seemed to be a multitude of possible directions, most of which in turn appeared to offer considerably more longevity than the current course of Events.

"We at Maasberg have whittled down all possible alternative presents to this node, which as you can see if we expand the Perisphere, proffers vastly more future potential than ours does, wouldn't you agree, Michael?"

As the HoloSim sphere of Reality boomed outwards, it was plain for all to see that while the new course branched and multiplied ever on through Time, their own present rapidly fizzled and was left behind - abandoned by the wayside of Time like countless others before it. Those countless others had merely been possible Realities, but this was theirs. This was real! A gloopy silence filled the studio, warping and occluding Leever's voice as it broke frailly through:

"I on' uddi eleeve it," came his muffled cry through the haze. The audience's hearing returned with an audible rush. "We're doomed! And have been for--"

"Several thousand years. Mankind was doomed almost from the outset, somewhere around here, where Man's incorrigible oafishness doomed the rest of Existence to its inevitable demise."

"So let me get this straight," interposed the presenter. "In order to avoid Mankind destroying itself and all Existence with it, we have to start again at a point in Reality where Mankind has not already started cocking things up?!? You'll excuse the triple punctuation, Professor, but this is all getting too wacky. Who's to say it's even possible?"

"Possible?" blurted out Professor Cribbins. "Why! Don’t be preposterous, man, of course it's possible. "At the Maasberg Institute, we can do anything. As long as it's possible, that is."

With that, Professor Cribbins rummaged inside his waistcoat pocket and carefully unwrapped a small round, brown object from within a white cotton handkerchief. He took it between thumb and forefinger and inspected it closely through his monocle. Silence once again filled the studio; every eye was fixed upon him. The tension was palpable. Slowly, he placed the object in his mouth and sucked.

"Buttercup lozenge." He cleared his throat. "Bring in the Transposer!"

The studio band trickled to life with a half-hearted sustained roll and brass fanfare as two voluptuous hostesses wheeled in a matte titanium-coloured spherical contraption on a four-sided, four-wheeled platform. It stood eight feet high and emitted a low-frequency hum. A transparent band around its equator allowed a faint pink glow to exude from within. The APPLAUSE! sign lit up above the stage but was unanimously ignored.

"The Transposer is the very sum of all advancements made at the Maasberg Institute, and indeed the single most important scientific breakthrough since Creation itself!”

"I beg your pardon, Professor," Leever broke in, "but was the Big Bang not responsible for the birth of our universe? Or whatever you prefer to call it.

"Good Lord man, no! But I'm afraid we don't have time to go into that right now, at least not in this Now. Now, if you would be so kind as to refrain from further interruptions, I was --"

"Harping on about your Institute's scientific prowess! Now if Time really is that scarce, I would appreciate your getting to the point, Professor."

"The point, dear boy, is this: If we stay here we have at best several months, and at worst a couple of days. The Transposer is designed to "uproot" us from our current node and transpose us to our new node, with little or no spacio-temporal upheaval for us, the 'passengers'. In fact, the transition and arrival would be inappreciable to all but experienced Time travellers.

The audience stared agape.

"And when exactly do you propose to use this Transposer, Professor?" Croaked the presenter, tugging at his collar.

"Well now, of course! No Time like The Present, as we say."

"W-wait a minute," said Leever, "Y-you propose to use this thing here, now, on my show?!?"

Several audience members fainted and those remaining created such a raucous that Security had to intervene. Security having had no calming effect on the audience, Professor Cribbins grabbed a handheld microphone and tapped loudly into it.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" He boomed through the PA system. "There is no cause for alarm. Now if you will please lend me a few more minutes of your Time, I will repay it several million-fold, but I do need calm or this will be very difficult to explain. Even for me. Now, if you please, ladies."

The smiling silver-clad hostesses opened a Perspex hatch on the control panel of the Transposer, and one of them handed Professor Cribbins a red plastic key.

"No-one, I repeat NO-ONE will be harmed whatsoever during the course of this process. You will not even be aware of even the remotest fluctuation of any kind. All that you will notice is that when we arrive, the Perisphere will detect our new position in Reality, and display it in green, while our current node will fade and die like we will ourselves if we don't get out of here quick smart.

"What about our families?" Came a loud London accent from the audience.

"Yeah, we can't leave everyone behind!" A Scottish woman cried.

"Fear not," replied the Professor. "The Transposer's effect is absolute and all-encompassing. In an instant it will transport us from Now to Now - another Now. The only difference is that our destination Now has vastly more chance of persisting than this current Now which to be very frank has None. With a capital N. You will go home this evening to your families and tomorrow you will go to work as you do every day, and nothing will have changed except that you will know the world has a Future."

Discarding the microphone he waddled over to the Transposer, inserted the red key, turned it and stood back.

A low hum climbed to a dull throb, into a heavy pulsating sub-frequency blur. The pink glow grew to a purplish-yellow haze and in spectacular crescendo the orb fizzed and crackled and hummed and throbbed and glowed ever louder, brighter and thunder rolled and lightning filled the room and all was silent.

Professor Cribbins lay immobile - his inert and considerable mass sprawled cumbersomely on the studio floor - his monocle on the floor beside him and his MemStick inches from his hand. Michael Leever dragged himself over to it, fiddled and it burst to life. The hostesses pulled themselves to their feet, one of them still smiling. The band shifted nervously. The audience rubbed their eyes and focussed, one by one, on the red highlighted line amid the orange tentacles in the pale blue holographic sphere. This frail red line that ran from the Beginning of Time to the End of the Show. Now it faded and receded and backtracked to a node something over two thousand years ago, paused and quickly meandered back forward in Time to a point equitemporal to their previous Now, only now elsewhere within the Perisphere. They had indeed moved sideways in Time! They were in an alternative Present! An uneasy hush filled the studio.

It was as if no-one knew what to do next. Even Leever was lost for words. The APPLAUSE! sign fizzed and crackled but otherwise remained unheeded. Slowly but unsurely, utterly silent, members of the audience began to disperse and with them security guards, band members, camerapersons, set crew and shiny hostesses, all shuffled bewilderedly towards the EXIT signs.

Leever brushed himself off and slumped into the guests' armchair. No musical outro; no "See you next Time"; no smarmy whiter-than-white grin. Just the end of the show. Something of a let-down considering the world had just been proffered a New Beginning. But then, it would take time to sink in, and in the meantime all we had to do was just get on with our lives. Tomorrow would dawn like any other. Time would ramble ever on. And Maasberg shares would skyrocket. He pondered this.

Cribbins' ponderous bulk shifted suddenly and clambered awkwardly to its feet.

"When am I?" He glanced at the Perisphere, still suspended in front of Michael Leever. "Well, I think that went rather well, don't you old chap?" He uttered, winking his monocle into place.

"If you say so, Professor," he replied blankly, still staring vacantly at the empty rows of seating. "You sure know how to disperse a crowd, I'll give you that."

"All for the Greater Good, old boy!" He brushed off his tweed waistcoat, fiddled with his cufflinks and swept a wisp of grey hair back over his baldness. "Now, if you'll excuse me. Tell your accounts people not to bother with the cheque. Tell them to spend it on Maasberg shares. Bloody good investment, as you can see. The Future is -- well, IS. Cheerio."

Michael Leever left his car in the TV studio car park that night, and trudged slowly home on foot. The streets were deserted but for a few stragglers who had congregated round a hi-fi store window to watch the barrage of news flashes stemming from the events broadcast on his show. His show! Michael Leever: the man who broadcast the End of Time and the beginning of The Future. He pondered this, too, and it all seemed so very insignificant - fame, fortune, ratings, advertising, share prices... all paled into futility when compared with simple fact of being. An hour earlier, the world was blissfully ignorant of its imminent doom, and now an ineffable lull pervaded the air, like a man turned forty who feels no different from the day before.

Tomorrow dawned like any other. Time rambled ever on. And the stock exchange seethed to the tune of Maasberg: The Future IS.

Last Orders

2007-10-27T12:45:00.000+02:00

Floating up the ladder of insobriety
We climb to all-time lows.
Or the peaks of depravity?
Carelessly we tread the thin blue carpet
In tight-knit slippers,
And never stray the beaten track.
Not much.
Under the influence of all their Buds
The company of fools set sail their vessels,
Though the ship is parked outside.
Heavy curtains of Best Bitterness
Impair our already bloodshot distinction
Of left from right
From wrong,
As full-to-brim with foolhardy Courage
Like sheep we flock from the field of play,
And gaily we gambol
With life and death. The stakes?
A CHOICE OF TWO PRESTIGIOUS DESTINATIONS !
A long-stay return at Her Majesty’s pleasure;
Or a one-way ticket to an early grave.

HAIKU

2007-10-27T12:41:00.001+02:00

High upon my star,
I watch the constellations
Twisting from afar.

They’re circulating
Fast, now slow. Now fast again
In spirals of time.

The web of threads of
Jewels of light and dark and bright,
Pin-point-punctures night.

A lone moon shines pale
Its lunar luminescence,
And somehow I’m sad.

But I smile in thought
As the galaxies revolve;
Memories I have.

Uncomfortably Glum

2007-09-24T14:55:00.000+02:00

A: Hello? Is there anybody in here?

Just grunt if you can hear me. Tell me I'm not alone.

Come on out. No need to look around.

If I could help you cease the rain, get back on the road again...

Relax, you need a resolution first.

A baseball bat or axe.

Show 'em what it means to hurt.

B: There is no pain, only the reeling
The distant ripsaws of the horizon
They are only drumming through the rain
Their tongues recoil, but I don't fear what they say.

I'm out for a while, for no good reason
My mind melts just like a blue lagoon.
Now I'm out of season once again -
I can't refrain, will not be undermined, this is not here and now.

I have become uncomfortably glum.

(A soul-wrenching heartstring interlude ensues, but dissipates anon, paving the way for the emotional holocaust to come)

I have become uncomfortably glum.

A: No way, not such a little prick!
For me no more lah-de-dah
Though you might deem me kinda sick

Take a stand now. You won't believe what's lurking, what broods.

That should get you going with the flow.

Get up, it's time to grow.

B: This is no game! You are concealing
The constant whipstroke, always disguising!
You are hardly cutting through the haze.
The drips ooze, but I don't care for dismay.

With eyes of a child, I fought the creeping hints,

Out from dark corners of my life.

I burned the books of shit gone wrong,

I could not pull my finger out in time

The chance is blown, the bleeding's done.

And I have become uncomfortably glum.

(A wailing array of spinal powerstrokes entrances the beholder for several minutes, enticing and inciting to rise to heretofore unimagined levels of spiritual tangibility, culminating in a crescendo of temerity and aplomb, before fading into blue-grey mists of introspect and solemn self-condemnation, leaving only a semi-lucid nebula of silent gloom.)

The Hound, by our resident literary deity, L.P. Hovercraft

2007-09-13T15:12:00.000+02:00

And still I am haunted by the distant baleful baying,
The ceaseless patter of tiny paws,
And scratching of claws
As if at the very doors
Of my sanity.
O Heinous Fate!
That daemoniac howling that doth pierce my sleep
(And my waking)
As a rapier traverse my soul.
Would that the cohabitants of my residential abode
Return from their fortnight
Of post-nuptial respite,
That I may be free of this canine crooner!

Quote of the Day

2007-09-11T14:57:00.000+02:00

"And what charnel horrors will lurk
In the dank recesses of the Mind?
What fell Daemons shall gnaw and gnash and claw their way
From the recondite morasses of stagnant Memory,
And into our Waking Fear?"

- L.P. Hovercraft

The Most Singular Case of Mr. James Phebes

2007-09-09T22:40:00.003+02:00

The Most Singular Case of Mr. James Phebes.

"This is hardly indicative of psychiatric dysfunction, Mr. Phebes!” exclaimed Dr. Fleming, trying to sound reassuring, but none too convinced himself. What his most recent patient had just told him had hit a nerve, or to be more precise, hit him like a sledgehammer. For nearly two weeks now, Phebes had attended regular sessions with Dr. Fleming and had, since the first visit, struck Fleming as a rather singular case. It had all started fairly normally - with one or two exceptions - but Fleming soon came to realize that James Phebes was far from being a “textbook lunatic.”

Session One

At 38, Jack Fleming had been a psychiatrist for some twelve years, and business, though at first somewhat slow for an energetic, straight-out-of-Harvard postgraduate, had been steady enough to pay the bills, and even to keep up the payments on his ’67 Camaro (Viper Red, of course.) New York was not short of fruitcakes, but making a name for himself as a shrink was tough going. As the years went by, things picked up and he moved to a larger apartment where he set up practice, and one might even say that times were good.

Now, however, times were far from good, and the debts were piling up. Patients were few and far between, and Fleming was lucky to make the end of the month without going overdrawn. The Chevy, needless to say, was long gone.

A knock at the door, and with a start Jack looked up from his electric bill which, incidentally, he had spent the last twenty minutes staring blankly at. Again a knock, this time a little louder, and Jack stood up and went to the door. Peering through the peephole, he saw a man of middling height, around his own age, with shoulder-length black hair. He was shifting slightly from side to side as if apprehensive, but did not appear distressed or unstable. Jack opened the door on the chain and looked out at his visitor.

“Dr. Fleming?” Enquired the man.

“The same.” Replied Jack.

“I came for… therapy.”

“Practice opens at ten a.m.” Replied the doctor. “And it’s only…“

“Five past.” Came the retort.

Fleming glanced hurriedly at his wristwatch, uttered a slight laugh as if to say “Heh, so it is, oops!” and assented that the stranger was indeed correct. He closed the door, removed the chain and opened it again, beckoning the man to come in. Stepping inside, the man pulled his dark trench coat more tightly around him as if he were cold, but out of politeness Jack offered to take it. The visitor seemed glad of the offer, and handed over his coat.

“I hope I’m not imposing too much,” he said in a calm, well-educated voice, and glanced at he doctor’s feet with a knowing smile. Again a muffled laugh as Fleming realized he was still wearing his slippers.

“Please, take a seat, Mr…”

“Phebes.” Said the man, hardly giving Fleming time to finish his sentence. “Thank you.”

As the visitor made himself comfortable in one of the malt brown leather armchairs, Jack nipped into his living quarters and slipped on some slip-ons, making the most of these few moments to compose himself and not appear quite so flustered and taken-unawares.

“Well, Mr. Phebes, I always like to start off on a relaxed note. My name's Jack. May I ask yours?" He extended his hand.

“James.” Replied Phebes, but otherwise remained motionless. Jack was wholly unperturbed by this, and sat back into his armchair. It was quite normal for patients to appear unfriendly or unsociable at first - breaking the ice was part of the job – but what was unusual was the fact that Phebes had not been referred to him by any other doctor or hospital, but had rather come of his own accord, and this was what now lingered momentarily on Jack’s mind. Of course, it was not unheard of for patients to seek help for themselves – the old adage that “if you know you need help then you can’t be that ill” was of course the biggest load of crap since Trial by Fire. But the fact remained that most patients were referrals, and for one reason or another it was rare for them to actively seek help.

James Phebes, although - as it has been stated - visibly somewhat apprehensive (which was perfectly normal for anyone visiting a "nut doctor") seemed very lucid and quick-witted. His dark eyes gleamed with an inherent alertness and intelligence that could not fail to inspire interest, and even respect. His pale complexion and scruffy hair had no doubt been exaggerated by the windy New York November morning; his dark brows were perhaps a little prominent, thus enhancing the blackness of his eyes, but on the whole he appeared quite normal. This “Visual Once-Over” as Jack unofficially termed it, could sometimes reveal clues as to a patient’s condition. Some had wild, darting eyes; others hunched shoulders or backs in varying degrees, or disproportionately short legs or torso; sometimes speech impediments, nervous tics or other peculiarities were evident which, while not denotive of mental illness per se, in Fleming’s experience could occasionally point in one direction or another as far as preliminary diagnosis was concerned. Phebes, however, was far less of an open book, as Jack Fleming was later to discover.

“So tell me, James,” began Jack amiably. “Why do you say you need therapy?”

“I say, Dr, Fleming --”

“Jack, please.”

“Jack. I say that I came for therapy, not that I need it. Nor that I particularly want it. Rather that I came to get to the bottom of an issue that has been weighing on my mind now for some time; one that, if my fears are not unfounded, only you can help me with. No, thank you.” he said, before Jack could put his offer of coffee into words. “Bad for the nerves.”

“Very well, James. In your own time, at your own pace.” Jack again relaxed back into his armchair. James followed suit, and proceeded to relate the motives for his visit.

“Bear with me, Doctor Fleming. Hear me out, and you will without doubt form a professional opinion that will help you unravel the mysteries of my mind. Only then will I be free of my torment; I am convinced of it."

During the conversation that ensued, and the subsequent thrice-weekly sessions, Jack Fleming was to realize that James Phebes was the undisputedly most singular and extraordinary case that he had ever had the misfortune to investigate.

Session 2

“I was lost during my childhood. All I remember of my early school life was thinking that none of it was really happening. I recall being made to stand facing the wall in the playground for doing something wrong, and thinking that I shouldn’t really be there – that I wasn’t really there, and I kept going to walk away, half knowing that nothing would happen if I did, because I wasn’t really there. But something held me there, kept drawing me back to face the wall. It sounds strange, but I remember so clearly that everything was so hazy, like a white mist that surrounded me a few meters away on all sides.

“When I was about seven or eight, I realized – or at least thought then – that everyone but me had an identity, a personality carved in stone. I knew I too had to have one, but didn’t know where to begin. I spent the next few years of my life in a whirl of confusion, an absolute social misfit, but nevertheless breezed through the academic side of school. I got a scholarship to another school, but that was probably the beginning of the end. I became more and more socially isolated, and began to think that it was me who was at fault, even though I had done nothing to provoke the blatant shunning by my peers, and their constant psychological – and sometimes physical – attacks. ‘Feeble Phebes’ they called me. I ended up hating my own name. I knew that they were the evil ones, and that I didn't deserve my lot, but could not for the life of me see where I had gone wrong. Perhaps I should have been evil, like them?

“At high school I fell in with the ‘wrong crowd’ as my folks used to say. They were the only ones who didn’t seem to reject me. Didn’t seem to like me either, but this watered-down sensation of half-belonging was all I was going to get. ‘Course, they were all dropouts too, but no-one ever picked on them ‘cos they were the ones who did most of the picking. We’d go out, get drunk, smoke weed and generally act like assholes. But I was always the one who’d be on the butt-end of their sick practical jokes – and sometimes worse. They were the sort of kids who, in the absence of anyone else to pick fights with, would take out their Neanderthal instincts on the ‘runt of the litter’. At least three of them laid into me on at least one occasion, and still I came back for more.

“I remember once we ripped out a streetlight in the park,” continued James. “And all the lights in the street behind us went out!" He chortled briefly, paused, sipped his tea and continued: "Another time, the plan was to break open the wishing well near the lake, but there I got really spooked. The fact of actually stealing something was just too much. It wasn’t the ‘stealing people’s dreams’ thing, rather the loathing of what it all entailed, not to mention fear of being caught – something that those idiots never felt. I half wanted to be like them, but at the same time despised them and everything they did. I was a good kid, not some two-bit white trash petty criminal! So I said fuck ‘em! And I gradually closed myself off from them and clawed my way slowly down into my hole. I was never entirely rid of them, and now and again they would still pick on me, but after a while even they seemed to think me weird and would steer clear of me like the Plague. Fine by me, assholes.”

Jack glanced sidelong at James, with a look of genuine compassion on his face. He felt within him a murmur of sorrow - an urge to console the boy who James spoke of and somehow set him on the right track, to ward off the disaster before it befell him. If only he had…

_________________________________

Session 3

“I always had this ability to just learn things." Said James, sipping his camomile tea. “It all just went in, you know, without having to study or revise much for exams. That really pissed most other kids off. Small-town smart-ass troublemaker proves that blue blood isn’t everything! Heh.” He laughed a mite bitterly.

A smile came to the corner of Jack’s mouth. “Sounds like someone I know.” He echoed James’s laugh.

“Sure, I wasn't the number one either,” continued James, “but as I said, I didn't have to try very hard. My folks called it uncanny, but the way I see it, if something interests you then it just kind of stays, you know what I mean? Math, science, languages, all that stuff was a piece of cake. Humanities was the only thing I couldn’t handle. Religion, or ‘Scripture’ as they called it, Geography, History - all crap, useless crap. Sure, some of it might have been OK if it hadn’t been for the asshole teachers. The history guy used to take us for P.T. too, and he would whack us with tennis rackets and throw basketballs at us to make us run faster. So, as you will no doubt agree, he could go fuck himself in History class. Then in the next grade there was another History guy who was screwing Mr. Hussey the Biology teacher.” His teacup was halfway to his mouth again, but he paused to laugh momentarily. His face dropped and he resumed: “Both those fat queer bastards had it in for me. Hussey used to lay his hand on my shoulder in an amiable manner.” He paused again and seemed to drift for a moment, then snapped back into full swing.

Jack, however, at this juncture felt his concentration slightly disrupted as he momentarily entertained the vague memory that he, too, had had some similar experience at high school, though evidently it had not been of such great import as it had for James.

“I aced high school despite most of the teachers’ sincerest doubts – and disappointment - and got a scholarship to Harvard.”

“You were at Harvard?” Interrupted Jack, his curiosity piqued. “What major?”

Phebes replied only with a look as if to say, “All in good time, now if you don’t mind I was talking.”

“Please, continue.” Said Jack, and settled back into his chair.

He was beginning to form a general impression of James Phebes and his possible condition. How many times had he seen people who, embittered during their childhood, had shut themselves off from the outside world to a greater or lesser extent, or spent their life running from certain situations? Paranoid Personality Disorder. But it was of course far too early to jump to any conclusions, and there remained the fact that Phebes had come of his own volition - something that paranoiacs rarely tended to do. And besides, James Phebes was hardly backward in coming forward with his life story, and showed no sign of the sociological impairment so common among these patients. Either way, Jack felt sure that everything would come to light in good time, and that psychotherapy was almost certainly the key - a cup of tea and a chat, as opposed to antipsychotic drug treatment. Just the way he liked it: Jack Fleming had always been unwaveringly convinced that the first step towards recovery was for the patient to become aware of their own condition, or at least partially conscious of it. This had been the key to some of his most significant successes: the patient had to want to be cured; just as a drug addict or pathological gambler must have the desire to rid themselves of their Nemesis, so did the mentally infirm need to actively strive for their own recovery. The obvious complication was that in the vast majority of cases the illness itself was also the veil that blinded the victims to their very own plight. Neuroleptic medication was certainly an aid in the process, but Jack fervently believed that in most cases the answer, as did the question, lay within the patient himself. All the doctor had to do was to get inside the patient’s mind — like the criminal psychologist who ‘becomes’ the serial killer in order to think like him, discover his modus operandi and weed him out. Jack had to find out James’s modus operandi and weed out his illness from the inside.
______________________________

Session 4

“I was - or at least thought I was - deeply religious. When I was a kid I attended mass every Sunday, and even sang in the school choir. I was sure, as all Bible-thumpers are, that God was good and would always lead me on the right path; that faith in Him would save me from myself and all other evils and cure all ills. God is everywhere and everything, whether you see Him or not. Faith…” he trailed again slightly. “Well, to this day I couldn’t tell you if He exists, but I can confirm that if He does, He is by far and away the most selfish, sick-minded fuck the world has ever seen. ‘Faith’ they say! ‘Have faith, and the path to glory will be revealed to you.’ FUCKING BULLSHIT. Does He honestly think that anyone in their right mind could unconditionally devote himself to something that shows not the least sign of even existing? Of course,” he interpolated, “I wasn’t in my right mind, was I?” He trailed off for a few more seconds. “At the time of my direst need and deepest hope He left me floundering like a grounded fish on the isolated jetty of life.” James’s face had taken on a reddish hue, as if flushed with an inner loathing. His brows seemed even more prominent – his eyes more deeply set beneath them.

Jack looked unflinchingly at him. His suspicions of paranoia were now more firmly rooted than ever, now with inklings of schizophrenic undertones and very likely Borderline Personality Disorder. His sudden outbursts of bad language and apparent mood changes could be indicative of this. What still puzzled him, however, was the patient’s apparently acute self-knowledge. With every new session, each new account of Phebes’s past became more and more vivid, expressive and even violent. It was as though he was verbally reliving the events conducive to his final breakdown. Yet in spite of all this he always seemed so very lucid – so much in control – and would always leave Dr. Fleming’s practice in a state of absolute normality, as if in recounting so vehemently the story of his suffering, he had spent all of the pent-up anger and woe that had led to it. At the end of each session, he would pay in cash, leaving it in an unsealed envelope on Jack’s desk. So what was it that he wanted Jack to ‘get to the bottom of’? If James Phebes knew so much about his own illness and its triggers, why come to him? After a few moments' thought he put it down to fear of rejection - or even previous rejection - from a sanitary institution. 'If you know you need help...' James no doubt needed to convince Jack of his illness, so that he would then file an official psychological report that would grant James the help he needed.

“So what do you do when God forsakes you? You still believe in Him but He’s left you out to dry? Evil, that’s what. Satan. You know he exists too, and maybe, just maybe he will listen to you. You know it’s wrong, but no other fucker wants to know, so you start talking to him, lying awake at night, alone in your bed - alone in the world - trying to find out if he’s been watching all this time. And sure enough, there he is, just waiting for you to say the word – waiting to pounce on your godforsaken soul and suck you down into the pit.”

Phebes's complexion darkened, and Jack felt a kind of shiver as if of some latent fear that had been aroused by these chilling words, but James’s voice suddenly took on a lighter note:

“Hell, I don’t know if it was really him or not. All I know is that something compelled me to do away with it all - to end my suffering by the only means left to me. And I damned near did. Only fear stayed my hand – a very rational, lucid fear of eternal damnation and suffering – the very thing that I had fought so long to escape. So why play straight into Satan’s little trap? Why give the fucker the satisfaction? No, not me! I would find my own way out and show the fucking lot of them!” He seemed a little out of breath, and after a few moments that seemed like whole minutes, he gulped down the last of his now cold tea, staring blankly at the floor.

Interlude

Jack had been constantly preoccupied with the mysterious case of James Phebes, even in his own spare time. Another, perhaps petty, niggle had come to bother him: he was working on the assumption that James did indeed need psychiatric help, because he himself had said so. Well, at least implied it. What if his problem was more similar to that of Ganser Syndrome, or so-called ‘Prison Psychosis’? In these cases, the patient ‘faked’ the symptoms of psychosis in order to achieve some ulterior end, and although the condition they were ‘faking’ did not actually exist, the fact that they were doing it could indeed be demonstrative of some form of pathological or psychological disorder. Another explanation for this was mere ‘malingering’ with a view to a reduction of a sentence or other leniencies, but what possible motive could James have for this, especially when he was paying Jack such good money? “I don’t know how or why it started,” he had said during the first session, “But I just wanted it to stop.” “Everything and everyone around me had it in for me." He had stated during the second. "Nothing went right in my life, and everything that went wrong was my fault. Teachers, parents, classmates – above all classmates – everything they said was an attack on me or something I had done.” These were clearly the statements of a paranoid delusional, but whatever James had suffered as a youth, he seemed to have totally recovered save the brief ejaculations of rancor while recounting his tale.

And all the while, Jack had been trying – to date in vain – to get inside James’s mind. He felt a great empathy for his patient, seeing much in him that reminded him of himself, and thus his lack of tangible progress was all the more upsetting to him. He felt a distant pang of something that seemed to connect the two, as if at times James was relating Jack’s own life experiences, and yet he could not quite put his finger on it. He also prevented his mind from wandering too far in that direction, as his attention needed to be unerringly focused on his patient if he was to 'get to the bottom' of his condition.

Session 5

“When I was twenty–five I was referred to the university counselor, and he just seemed helpless, like he was out of his depth with me. He got me an appointment with some psychologist who just riled me up more than anything. The first session was a farce, and in the second I nearly ended up punching him. I didn’t even bother going to the third. I knew I needed help, but what could I do when everyone who was supposed to know what to do just made things worse? All the so-called experts, and they didn’t know shit. They only knew what they'd learned in their fucking text books. They didn't know about me! How the fuck could they know what I was thinking? What was happening inside my mind? I knew I was ill, but they were the ones whose job it was to find out what, and how to deal with it, but they were all fucking losers. So I lost hope. I resigned myself to the fact that I was an angry, paranoid little prick who everyone was out to get. I already told you I'd tried religion, drugs, petty crime, and even ‘black magic’ but inside me I knew it was useless to hide behind ‘third parties’ and that I had to face my demons. But the demons were too many and too strong. They smothered me day and night with their mockery and hate. I was defenseless against them, and the world had abandoned me to my own private hell. And then I guess came the turning point in my life - the moment when I finally submerged myself in my own waking nightmare. I guess it is the brain’s built-in defense mechanism that went too far, and became a self-destruct system. Paranoid delusions are a prime example of the mind’s ability to create a whole new world to ‘shield’ its owner from reality.”

At this Jack was aghast. As James's narration reached fever pitch, his standpoint became more that of a psychiatrist that that of a patient. Was he actually diagnosing his own condition? More shockingly still, he was quoting almost word for word one of Jack’s most firmly held theories on the metaphysical causes of paranoid schizophrenia. His heart thumped audibly in his head, but he strove to focus on James.

“Then came meltdown. Blackout. FUBAR. All the things that ever went wrong were put right. All my dreams were suddenly realized – my prayers answered. I graduated from Harvard, started a career in my chosen profession, worked hard and achieved success. I had never aspired to fame and fortune – merely to lead a normal life, to be accepted as a person and as a professional. In an instant was fulfilled my very own, perfectly mundane American dream: my home, my own practice… my Viper Red 1967 Chevrolet Camaro.”

James was panting, and Jack was sweating and reeling in a dizzy fever. He felt his world was coming down around him. “This is hardly indicative of psychiatric dysfunction, Mr. Phebes!” he thought he had said, but his voice had failed him utterly.

“What major, you asked me? Well you’ve guessed it, Jack. Psychiatry! Just before my twenty-sixth birthday I passed out of reality, not of university! Sure, I studied the major and wrote the thesis, but the rest of my life is a lie, a trick played on me by my own twisted psyche to protect me from myself. The job, that apartment, the Chevy – all the designs of an alternate personality that would inherit my mind and body, and be what I believed I could never be – normal, respected, accepted. A parasite that would live in perfect symbiosis within me, yet gnaw gradually away at me and my will to fight it. And that parasite is you, Jack. You are a figment of my imagination, just like everything else that has happened for the last twelve years! I have come to save you from yourself, to show you who you really are. Who better to pull you out than your own self? There is hope, Jack. James. I am that hope – the part of you that remains in touch with reality; the piece of the puzzle that remains firmly in place while all the others lie scattered around you. The rest is up to you, James. Build on this small block which I have revealed to you – reconstruct the jigsaw of your life. Get inside. Make the patient aware of his condition. The first step has been taken; the road lies ahead, and only you can walk it. Get up and walk, James! Don’t look back, for Jack has hit the road!”

With that he stood up, placed an empty envelope on the desk, took his trenchcoat from the stand and left, closing the door behind him.

Jack felt he would pass out. His head was spinning, his vision a kaleidoscope of images past and present, real and imagined? Try as he might to fight it, something within him knew it was all true. He grasped at nothing, his world fell black…

___________________________________________________________________

In his tormented reverie, Jack hovered high above himself in a room a mile high, peering down through monochrome mists into a small room where sat himself. Not his alter-ego nor his eidolon, but himself. James Phebes. He, Jack Fleming was the alter-ego – he was the impostor that had outstayed his welcome. He zoomed quickly down through a tunnel of black-and-white blur and came to a halt before his host. He sat staring blankly up to one side, his body twisted horribly, his left arm gripping the armchair as if his very soul depended on it. His mouth moved as if conversing with an invisible interlocutor. He nodded and smiled and gesticulated spasmodically with his right hand, and three men dressed in white stood watching him, spectres half-faded into the surrounding brume. It was a baleful sight. The mists swirled around them both and rose above them like white noise, and as they rose Jack felt a dark veil being lifted from his eyes and from his mind. The fog soared upward, whisking Jack with it, and left James to himself and to his world.

The End
_________________________________________________________________

Epilogue

“Well, Jack,” said Dr. Willard as Dr. Fleming entered the observation room. “Looks like your ‘studying’ paid off!”

Fleming hung up his trench coat, took his white coat from its hook and donned it with an air of solemnity. His dark frown overshadowed his even darker eyes, giving him a decidedly distressed appearance.

“Who’d have thought it?” Exclaimed Willard. “Twelve years of Catatonic Schizophrenoid Delirium without so much as a hint of improvement, and in five easy installments you manage to smoke him out! I’m glad I found you! Oh, and I liked the envelope. Nice touch!"

Jack Fleming was not feeling quite so jocular. After all, it was on his masterclass and best-selling reference book “Inside Out: A Proactive Approach to Psychiatrics” that Phebes had based his entire thesis. From that thesis, Phebes’s private memoirs and psychiatric casebook, Willard had drawn up his plan of action: to track down Jack Fleming - the man who James Phebes’s brain thought he was - that he might get inside James’s mind and ‘smoke him out’. Indeed, Fleming had done just that, but he now felt inexorably tied to James Phebes, and even somehow responsible for his plight.

“Look on the bright side, Jack." Said Willard, seemingly reading his thoughts, “If it hadn’t been for you, we may never have got him back. Get inside. Make him aware. That was your theory, and you pulled it off!”

“He would have been a good psychiatrist.” Said Fleming detachedly. “Not the best, perhaps, but good nonetheless.”

“He had an exemplary beau ideal.” Replied Willard warmly. “Your contributions to our profession are unparagoned. I gleaned from his memoirs that you were quite a deity in his eyes before..." He fell silent. Phebes had idolized Jack Fleming as the kind of successful physician that he desired to be, and his tormented brain had done the rest. And little wonder that a budding young student should want to take after such a pioneer in his field! Willard felt Fleming was more than aware of this, and that he need not dwell on the matter.

Peering in at Phebes through the one-way observation glass, Willard saw him now less contorted, his expression less intense. He had loosened his grasp on the armchair for the first time in twelve years, and a glimmer of lucidity had returned to his eyes. “There’s still one thing bugging me though, Doctor Fleming,” he said pensatively, still looking through the glass. “If it hadn’t been for that one tiny detail, I could have found you years ago and put an end to all this. What on earth made you change your name to Jack Fleming?”

Dismailed

2007-07-03T21:41:00.002+02:00

Chapter One

"Sire!" Glared T'Mhet, hardly able to control his ire. "Seer Siminis has foretold unmeasured woe arising from our failure to act. The Cuirass must not fall into enemy hands!"

"Seer Siminis is a wizened old fool!" yelled Azzamán, slamming his fist down onto the table. "He has also foretold the downfall of our kind, yet that is hardly likely given our mastery of the Art! Let the Seekers take the Cuirass, for it shall return to us unscathed and untapped. They have not the means to harness its power, for they are weak and timorous. The Cuirass would dominate them and they should be its thralls, not its masters. To march forth from Sissa in its search would be more perilous than to await its return. Think of the consequences of so diminishing our defenses here!"

T'Mhet went to retort, but held his tongue; though the fire in his eyes matched even that of his lord Azzamán." As you wish, Sire." He bowed and took his leave. "Who is the wizened old fool?" he muttered to himself, and set off towards the Temple of the Seer.
____________________________________

"Such ire shall be thy perdition, Brother T'Mhet." Muttered Seer Siminis as T'Mhet descended the carven sandstone stairway leading down inside the Temple. Siminis knelt facing away from the entrance, and had not even looked up upon greeting his visitor, engrossed as he was in his Array. With frantic, circular swings of his arms he described circles, lines and icons in the wide shallow basin that was the Array, pausing only to grasp more handfuls of sand from urns on either side of him, flinging it into the Array and again tracing wild symbols and designs with his withered hands.

"The Sands have spoken," crooned the old seer, "and they foretell untold woe and suffering, should the --"

"What am I to do, Siminis?" T'Mhet cut him short. The ancient seer was prone to theatrics and unnecessary repetition of his divinations.

"Control thy ire, boy," he said sternly. "Rage not! Act with haste! Seek out thy enemy! Regain that which has slipped thy grasp!"

"But I shall need an army to scour the Land! Yet without the consent of Lord Azzamán none shall aid me, and the Enemy shall prevail."

"Enough of thy snivelling!" Exclaimed Siminis, and he swung round abruptly to face T'Mhet, his lank grey hair wrapping itself around his face as he spun. It was a daunting sight: the haggard old figure of Seer Siminis - dressed only in a dirty grey toga - knelt on all fours like a savage dog, stared through the bedraggled locks of sand-ridden hair with pupilless eyes of black onyx -- his age-marred visage ablaze like that of a drunken madman. Yet despite their blank appearance, T'Mhet knew that those eyes pierced his own and thrust like knives into his very soul. If T'Mhet felt shock or fear at the sight he did not show it, but would not have needed to.

Seer Siminis was old - almost as old as Sissa - but as he grew in years so did he in sight; though blind since childhood, the old man's vision was far-reaching indeed, defying both distance and time, and his voyances never faltered. However the seer was given to eccentricities -- as it has been said -- and esoteric gifts are not without detriment. Thus his forecasts were often subject to varied interpretation. Differences in opinion and other discrepancies were the cause of much discord amongst the Elders of the Chamber, and it was one such altercation which led to Lord Azzamán's shunning of Siminis and all his ways.

"The time for esoteric nonsense is at an end!" He had declared. "A so-called art purportedly mastered by one man is no art at all, but a fallacy. The troubles of our times call for a keen eye and swift decisions, not the rantings of some half-sane mystic! For every vision of yours that has granted us true insight, another has led us into peril, and for why? For your inability to clarify to the Chamber the contents of your delusions! If you cannot -- or will not -- speak with transparency of your findings, then counsel us no more! We shall send forth scouts throughout the land to bring first-hand accounts of all that errs abroad, and with the one true art -- The Black Art -- we shall prevail against the Believers, the Seekers and the Infidels alike! Begone!" From that day, the Chamber heeded no more the counsels of Siminis, torn as they were between fear of blindness and fear of Azzamán's wrath.

_________________________________________________

The colour faded from the old man's face and his hunched figure relaxed. “A keen eye and swift decision, Brother,” he said, now softly. “I have seen the way, and now thou must act swiftly. Go forth now -– thyself and no more than three others, lest thy covey be construed as mob. Thou must also part in silence and obscurity -– the twilight hour shall be thy veil. Pay heed! The sands have spoken! Beyond the sands of Sissa lies thy quarry, beyond the Sands of Time. Beware! for he who dares curb the Sands of Time will be blind to their slipping away within his very grasp!”

At this point Siminis’s voice seemed to dwindle to an incoherent murmur, though perhaps it was T’Mhet’s ear that failed -- the words of the mystic were seldom comprehensible in their entirety, even to T'Mhet, yet seemed to evoke clouded images of their inner meaning in the mind of the hearer. Now T'Mhet wandered through vast lands, far beyond the desert to which he had been born, and further still to realms seemingly unknown to his kind. Flocks of dry birds made of sand flew in unison through the cold nebulous air and disappeared from view into a bank of white fog…

He was drawn out of his trance by the touch of Siminis's hand upon his shoulder. Blinking, he saw the old man’s face before him, eyes closed and smiling warmly. “Go now." He said calmly, and embraced T’Mhet like a son. "One day thy father shall thank thee. Make haste!”

At eventide, as the overground activity of Sissa drew to a close, T'Mhet and his three most trusted servants set out northwards across the sands of Sissa on a journey from which they might never return.

By nightfall, the eyes of the Watchers would be upon the desert; the ever-vigilant scryers of earth and Aether - watching for signs of outsiders or, more importantly still, of the Dark Ones. The eyes of the Watchers were keen and unobstructed by darkness; the light indeed was foul to them and hindered their vision, and thus they watched not by day. To march forth by day would be less likely to attract attention, but there was ever the risk that some townsperson might raise the alarm. Some folk worked on the surface above the underground city of Sissa, and the band’s departure could scarce go unheeded.

And so by darkfall T'Mhet and his unlikely entourage had trudged half a league to the north, and beyond the encircling dunes that would now hide them from view. Their sally would not go unnoticed for long, but none would dare venture after them -– not least because Lord Azzamán would soon be mustering all available hands for the defense of the city. Heedless of the Seer’s hazy visions, Azzamán, ninth Lord of Sissa had himself foretold that the Cuirass would one day return to the Desert City of its own free will and, although not without bloodshed, it would again adorn the breast of its rightful owner. And how he craved that bloodshed! By that very blood spilt in the great battle, would Sissa be restored to its dark glory! The hordes of the dead would rise up and serve unwaveringly the will of Azzamán!

Wenaiah

2007-07-03T20:16:00.002+02:00

Dumana skulked furtively beneath the ornate bowers of tula trees and vibrant pergolas of yawana and fliir. The ancient forest of Bellakura was a place of legend, held in awe throughout the land for its myriad species and vistas of beauty both poignant and surreal. At another time, she would have marvelled at the strands of light that streamed through the forest roof, tinged with hues of magenta and celeste by the leafy canopies, sparkling like mountain streams as glitterflies dashed amid them. Some other time, she might dance and lay at ease among the verdant arbours, and swim in the limpid pools in the Garden of the Gods.

But this was no time for sightseeing.

Many from her party had already disappeared – abducted by some invisible force and no doubt murdered in some lightless corner of the woods. Now Dumana edged cautiously through the thick undergrowth, desperately seeking egress from Bellakura, and above all trying not to be espied by whatever evil had decimated her fellowship.

Keeping as close as possible to the surrounding trees, Dumana sidled through the glade with her back to their trunks, glancing nervously up, right, to the left, so as not to miss the slightest flicker of unexpected movement. Her heart pounded, and she fancied that it could be heard above even the twitter and jibber of the forest fauna, and rustling of the vegetation.

She rested a moment against the trunk of a thick, treelike plant with five green spiralled stems which delved into the ground as roots. They stood, arced as if straddling some unseen obstacle, forming a small tent-like space beneath the plant. Dumana mused that hiding therein would not help her escape from Bellakura. Its canopy was of several crimson leaves the size of floor-rugs, with pale green edges upturned to retain and channel rainfall. In the centre posed a great fleshy flower, lurid pink in colour, which pulsated slowly and heavily as the plant breathed in the forest air. This was the waranna, known – but not to Dumana – as the Sentinel of Wurla, the God of the earth.

A small, brightly-coloured scaly rodent scurried past her, leaping as it went, trying to catch glitterflies in its tiny jaws. Startled by this sudden activity, Dumana stumbled backwards and fell through the gap between the waranna stem-roots, ending up flat on her back inside the shaded enclosure. Having lain deathly still for a few moments, listening for any sign that her fall may have attracted unwanted attention, she brought herself up to her knees, brushed off her simple furskin garb and laughed to herself in silence. The rodent leapt, caught a glitterfly in mid-air, and then scuttled off into the woods with a wheezy giggle of satisfaction.

The Gunungi were not given to jocularity, much less in times of danger, yet Dumana had always been somewhat estranged from her fellows. A keen and fierce huntswoman, she was respected more by the Chieftains than by her peers, who found her dreamy and airy, given to fantasy and far too much of an aesthete. Thus it was that Dumana had been sent – along with three score others – to reap the fruits of Bellakura for the Chieftains’ whim. The party had set out ten days hither, from their homeland of Gununga, to the forest of Bellakura at the foot of the Gunungi Mountains. Their charge was simple: to enter Bellakura - known by others as the Garden of the Gods – to hunt and entrap the singular species therein, and return them to the Chieftains as viands for their delight, trophies for their chambers.

Viewed from the soaring heights of Gununga, Bellakura was a mere patch of radiant green, dotted and speckled with tiny points of colour. By day, the changes in weather all across the land could be observed from Gununga, but Bellakura wore the eternal golden halo of a sun that never ceased to bathe her.

Dumana had always wondered at this place of such apparent beauty, and as a child would sit for hours on the northeastern foothills of Gununga, casting her imagination deep within the woods and living out all kinds of fantastic daydreams therein. Dumana was lithe and agile, slim yet strong, and easily surmounted the tests of skill and huntsmanship set for her by her elders. While other children underwent additional training, she would steal off to gaze at the distant aura that to all but the Gunungi was Bellakura. Her whimfulness had not gone unchastised, and she had suffered many beatings at the hands of her elders; the mountains were a perilous place, fraught with precipitous chasms and vicious beasts - no place for a lone child to be wandering unattended. Yet for all her dreaminess, Dumana was ever alert, her bright eyes ever vigilant, her ears and senses keen. Many times had she outwitted the mountain cats and other cunning creatures of her homeland, and had returned home unscathed and often with a prize for home or hearth. But still the beatings. The Gunungi were harsh and ruthless with both quarry and kin; and rightly so, for their livelihood depended upon their ability to survive many hardships and dangers, and such distractions could spell her demise. But the Chieftains had become greedy and capricious, and lusted after new tastes and trophies. And so the expedition to the forest at the foot of Gununga.

Dumana had rejoiced at the chance to set foot in that place of her dreams, to live out her ultimate fantasy. But now, lost deep within the verdant woodlands of Bellakura, she was at a loss. Was this very place, which had fascinated and enticed her as far back as she could remember, to be her doom? The strange and wonderful new surroundings enchanted, yet engulfed her. The myriad-coloured cupola dazzled and dizzied her, left her bewildered and disorientated. The incessant peeps and warbles of the wildlife both lulled her and set her nerves on edge; her years of training would serve for nothing here. And all the while the intangible feeling that she was being observed.

Ever since she and her company had entered the forest at dawn that day, she had had that feeling of being watched - the eerie sensation that some nameless entity knew that they were there, and that it did not approve of their presence. And now, mere hours later, her companions had all but vanished. Tamika - her lifelong friend - and Rorlin, Zein and A’M’ath, had been two steps behind her at one moment – the next they had vanished without trace. Did the very forest have a will of its own? Had it taken back what they had reaped from it, like for like? Throughout the morning, several other groups had suffered the same fate, and now Dumana knelt in solitude beneath the great waranna flower, and winced with grief.

A sudden movement some way off to her left made her start, and she clutched at one of the stem-roots, crouching and peering out to see what stirred beyond. A rustle of leaves, a hurried shuffling sound, and into view came three of her comrades – Wara, Zemel and Keyn. They were rushing confusedly through the undergrowth, frantically looking behind them as if pursued by some fearsome predator. She tried to call out to them, but before she could utter a sound, the huge bulb-like mass of the waranna flower heaved above her, drawing in a mighty breath, and let forth a horrific whooping sound that resounded across the forest like a siren-horn on high. The Sentinel of Wurla had spoken. The hapless three stumbled past, mere inches from Dumana as she watched, helpless, and in the blinking of an eye were gone. From just beneath the leafy surface of the forest floor came a net of fine thread - barely visible to the naked eye - which whisked them up, up towards the roof of the forest at breakneck speed; muffled gasps, and a brief flurry of sibilant noise from far above, and seconds later all was over bar a shower of many-coloured leaves which wafted back down to the ground from whence they had come. For what seemed like an eternity, Dumana held still, glancing nervously upwards and around. She had not realised that the forest had become momentarily silent, but now the hums and warbles resumed; the breeze once again brushed the gilded fronds, the glitterflies went about their business.

So there was more to this place than met the eye. Something - but more likely someone - was indeed watching them, and had laid fiendish traps for them throughout the wood. The hunters had become the hunted, and had been far outwitted at their own game. How could they have been so foolish? And how had she gone as yet unscathed? Indeed, she had spent the last two hours sidling cautiously against the trunks of trees and larger plants, where these nets could not logically be laid, but earlier in the morning she had been striding boldly with her comrades through the glades and clearings, searching for game. Why had she been spared? In truth, she had not lifted bow nor blade against any of the woodland creatures, having been mesmerised by the beauty of the julula bird, with its indigo plumage and red dorsal antenna which when at rest gave it the appearance of a splendid painted lily (it was in fact part flora, part fauna.) She had stayed her hand when confronted with the graceful slinking form of the catlike halabeena, with its golden leathery hide and dark, almost human eyes. Could the watchers in the woods have shown her mercy for this reason? It was not mercy that had stayed her hand but awe, bewilderment and fascination. Given time to become accustomed to these new environs, Dumana could have slain their occupants more deftly than any other. But alas, she had not been granted such boon.

She spun swiftly round as a waft of warm air brushed her nape. Her knife swung up from her hilt, and in a flash was poised at a hair’s breadth from the intruder’s neck. In the same instant, she felt the pressure of two sharp points nudging at her back, and knew that her assailants had the upper hand. She relaxed her stance in defeat, threw her blade to the ground. Before her stood a most curious character. Olive-skinned, of middling stature; legs shoulder-width apart, arms crossed, torso turned slightly to one side, head coyly cocked to the other. And adorning the slight, fay-like visage, the most unbefittingly huge grin that Dumana had ever seen.

“Ho! mountain lady!” exclaimed the personage with a comically gallant flick of his oily black tresses. “Forgive my intruse, but rarely do we make host to comers from beyond!" His tone was strangely flippant and high-pitched, yet sincere in overall effect. Dumana could not help but feel somewhat bemused by his whimsical positure and singular manner of speech. And that broad, beaming smile; those eyes so dark, so very bright – surely they could mean her no harm? The strong, sinewy physique was that of one adept in the arts of stealth and combat – and he had indeed approached Dumana boldly yet undetected – yet she felt somehow at ease, unthreatened by his presence.

“Fellows!” he beamed, “Home your jousts, unmenace the mountain lady!” At once the pressure softened at her back, and she turned to see two other young men of similar aspect - spears butt-end to the ground in one hand, the other perched theatrically at the hip. Through the gaps between the waranna roots, she could see that each wore the same dazzling grin of their comrade. Dumana could not help but laugh aloud, but checked her outburst to avoid offending her captors. Though moments earlier she had been stifled with apprehension, she now felt strangely at ease.

“Long have we scrutined you from on high, mountain lady!” said the first. “You and the other comers from the mounts of beyond."

“What has become of them?” demanded Dumana, suddenly remembering that these must be the culprits of her comrades’ fate. “Who are you, and what have you done with my fellows?” Her fists clenched, her eyes darted for her blade. The man before her remained still, his wide smile held in place.

"Quiet, mountain lady. Clasp not ire nor arm! Your fellows have been rised to the lofts of Bellakura, and soon will be downed to Her soil. They have travested Her, and thus must plenish Her anew.”

“What do you mean, plenish Her anew?" cried Dumana indignantly. "What have you done with them? Are they dead? Tell me at once, or I shall slit you where you stand!”

A chorus of spirited laughter from all before and behind her left her off-set and confused. “The mountain lady does feist and fume!" they laughed. "And even now, pent and three-to-one, does she threat and warn!” Again they laughed.

“You may mock me, forest dwellers, but I am Dumana A'M'tui, huntress of Gununga, and I could slay you like crag-rats with my bare hands!"

“Verily, that may be," chortled the first, "just as you slayed the julula, the halabeena, the lyfa and the kiu? Our fate is to be that of the gurgamota, or that of the scented waif? Ha-ha! Then so it be! The mountain lady shall gaze us and awe, and homewards shall we wend unmenaced!" All three of the forest people chuckled heartily. “No, mountain lady, you shall slaught us not, as you have frained to slaught our wards. Mazed by their beauties, you did home your arms.”

“They posed me no threat," retorted Dumana, cautious to occlude all hint of acquiescence. "But you have beset me as a beast, and I shall fight you as such! Hah!” She struck as menacing a pose as she could muster, but her lack of conviction was all too evident; her hosts’ impregnable jocularity had at last whittled down her fiery determination to frustration and childlike chagrin.

“Cease your feist and fume, mountain lady.” said the first, calmly and with more warmth than irony. “Do not disgrunt. We are the Koppi, the tree-people; I am Wendu, and this is our home. While guesting here, you shall be unthreatened; rest easy and enjoy. Come!” He hopped out of the shady enclosure of the waranna stems, and beckoned her to follow suit. She did so, and as she blinked in the pervading streams of sunlight, the three Koppi applauded and stamped their feet in approval. Now, in the scintillant light of the glade, Wendu beheld Dumana and himself was a moment awed, for she was beautiful indeed; her lean physique, her golden-hazel eyes and finely-chiselled features, and although visibly accustomed to life in the harsh conditions of Gununga, this gave her a boyish, rugged appeal.

“Come!” repeated Wendu, and all three grabbed vines hanging from nearby trees, wrapped them tight around their forearms. Wendu motioned for Dumana to do likewise, and at his gesture all four were hoisted high into the treetops and above the very canopies. Up, up, and Dumana shrieked with fright and hung on for dear life. In seconds they were standing on a wooden platform overlooking the glade from whence they came, but so far above it that it could barely be discerned through the gently swaying foliage just below. Dumana heaved a sigh of relief and tentatively released the vine, looking anxiously around and down, ensured her footing was safe. The Koppi clapped again in delight.

“Welcome to our tree-town, mountain lady!" said Wendu, beaming. “From here we scrutine and vigil Bellakura fair.” Looking around her to all sides, Dumana could see dozens of similar ledges attached to the sides of the trees, each with vine ladders leading up to further platforms joined to boardwalks, catwalks and gangways, in turn interconnected by vine bridges spanning many yards, and on to still more piers, scaffolds and balustrades as far as the eye could see. Dotted around at irregular intervals were squat, turret-shaped huts with reed-thatched roofs, a mere five or six feet in width and height.

This was the tree-town of the Koppi, the watchers of Bellakura. Centuries earlier, when the world was young, a throng of pilgrims had come to Bellakura to seek out the last vestiges of the Gods in the World. The peregrines had settled in the Garden of the Gods, and sworn to protect what they believed to be one vast living entity - the very embodiment of Bellakura, "The Gardener," the Goddess of Nature. So long had they dwelt there, so far-removed were they from their former kin, that while other races of the World had progressed and established more advanced lifestyles and semantics, the tree-people of Bellakura lived and spoke as they had done since ere they first set foot in her verdant bounds. Candid, almost childlike in nature, the Koppi knew only of the forests – oblivious to all that erred abroad – and were fiercely protective of the living Goddess with whom they were one.

“You expect explications!” said Wendu softly. “Follow!” And he flitted across one of the rope bridges, hopped onto the platform at the other end and stood beckoning. Gingerly, Dumana stepped onto the bridge and teetered a moment unsure. But she was nimble and fleet of foot, and it was not long before she was making her way across to the other side, with only the merest hint of quaver. Wendu climbed a ladder leading upwards to the top of a tree much taller than those around it, and into a small thatched structure like the huts below. Having followed him up, Dumana could now see – through openings around the structure - the entire forest laid out around her; vast, sprawling and beautiful, the brilliant crowns of emerald, aquamarine and jade, dotted with topaz, cyan and a thousand other tones of colours – some familiar, others bizarre. Above the tops of the trees, at a similar height to that of this turret, could be seen hundreds of other constructions of like appearance.

Countless times had Dumana gazed upon this place from afar, and now in its very midst she found herself entranced, dumfounded and mazed. “Now you see, mountain lady, why we must deavour to keep Her safe and salved." Wendu's tone was calm and serene. “She is great and kind, and vigils us as we vigil her. Her fruits aplenty, but not without bound. Balance is the key – the laws unwrote - take and give, don and doff. Many cycles the stars have gyred, many comers been and went, and the Koppi have ever tained the balance. Those who spect the laws unwrote are not scathed, but those who turb Her balance must plenish her anew. To this end, your fellow-comers, for they did turb and scathe Bellakura and Her childs.”

Dumana shook her head in disbelief. “So you killed my kinsfolk for taking from the forest? That is not balance, it is vengeance! I demand you tell me what you have done with them!” At that moment, another of the Koppi pulled himself up into the turret, and moved towards the outlook. Dumana now saw that she was female, and was carrying a thin pipe some two feet long. Dumana also became aware that in the neighbouring turrets, others had assumed similar positions. Suddenly, a faint whooshing sound could be heard coming from below, rapidly coming closer. Simultaneously, the Koppi raised their pipes to their lips, and poised as if aiming them as weapons. To her dismay, moments later Dumana saw before her a net like that which had ensnared her fellows, and within it struggled frantically four more of her misfortunate kin. Among them was Helek, her cousin. Dumana let out a stifled cry, “No!” but it was too late; a brief flurry of sibilant noise, and all were still.

“Helek!” she screamed, and her hand went to her scabbard, but the knife was not there.

“Fret not," said Wendu, “for they are at rest and unscathed. Your other fellows were venomed and have ceased, but these do not share the same end. They are merely drowsed, and when they are waked, they will oblive these last moments.”

“Then what will be of them?” cried Dumana, fighting back tears of woe and rage. “And what of the others? Venomed and ceased! You have murdered them, and now you have even more wicked plans in store for these four! One of them is of my very blood!” Desperation and mazed frustration tugged at Dumana’s heart and at her voice; she knew that aggression was futile, and yet her ire compelled her to act. At the same time she felt strangely disinclined to avenge her departed kinsmen, as if the whole situation had a meaning, and that bitter as it might be, this was how it had to be.

“You must understand,” said Wendu fervently, and gently touched Dumana’s shoulder. She turned and looked him in the eye for the first time since they had left the forest floor. His dark eyes still gleamed with seemingly inherent benevolence, but in place of that perpetual grin was an expression of the purest sincerity and love. “You have scried the beauties of our home – we have noted your awe and maze and loathness to take up arms, and I note in you a feeling still deeper than regret – that of love. Is it not true that you ail and quaver at the thought of Bellakura’s decline? Should you not be merrier in Her vigil than in Her slaught?” As he spoke, the netted captives were slowly lowered down to the forest floor. "They will return to the mounts of beyond with tales of their loss, and all shall hark and heed and tread no more these bounds.”

True it was indeed – these brief hours within Bellakura, though fraught with angst and peril, had seemed to quench in her an unheeded thirst – an innate longing to be as one with her world - to be cherished and nourished, and in turn to cherish and nourish and offer up her very being to this oneness. She had indeed felt loathness to cull the creatures before her, and had subconsciously begun to question whether such acts were not a travesty rather than a right.

Reflecting now upon all that had occurred, and the firm yet serene words of Wendu, Dumana became absorbed in thought. Gununga seemed somehow vague in her mind, somehow foggy. All her life she had unquestioningly played out her role in Gunungi society, and for what? What meaning had that life? She remembered her hours of solace on the foothills, gazing across at Bellakura; her waking reveries in which she wandered and marvelled at she knew not even what; the call of her kin; the beatings... Was there not a higher meaning to her existence? To all existence?

As her vision cleared Wendu stood before her, solemn yet serene, smiling warmly. From way below she heard the scampering of many feet and voices as if in distress. Helek and his fellows parted for the hills and looked not back to the forest. The Gunungi never again set foot in Bellakura, believing it cursed and tainted with unseen witchery. Dumana was at last resolved. The expectant yet confident gaze of Wendu’s met hers and she smiled, though she blinked back a tear from her eye.

“Come, sister." Said Wendu, holding out his hand. "Be welcome among us. Behold your new home!" And together they descended the vine ladder to the tree-city below.

_______________________________________________

In the weeks and months to follow, Wendu would verse Dumana in the ways of the Koppi and the laws of Bellakura. Many hours they spent together each day, and great love grew between them; though flourish or bloom it did not, for although Wendu was not altogether uncomely, Dumana had found her true love, and harboured no desire for another. “Wenaiah” she was called by her new kin, which was “lithe from afar" and she was loved by them as an equal - no more and no less, neither shunned nor revered.

And so Wenaiah lived out her days – and they were long – in the garden of her dreams, the Garden of the Gods. Her stealth and dexterity stood her in great stead as she put them to use now not as a means to kill, but to protect and nurture the halabeena, the waranna, the hooj, the thruspid and the scented waif. Rejoice she did as she wandered freely among the tula trees, and swam in limpid pools ‘neath vibrant pergolas of yawana and fliir.
_______________________________________________

Bundle Near the Bin

2007-06-09T00:28:00.000+02:00

(To the tune of “Candle in the Wind”)

Goodbye normal jeans.
Though I hardly wore you at all,
You had the nerve to hole yourself
While I inside you crawled

I crawled along the woodwork,
Stuck a splinter into my leg
And ripped you on the breadbin
While reaching for the jam.

And it seems to me you lived your life
In a pile on the floor,
Never going to the wardrobe -
Left behind the door.
And I would’ve liked to have thrown you,
But I was just a kid -
And mother wouldn’t let me, ‘cos they cost her 20 Quid.

Holeyness was tough -
The only role you ever played,
Dodgy wood created a super-scar,
And pain was the price I paid.
Even though you’re dyed,
Oh, the name still spoiled you -
All I ever had to say
Was that I’d rather go round in the nude.

And it seems to me you lived your life
In a bundle on the floor;
Never folded up and cared for like the others in the drawer.
And Mum would’ve liked to have sewn you
But I’d rather be rid -
Your style died out long before the weekend ever did.

Goodbye normal jeans,
Though I never liked you at all,
I had the grace to wear you once,
And do as I was told.
Goodbye normal jeans,
Only got you less than seven days ago,
But see you somewhat less than fashionable -
Just not ‘The In Thing’, you know?

And it seems to me you lived your life
In the corner of my room;
All screwed up beside my school socks
And my undies too.
And thank God I’ve never shown you
To the other kids,
The novelty wore out long before
Your label ever did.

And I never would’ve chose you
Oo-oh ‘cos I was just a kid……
My interest ran out long before
Your colour ever did.

Elegy Written in the Winnowing Hall Graveyard

2007-05-30T17:07:00.000+02:00

The churchbell tolls the oncoming of doom,

The lowing herd wind no more o'er the heath,

The plowman, bleeding, cries out in the gloom,

And leaves the world to darkness and to death.

Now fades the lingering dusk and turns to night,

And all the air a foetid pungence holds;

And where the Pestilence wields its moaning blight,

A thousand poisons cull the distant folds.

And yet, from yonder dark-enshrouded tower,

A mournful howl does to the moon complain –

As one, unseen, invades Their secret bower,

Usurps Their ancient solitary reign.

Loose Ends

2007-05-30T15:14:00.000+02:00

How long’s a piece of string?
And where’s the scissors?
I s´pose time must account for something,
But anyway, who’s counting?

There’s only so much you can’t do in a day
Isn´t there? Surely.
Or is that indefinitely?
Perhaps I just can´t see the join.
Perhaps I’m looking too hard.

An overdose of hindsight -
To what end?
My own personal Minotaur,
Or back to Square One?
There´s only so many ends a ball of wool can´t have
Isn’t there?

But anyway, who’s counting?

Descarriado

2007-05-30T15:08:00.000+02:00

Lost for reason, lost in books,
I'm lost in time and Spain
To hang like ham on tenterhooks,
Vocation lost like rain.

To walk the streets of distant parts
Like dogs astray, alone;
My foreign canine counterparts
So many miles from home.

Suspended, lonely as the Dove
Yet olive trees surround;
The speckled cirrus high above,
Below - uncharted ground.

The sky narrates uncertain life
With shades of passing day;
And twilight comes, obscures the light,
As scarlet fades to grey.