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GUIOPERA V by John Reyer Afamasaga
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday September 5th 2012
December 24th 2012
The sterile surroundings of the delivery suite seem to make Genisis' pain blunter than if she were in the airy comforts of their home. Doctors and nurses dressed in crisp clean uniforms, domiciled in their pristine white room, seem so far away to Genisis, out of reach, and more concerned about what's on the flashy monitors rather than how she is feeling. The handsome man in dark clothing, who reminds Genisis of an entity she has never met, must be the man she will marry.
John James Lazoo holds on tightly to Genisis Jones' hand. The door to the delivery suite opens and Missy, who's in a coma, is wheeled in by a female orderly. Lazoo ignores the look of despair on the orderly's face by turning back to see how his fiancé is. Beads of sweat across Ms Jones' brow are a clear sign of the worry everyone feels. So Lazoo raises her hand to his lips and whispers, "Love lays all else to rest Genisis. Bygones be bygones. baby…"
The lights dim and again all eyes turn to Lazoo, whose only focus is Genisis, the instruments measuring her condition, and the machines Missy is hooked up to. Lazoo ignores the condemning glares from the doctors and nurses each time there is a power surge. Based on what they know about him, he doesn't blame them for their judgemental behaviour. He had been an operative who, before being ousted as spy, had been an illiterate inmate and then a hit man. Somewhere in the midst of all that, he was a gigolo and then he was accused of the brutal killing of seven men whose tongues were severed and then swapped as a metaphor.
Genisis turns her head to see the body of Missy Lévon Polina Rada's twin in the bed that's pushed up against the wall next to hers. Missy's Sliver, still in her hand, begins to shine, alerting that the LATEST UPLOAD has hit the New Global Realm. If only she knew, Genisis wishes, and then she tries reaching out with her other hand but John James also takes that one in his hands….
Txt msgs and emails from well-wishers and fans arrive as Veronika London reads the LATEST UPLOAD on her Ne0—TeleWorld Silver, the phone she was given for the duration of the GUIOPERA. The brooding character, known for her looks, is preoccupied by the Story-About-the-Story—Being-Written, or the SASBWAH. The shadows from various devices in the room, each broadcasting something that holds Ms London's attention momentarily before her gaze flicks to another, cast uncertainty upon the scene that ghosts her. Veronika stares blankly at the computer monitor. London, the starlet in laddered stockings and smeared makeup looks as if she had stayed up the entire season. On the monitor, the penultimate scene in this year's GUIOPERA plays out as if nothing has happened. The hidden cameras in the hospital room, where Genisis is about to give birth, capture the scene in a voyeuristic style which Veronika is not sure whether Lazoo would approve of.
Veronika goes back to reading the story on her Sliver as she pities herself for a moment in her thankless role as conduit for Missy Lévon who has been in a coma since the beginning of the story in September. Back on the computer screen, Lazoo stands in between the two beds where Genisis is in labour and Missy lays motionless but for the dreams and nightmares the two might share. The attempt to lure a certain entity from the SenFenide Dimension into Missy's shell seems to have failed.
Veronika accepts that the exercise to boost her popularity may not have turned out as she had expected. There were one or two offers on the table that may have been there regardless of her involvement in the GUIOPERA. On the wall, in his penultimate role opposite the Dark Knight, Heath Ledger sneers, as if seething at the audience who immortalised him, reminding Veronika it's not all about the money and fame.
As JRA plots the prologue to the conclusion for his story this year, the nagging thought of how things might've been if he had not chosen the life of a writer pesters the novice. Ellie Goulding's version of "Your Song" interrupts the long line of ideas on how to make the penultimate chapter of GO5 sullen so the climax would be his just deserts for not wanting to be published in any other format but the GUIOPERA.
The truth about his first eBook novel, JOHN LAZOO, had been revealed, raising a few eyebrows but justifying what all the fuss was about. On top of that, he had managed to carve out the story he had promised the world with a new crew behind the scenes.
Hopefully, out of PART 2, there's a screen play for Veronika London.
In a hospital somewhere on the planet, a prophecy is about to be delivered. Little Lazoo, regardless of what name he will be christened with, will be the prize of two people very much in love. Whatever else has transpired in the course of the SASBWAH, as told in GUIOPERA V, is immaterial.
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday September 6th 2012
In the Beginning
Genisis dances to "Rock Me Amadeus", the number one hit single on the planet. She has another reason to dance to Falco's novelty hit about a Maestro from another epoch; she was the 99th caller in to KISS FM's radio competition. Now she has accommodation and two airplane tickets to Vegas for a walk-on part in a U2 video being filmed there this summer. She can hardly wait to tell her best friend Danielle who will no doubt scream for joy at the chance to join Ms Jones on the adventure of a lifetime. Minutes later, Genisis gleefully enhances the winning scene made even more joyous by the popular ditty on the radio. Genisis Jones jumps for joy in anticipation of the fun she and her best friend will have in Vegas. And then the sixteen year old calms herself down by taking quick breaths, exhaling exhilaration when she supresses her excitement in order to surprise her best friend as she dials Danielle's number to tell her the fantastic news. Soon the dial tone zeros Genisis' thoughts in on a topic she'd rather not think about. The ring tone hypnotises her and, within a blink of an eye, she is back in last night's dream, in another dimension….
"Does it make you happy that you're strange /And in your darkest hour / I hold secret's flame / You can watch the world devoured in its pain…" Veronika solemnly pencils the outline of her lips. The Smashing Pumpkins on the sound system and in the air, deciding her sensibilities, preclude any doubt from staining Ms London's determination to go through with her plan to enter into immortality via a portal of opportunity she has been offered. Three months ago, she had been given a manuscript of a play about an ex-con—John Lazoo—who had gone to New York in the '90s to start a new life after his release from prison. Three weeks ago, someone claiming to be the playwright made contact with Veronika on Facebook, offering her a part in the GUIOPERA. Today, a phone call from someone claiming to be John Lazoo keeps the idea, which is more of a fantasy adventure than a dream, alive. To say that it was a dream would dismiss the idea as unreal and unachievable. The idea that someone could be immortalised as Lazoo was in the eBook is absurd. However, the GUIOPERA, a fictional blog known for its mash of fantasy and the author's experience as he writes the story, gives anyone in the GO that opportunity to attain comic book hero status or any status the author and the characters want, as long as the character is able to pull it off in a corresponding reality.
John Lazoo, the character in the play, is also the star of this year's GUIOPERA.
Her Sliver vibrates and the alert for the LATEST UPLOAD startles Veronika. She looks at the phone. A burgeoning curiosity, mixed with anxiety, and an artist's egocentricity urges her to click "download" so she may read what is written about her.
John Reyer gets ready for a day at the office in what artists term as their day job. JRA's DJ is as recruitment consultant for Drake International in Wellington, New Zealand. The embers of the story he must build slowly but surely burn holes inside him as he dons a suit and smile for the day.
"You can't beat Wellington on a fine day," is his motto for the last day of the working week as he takes the bus with unsuspecting Wellingtonians all smiling at the sun that came out today….
Being a recruiter comes naturally for the leader of LMLA-ink. Finding out what makes someone tick and what they really want is not the same as what someone tells you in the course of an interview. It's only when you either dig deeper or listen closely that you then understand what someone is looking for. The same applies when you're writing a story. On the surface you tell yourself the outline of the story that has to be written but it's only when you truly listen to yourself that the story within will tell itself.
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday September 7th 2012
Genisis looks out her bedroom window. Across the street, a row of Victorian Pink Ladies has risen from nowhere. She is not quite sure about what was there previously, but houses from the Victorian era they definitely were not. Genisis can see women in the windows of a three storey house directly across the street. "Hi it's Dani here, please leave a message…" Genisis takes the phone from her ear and looks at it quizzically, not sure of why she was calling her best friend. Genisis quietly places the receiver down.
She can hear noises from downstairs. The sound of her mom's voice and then her dad calling out to her mother from the yard go some way to relax Genisis. Her U2 poster above her bed looks different but maybe it's because of the way the houses across the street are blocking the light, the A grade student, who has hopes of studying psychology, tells herself. The phone rings and Genisis checks herself in the mirror to see if she looks okay and then she peers out the window to see if the Pink Ladies are still there. When she's satisfied that all is normal, she picks up the phone. "Genisis here," she hears herself say. The sound of Danielle laughing back at her and how she answered the phone is neither funny nor is it annoying. Genisis runs over in her head the events of this morning. She remembers the reason for calling Danielle, which she begins to explain….
Veronika sits in the corner where she can see everyone who enters the famous Tribeca Café—SIL HOUSE.
Under the arched logo on the window, four teenage tourists who look like they're from Japan play Lazoo, Metofeaz, Le Mac, and Afamasaga; the four male lead characters from etfiction whose names make up LMLA-ink. The smiley one, who must be Metofeaz, spots Ms London in the corner, clearly having an eye for the ladies. Le Mac must be the one with the bald head as there was no other way a Japanese kid was going to look African American. Afamasaga must be the quiet one busy writing on his Lenovo laptop and Lazoo must be the menacing looking one staring everyone down.
Veronika has to do a double take when John James Lazoo the genuine article passes by outside the window. A murmur passes over the café and then the owner Simon calls out from behind the counter, "everyone remain calm, he's just a normal guy like you and me…" Everyone - the staff, the locals who come here for the coffee and food, and the tourists who come to sit under the arch logo for the mid-morning sun to cast shadows upon them, like in the GUIOPERA, spring into action. "Relax", the Japanese kid playing Afamasaga's accent gives the scene a comedic bent, which the real Lazoo opening the door to the café soon does away with when he steps into the room and takes a look around the place. Veronika, like everyone else trying to act normal, is mesmerised by the enigmatic character's appearance. The last time he was seen in public was around the same time last year in aide of the GUIOPERA. If you were to try and describe Lazoo, you'd probably end up saying "Tom Cruise but without the Hollywood." Ms London feels naked from not having time to check herself before Lazoo, who she should've known would arrive ten minutes early like in the eBook.
In 2006, writing a novel was just a fantasy for John Reyer Afamasaga who dropped out of high school. The idea that he could conjure a story captivating enough to hold his own attention to write it was more of a fallacy depending on who you talked to about Afamasaga. But the thirty-something's mind was made. Every single second of his day was dedicated to his new idea which was to turn his best idea ever—John Lazoo—into a novel. Needless to say, he'd promised some mockers back in NZ that he was off to Australia to do just that, to turn Lazoo into a novel within five years….
2012, the walk down the streets of his home town WELLY on a Friday after work brings back memories of days when focus wasn't what he was known for. Normally, the walk would take much longer and, by the end, he would've caught something or someone for comfort from inside one the many bars that line Wellington's Golden Mile. But tonight the quick detour down Courtney Place is to return slightly overdue videos for which the dude at Civic Video lets him off with a warning. And then it's straight across the street that begins to fill with party goers to the bus stop outside Redding Cinemas to catch the number 1 to Island Bay.
LATEST UPLOAD: Saturday September 8th 2012
The Stargate Mix of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" thumps irreverently on one side of the divide. The sky that is seen on Earth protects eyes, ears and minds from what the mind thinks, believes and conceives what is going on behind the thin veneer of today's face. Fist marks that hail the beat of Depeche decorate the 2nd Horizon like fireworks that do not shine or explode; instead you just get the sudden rush from something so lavish out there in the yonder that celebrates a great occasion or an ending to something memorable.
Ladies, gentlemen, hustlers, tourists and citizens spill out on to Neon Strip, the main street of the SenFenide Dimension, or the Dream Dimension, creating a magnanimous scene void of sensibilities and judgmental idioms. Workers from the Pink Ladies and surrounding establishments mingle in the hue of neon and musk.
It was as if the editor had gone to sleep and the frolicsome fighter, all whimsical and feisty, had snuck out to pen his whims and woes on the parchment that is yours and my time. Acrobats darted in and out of the sky. Scantily clad women and men from covers of romance novels and banner ads on the New Global Realm walk amongst readers and perverts who can hardly believe their eyes. Amongst the peacock tail of lust and breakneck action an entity wanders aimlessly looking for something.
The soul, even though it seems well travelled from the welts on his neck, looks no older than seven. The entity, who sticks out for his glowing features, doesn't look lost. He looks like he's waiting to be found. He looks as if he's at that point where one decides that they're going to make the most of their situation and embrace everything.
The cocktail waitress' fluffy tail is made of candy floss, which she shakes in his face. "Go on baby, eat it. It's incredibly edible." Something tells the entity that even though it might taste great, it'll probably look dodgy, sticking his face in some babe's butt. Like a four legged mammal shell without a soul from behind the horizon when they become fascinated with each other's anus.
Back at her apartment, Veronika tries to decipher her conversation with Lazoo. The meeting was to offer Veronika the part of Missy in the play about the play Veronika had been reading. Depeche Mode and "Personal Jesus" was up next on her Sliver's reel. The song makes Ms London forget about matters at hand as she remembers how Lazoo & Genisis' story made her and many others feel. In person, Lazoo was every bit the superstar but without the slime of some she'd known. His slow and deliberate delivery, verging on cumbersome at times, was for effect. It was also designed to ensure that the person would recall every last nuance of what John Lazoo had to say. The phone rings, waking Ms London from her dreamy state. She hears herself humming the tune, which she continues to do even after she's picked up the phone. Whoever's on the other end doesn't seem to mind. In fact, she can hear the same song on the other end of the line. But it's not an echo from being within the same space. Whoever is calling her is playing the same song but only a split second faster which could mean they're broadcasting the song she is hearing on her Ne0—TeleWorld Sliver, the phone John Reyer sent her.
John Reyer, raised as a strict Seventh Day Adventist, listens to the lyrics he would've been beaten for listening to. And then he Google's the song title "Personal Jesus" to read the Wiki on Depeche Mode's offering. According to song writer and founding member of Depeche Mode Martin Gore:
"It's a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care….It was inspired by the book 'Elvis and Me' by Priscilla Presley. It's about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody's heart is like a god in some way, and that's not a very balanced view of someone, is it?"
The meaning of the song isn't so much of an issue for Christians as much as the use of the name. JRA recalls Lazoo and Genisis' relationship, which is a role reversal of Elvis and Priscilla. Lazoo had not experienced love since he was taken from his mother at the age of 9 and cast into juvenile detention. On meeting Genisis in Central Park in '97 in his late twenties, she became his centralised source of inspiration and motivation to be a better human being.
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday September 9th 2012
Around the time they call the bewitching hour behind the 2nd Horizon, the entity without a shell sits himself down on the pavement. Up here in the SFD, or Dream Dimension, things work a little differently than they do behind the thin sheer veneer of sky.
The party, which had been thumping for quite some time, had come to an end probably because the person who invited everyone down to Neon Strip had decided that it was over. This could've been within seconds of the party starting or, one full semester of your least favourite subject at school. The number of bodies lying on the ground, for whatever reason, indicates that the party had lasted for a while, maybe a year in time down in the MMD, or the MindMorph Dimension also known as earth.
Lights shone from one of only a few vehicles on the SFD; the silver convertible driven by the Head of the SFD Control Unit, Afanasy, cast a shadow behind the entity who doesn't inhabit a body. "Layabouts do little for themselves or the community," Afanasy, whom he's met face-to-face in a body down in the MMD, sounds his usual sarcastic self. The entity without a shell remains silent as he looks around to see if he can see any other shadows without mass or a shell in the convertible's headlights. "Only you would think to try your luck up in here at dark." Afanasy sounds agitated, maybe his appearance in the SFD got Afanasy out of bed. Or, was Afanasy just angry at his disregard for the rules. Number one at the top of that list of rules was if you don't have a permit to inhabit a shell or body, you apply for a temporary shell permit via the correct channels….
"Please pass polarising populous provisions perpetuating plutonicism…" Veronika says into the receiver since deciding that she would try something different after the second phone call from someone who refuses to speak. The line she gave was one of Lazoo's from their meeting. The music in the background is the same as what's playing on her sound system, taking its feed from her Sound Reel on her Sliver, only milliseconds ahead.
Something unseen lurks behind her, the body's sensors - the hairs on the back of her neck - respond to the creeping. She quickly turns her head to catch what it may be. Nothing! Just her reflection on the blank TV screen on the wall, which she turns on using her Sliver's universal remote control. Cable's playing Candy, starring Heath Ledger as drug fiend Poet Dan. Ledger's presence calms Veronika who slowly places the phone down.
The manuscript of the original play lies on the coffee table. Missy's handwriting covers the manuscript like a tattoo. Back in 2006 Missy, who was sixteen at the time, played the part of Genisis Jones. In 2012 Lazoo, the star of the play, would like Veronika London to play the part of Missy Lévon when she played the part of Genisis in the play about the play.
Saturday morning at the Newtown School markets is a community event. Vegetable and fruit mongers lay out their ripe produce like a colourful carpet of freshness and healthiness. The ambience is effortless with buskers and children using the time to play, adding to the melodic mix of minds and memoirs being drafted as we speak.
Today JRA has decided to venture down to the markets as he makes an effort to embrace all that he can about his environment. After having a Spicy Chicken Roti Wrap for breakfast from the Chinese stall, which only just beat the Yoghurt Goat dish offered by the Africans opposite, the writer picks up his vitamins and energy for the week. In the crowd he spots All Black centre Conrad Smith, whose eye looks fine, the reason why he missed the first two games of the 2012 Investec Rugby Championship, which the AB's were leading.
John Reyer, a quiet and reserved character, wonders as he looks around the markets if any one of these people has even heard of the word GUIOPERA. Then he decides he will frame this morning in Chapter Four of GO5, which will be the LATEST UPLOAD and yet none of them will probably ever read it, let alone even know about….
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday September 10th 2012
Genisis keeps her head bowed as her dad reverses the car out of the drive way. It is only when they reach the end of the street that she looks up. Out the corner of her eye she can see houses; normal suburban ones like the one she lives in and not Pink Ladies from the Victorian era. She turns her head to make sure that they're not the Pink Ladies she can see from her window and in her dream. The car rounds the corner and a tree casts a shadow on the road. She clenches her fists and her heart starts to pound. "Are you okay Gen?" She can hear her dad's voice but what he's saying doesn't register. The entity without a shell in her dream comes to mind. Genisis is not sure whether the entity or spirit is for or against the cause and when she thinks about it, she is not even sure that she understands what the "cause" is. She'd heard about it and seen literature describing the New Global Realm that was being built but she did not fully understand the principles, other than it was all about the environment, social justice, and equality for all man… surmised, one exponent of the cause put it as: "We exist to be happy - no more, no less."
"I'm okay Dad," Genisis manages as they drive out of the shadows and into the sun.
Veronika wakes to the sound of her alarm. She had fallen asleep reading the play. It was the original version of John Lazoo, which was published as an eBook in late 2006. The stage version which Missy starred in never actually made it to the stage. Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien, the male lead who played the Pirate and Lazoo committed suicide during the dress rehearsals.
Today, Lazoo has invited Veronika to visit the auditorium, the location for that doomed play. Lazoo, the producer of the proposed production, would like to stage the play at the same place. Veronika is excited about the meeting as she will get to meet Genisis Jones, a pregnant Genisis Jones at that, Missy Lévon, Arley, Missy's mom and, who knows, maybe Metofeaz Litigatti and Jon Le Mac, who are rumoured to be in town.
Veronika lays still as she hears a sound in the room. It's her Sliver, and it's under the covers somewhere. Ms London looks to find her mobile alerting her of the LATEST UPLOAD in which she is the star….
When the Network approached Johnny, at the age of sixteen, to become a cadet in the Network's Young Leaders Program (NYLP), the psychic adolescent had no idea of what the offer meant. The physical training, which Johnny excelled at, made him realise some of his other natural talents, like running and hand-to-hand combat, which was just what Johnny needed. The academic training was also crucial for the kid who the teachers at school had written off as a 'no-hoper'. Specifically, if any training or encouragement of a particular talent that Johnny possessed could be attributed to the creation of an almost superhuman being, most importantly a functional graduate from the NYLP, it was Psychokinesis training.
A protection program by the Network for something that happened when Johnny was fourteen brought Johnny and his skills to the Network's attention. After his parents relocated Johnny to Australia, where Johnny trained from the age of fourteen after being chosen on a hunch by an operative only known as Mr. Businessman, Johnny came first in his class made up of cadets from all over the world.
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday September 11th 2012
Genisis waves to her dad as he drives off. The sound of the bell in the distance doesn't bother Ms Jones, not as much as extremists with right wing views do, which will be the topic of her essay she had to hand in today. The A grader doesn't care right now, she has other things on her mind. The postcard from Wisconsin which at first felt like a chain letter, then the orange envelope in the mail from overseas arrived and then the dream which lead to the street she lives being transformed into something…unlike anything she has seen or could imagine. It was like a perfect painting of all the eras and architecture that Genisis was fascinated by, from Victorian England to Aztec Indians from the Americas, futuristic according to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and some Kubrick to stretch the imagination.
Genisis knocks on the door of the classroom. She's not sure what to do, this being the first time in her life that she has been late for class. The teacher waves through the glass for Genisis to enter. Genisis opens the door and steps into the classroom. Stuffiness, and smelly boys in the back, hit her senses. She spots her empty desk in the middle of the second row. It looks staid and demure, a place holder. "Sorry, I'm late," Genisis apologises and the teacher points for her to take a seat. It's only once she's seated that Genisis realises she actually didn't have to give a reason for why she was late.
Veronika Google's Missy Lévon…In the end, she finds the research she needs in the eBook Jon Le Mac at www.etfiction.com. The character in the story was named Missy Evon, it was before Missy's mother Arley, who was a lingerie model, or that's what she had told Missy who was eight at the time, had a name change. The read gives Veronika an insight into how members of LMLA-ink came up. Lazoo spent most of his life before the age of 21 behind bars. Metofeaz and Arley, Missy's mom, grew up in orphanages and, when they left them, they ended up fending for themselves from a young age. Le Mac and Tone Horroh were on the street from the age of 5. By all accounts John Reyer was the only one with a near normal upbringing. That's if you can call witnessing the killing of an operative at the age of five in a second hand store where he met last century's Poet Soldier, Jon Pierre Solomon, normal.
The fact remains that it takes all kinds to make the world go around. Or, in the case of LMLA-ink and their story, it takes all manner of people with varying levels of integrity to keep the SystemSpectacular true. The LATEST UPLOAD hits the New Global Realm. In CHAPTER SIX, the Cut-Throat-Creative sends a message around the planet that the GUIOPERA is about unity. Veronika realises the insignificance of her role in the bigger scheme of things as the writer without equal sends shivers up her spine. In the most wonderful way….
Johnny takes the hand held out to him. Feeaz Fontain, about the same age as Johnny, looks like a friendly kid. "Metofeaz!" Johnny says as he pulls his new friend up off the ground after he had flipped him when Feeaz came at Johnny from behind in a hand-to-hand drill. "Wrong!" The instructor calls out. "What did you call me?" Feeaz from New York asks Johnny the Kid from Nowhere. "It's a character from Jon Pierre's Poet Soldier's STORYBOOK…" Johnny says quietly as he looks at the instructor who's pulled him up for incorrectly applying the arm drag leading to a forward roll. Johnny can't be bothered arguing with the trained martial artist who insists the same amount of exertion be applied for all confrontations. Feeaz, who is around the same weight, height and balance as Johnny, only required a tip without any aggression after Johnny feigned a backward assault to put Fontain off balance before he flipped him…
"Yes Sir, I will remember for next time…" Johnny stands to attention and then he counts to three before he dismisses himself.
"Did you say Jon Pierre Solomon?" Feeaz asks Johnny as they pack up their bags and rubbish in the forest in Papua New Guinea. Johnny smirks at how much the kid from the US wants to be friends. "The Poet Soldier?" Feeaz continues to pester Johnny, making him laugh. "Give you something, you yanks, your intel is second to none," Johnny says as he pats Fontain, the best US cadet on the two day camp which will end in a twenty-four hour test starting tomorrow morning, on the back.
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday September 12th 2012
Simply Red's "Sunrise" covers the dimension with euphoria, induced by someone smiling capriciously on proceedings. Meagrely clothed slaves, to the rhythm; transcend upon Neon Strip. Their bodies mould to each other's, melding the decadent dreams of those behind the 2nd Horizon. The entity without a shell, whom Afanasy had let off lightly with a warning on the condition that he find a body to inhabit, dances with himself in the eaves of Neon Strip. The free spirit penetrates walls of buildings as he follows the parade down on the strip, which some happy camper in MMD is sharing with everyone. He moves at a slicing speed to dice fine particles, all the while ensuring to maintain the velocity at which his infinite mass requires to move to be one with the structures he must leave behind in order to infiltrate the next atmos, in case there is a story to be told, for which he will be a willing character. Soon the entity or soul without a vessel to hold him finds himself in a cavity that he likes the look of. From the type of transaction going down in the rooms of the establishment, it can be ascertained that the place he has landed in houses the oldest profession known to man. The attic of the brothel appears to be the most likely hiding place for an entity or spirit. Splendid garments worn by ladies of the night line all four walls of the space just high enough for him to stand in, if he were in a shell. Music from outside, and all manner of sounds and noises from inside, create a soundscape and source of inspiration that any artist would covet. The stories that the garments would tell if they could. The pictures that the walls would paint…this place is a book; a movie in memory. Only if he could interpret what he can hear for the masses. But then he remembers that he's in the SenFenide Dimension where people are characters in someone's dream. His great idea would be valued more in the MindMorph Dimension where people were really facing day to day life and would appreciate the escapism qualities of his idea.
Autumn 2005
Hemis rounds the corner and spots the alleyway he familiarised himself with yesterday when he found out that he had been given an audition for the part of the Pirate. Smokey Street, wet with rain, smelling a bit like everything, from what the cat dragged in last night to perfume you wouldn't buy the sluttiest of girlfriends. And then he spots the coffee cart, "SIL HOUSE" Coffee. Inside the caravan of caffeine he can see Jimmy Afra, who was now well into his forties, his white afro was trimmed short making him look like a cyborg from Blade Runner, and, from the way Jimmy twitches before he says something, he seemed to be one with a defect. Maybe the motherboard was missing a fuse or something. Next to him is Mick Haze who is in love with Jimmy and rumour has it Mick's one day going to have an operation so he can have a mick of his own.
"Come here often?" The sweetest of voices asks. Hemis-Chokery Blasphedemien doesn't get asked the question often. The guy with average looks, height, intellect, but with an above average view on life, well today anyways, pretends he is not surprised by the voice as he decides now's as good a time as any to get into the role of the Pirate, a player. "I'm here now," Hemis casts an eye in the opposite direction. The well planned move catches a perfect picture of Missy Lévon, one that Hemis will not forget. The pretty, but not perfect looking, girl with a cheeky streak that comes out in everything she does is framed by the smoky alleyway and its fire stairs like metallic vines that zigzag their way up the side of the buildings that line the alleyway. They contrast Missy in her fur coat, which makes her look like one of the sirens from old Hollywood; her soft skin, almond shaped eyes with two strawberries for lips. "John Lazoo likes you," Hemis hears the compliment from one of the family, Missy, Lazoo's niece in a roundabout way.
It was hard not to place a fag, durrie, smoke, doof, or ciggie in the mouth of one of the characters in PART TWO of this chapter. It was one of those classic scenes in which the leading man Hemis-Chokery Blasphedemien could've grown some hair on his chest by sucking on a durrie, doof or however you'd like to refer to a cancer stick … It had become obvious where Big Tobacco were throwing their money and had been for years - film and television. The problem is, it still had a certain appeal about it, especially when a character like Don Draper, TV's best creative from Mad Men sucks on a ciggie on camera. I'm about to order the season five DVD of Mad Men from Amazon.com and cannot wait to see the response or the full fallout to Draper's full page ad in the Times announcing that he will no longer deal with Tobacco. As the internet's, or the New Global Realm's, Cut-Throat-Creative my Pro bono public work for this year is a campaign I've designed called Stopsmokinginthenameoflove.com. If you're looking for something to support this year, choose this http://www.stopsmokinginthenameoflove.com ….
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday 14th 2012
The entity without a name or a shell makes his way down from the attic of the brothel. He passes through walls, in between where people are engaged in various forms of fornication, or intimacy if you were to ask someone with less of a puritanical view of these types of transactions, within the nakedness of loneliness bared for a woman who will serve the same purpose for others the same way she services the one she's with. Needless to say, when it was all said and done, it was a business transaction and someone had to bear the cost of providing the service within the walls of this fine establishment.
Lisps being corrected by madams in little clothing brandishing big whips, tainted soft torture, and one-sided deep and meaningful conversations taking place make the entity without a body wish he had one. Once he had made his way down to the entrance way, where he takes one more look back at the imperial staircase on which clientele beg for mercy and the graces of women, the entity with entitlement decides against jumping on board any of the carcasses in this place and quickly exits the brothel.
Hemis goes to knock on the steel door that is reinforced by metal plates and bolts, which give the place an industrial theme. The sound of the lock being released followed by a voice on a little speaker above the door saying "Come in Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien," and Hemis spotting the camera in the corner of the foyer, all add to the effect - the LAZOO effect. John James Lazoo overcame the accusation of, or more to the point was acquitted of, the murder of seven men. That was his voice telling Hemis to enter a warehouse where Hemis, a kid from the bible-belt, will play him; John Lazoo, an illiterate Poet whose American Dream was to make it on Broadway only for it to be shattered when he is accused of the heinous crime. The door slowly opens, allowing him to see what he suspects Lazoo would want anyone who comes to the compound to see at this time. An eclectic décor, held together by the crimson velvet wall that runs into carpet, broken by smashed concrete pillars in which snakes of fire slide in and out of cracks offering dim lighting that please the eye. Missy Lévon is nowhere to be seen, but the woman she will play, Genisis Jones, is there to greet Hemis. Ms Jones, as she is known, reminds one of Charlize Theron now. But back when Genisis was sixteen, Missy Lévon, who suddenly appears down the corridor to Hemis' left, is who she looked like.
Genisis Jones, a girl from upstate New York who every guy wanted to take home to mother, points to Missy who looks as if she's interrupted something going on. "I'm Ms Jones, I'll have you know," Hemis hears some truth in the words, or it could just be Missy's acting skills. Hemis, who also had to fend for himself from a young age when his mother walked out on him and his religious fanatical father, understands how personas are born to help protect a child from harm.
"The Pirate of Greenwich at your service…." Hemis finds the lines natural as he senses the presence of another entity come into the scene.
"The Pirate prays for her hand. He has no name to speak of…." Lazoo's voice, coming from the other end of the corridor, is light as a feather floating on a stream of justice that is as righteous as the originator of the work in which all of them are engrossed.
In Lexical semantics, a subfield of linguistics, if I were to even poke fun at puritans it would make me hedonistic or the reverse, depending on who bore the brunt of the joke in my work. Or is it something simpler than that which is innate for a writer when I colour or shade something so it's seen in a certain light so I might better emphasise a point or immobilise someone else's thoughts? Being a self-published online writer with no one to answer to but my conscience and my proof-reader Caroline, who keeps me honest and true to myself and the readers, I find it even more challenging when it comes to sharing what I feel or believe in.
You'll notice that there is no disclaimer on my work or a statement saying that this is fiction and if you notice similarities in a simile I've crafted, hopefully for your entertainment, then you're just a paranoid schizoid and you should be on medication. Seriously though, it's because, in this day and age, every second person who has gained a platform from the advent of the New Global Realm or the internet thinks they're something or someone of note. To be honest with you, I don't take this or myself that seriously as a writer. And if my crap, which is how I refer to my writing, offends you, then don't read it. I'm hedonistic in that conformity is my low trait, not for any other reason….
LATEST UPLOAD: Saturday September 15th 2012
Outside on Neon Strip, misleading men and women, who make their living off their wits, burst at the seams as they cajole passers-by. "Excuse me mister, your facial expression tells me that you have a one in five chance of predicting the near future and a mathematic chance of knowing what will happen in the gestation of this and other dimensions…." Goes one spiel from a toothless fellow with bald assets. It makes our weary traveller looking for a body to inhabit not want to be a part of the circus he was considered the ring master of.
He looks around in what could be classed as daytime when light shines directly upon the Dream Dimension making it the safest time for an entity floating about without a body to go undetected.
The alleyway further down the strip is a place well known to the entity. He had seen Johnny Shawshank there, also battling other entities in the alleyway back a few eons ago. The shells he had inhabited back then were still around, most of them hibernating though, and he didn't feel like waking them. He wanted something new, a brand new shell he hadn't fought in before or wrong footed an opponent in.
Hemis bows his head out of habit, poised ready to say grace, something which makes Lazoo frown. Missy places a finger to her lips to hush everyone else. Genisis, seated at the opposite end of the long dining table facing Lazoo, frowns at Missy and Lazoo for the enjoyment they get from watching Hemis.
Hemis realises that there's something amiss and slowly his eyes come up to survey what is happening. First he sees the dress that Missy is wearing, almost but not quite low cut enough to be revealing. But with her in it, it could be if he saw her that way. She has a mischievous look on her face and her index finger placed against her lips like she was gesticulating to others.
"We live by the grace of gods, whatever gods we worship. But we eat from the efforts of our hands, minds, and mouths which utter total complete nonsense in the line of business. So bless those who believe us and the ones who prepared this meal!" Lazoo says staring at Hemis like he had done something wrong. Hemis takes a moment to try and figure out whether or not Lazoo was angry at him for thinking they were to say grace. But then he realises that Lazoo had in fact said grace, only his tone and the way he said it while glaring at him made it feel and sound satanic rather than grateful.
"I like the one where you thank heaven for the narcissists and the racists for without them we wouldn't be who we are…." Missy's comment is met with a blank look from Lazoo who picks up a fork and waves it around, painting what Hemis believes resembles a key signature in music notation, signalling it was time for them to eat….
The small ad in the community newspaper for a two bedroom unit for rent worked for the landlord, a migrant to Australia back in the '60s, and the ideas guy looking for a place to set up his studio to develop his ideas.
The flat was built sometime in the 60s and then refurbished in the 70s which the landlord obviously took great pride in—the place looked like the set for a movie from the seventies—and the furniture and fittings felt like they were props, flimsy and breakable. Nevertheless, it was clean and handy for shops and public transport to take the guy to and from the DJ to pay for the studio in which he has to create something that will stand out from the countless number of ideas begging for your time and attention. Right from the start it was a match made in heaven for the guy. The landlord almost begged the guy to move in, and only stopped short of handing him the keys on the first meeting when he made the guy sign a tenancy agreement.
For just over $215.00 per week the guy had found a place where he could spend every waking minute developing his great idea; into what, he hadn't exactly decided. A couple of attempts at writing a screenplay had failed miserably and the idea of writing a novel was dependant on first turning the idea into a concept for a franchise which would be incorporated with an investor or a number of backers. Once the company was formed, he would pay ghost writers to develop the different products which included the play, a novel, and film script amongst a whole raft of derivatives from his treasured commodity, LAZOO.
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday September 17th 2012
The sign to Johnny Shawshank's place hangs by a screw, swinging as a solemn reminder of the thankless role of soldier. Down the end of the walkway the tear in the horizon, where Johnny had driven the convertible through, is a hole in convention but it bodes well for the free for all society of the SenFenide Dimension. Many a promotion has been built around the hole in the wall, it's flapping sheets of sky emphasise an explosion when the cross dimensional glass train carrying entities from the MMD and AMD appears through the hollow in the sky which citizens look up at every now and again with differing opinions.
The train comes to a halt twenty stories high in the atmos. And so the entity makes his way up the side of the buildings lining the alleyway. If someone were looking, an odd shadow from the gleaming glass train, named for its translucent quality, would be seen skimming the facades as it zooms to get a view of the new arrivals in the Dream Dimension. The entity watches as shells on board the transparent vessel open their eyes for the first time in their new skin. One or two yawn to clear the cobwebs, while most have some sort of a smile to seal the new union of spirit and skin. Beauty and sincerity with symmetry are the ideal combination, or earnestness with good intentions bound in weathered boards will do. The entity, still void of form for him to carry out a particular function, watches as he can almost taste the new sensation that each character is undergoing at this time….
Outside on the small balcony looking out on Central Park, Hemis feels like he can ride one of the silver moon's oars down into the blackened green sea. He'd take Missy, who doesn't stop talking when they're alone, along for the ride. Her non-stop chatter makes up for her weird behaviour when she's around John Lazoo.
"Don't mind him. He grew up inside around nasty people wanting to do him in…." Missy's explanation and apology for John Lazoo's demeanour was not required. But it was gratefully accepted in the moonlit night by Hemis, who still cannot believe his luck. His dream, to come to New York and become an actor was beginning to take shape. He didn't even need to audition. In the end, a dinner with Lazoo, Genisis and Missy was all it took. It didn't bother Hemis that his interview took all day and then he was invited to dinner where Lazoo announced he had the part. Hemis, a grateful young man, felt for the dozens of hopefuls, many of them talented and far more experienced than he, who missed out on the role that every serious young actor in New York wanted. His co-star Missy Lévon, who he had heard about but only as Polina Rada's fraternal twin, was, as far as Hemis was concerned, the fairer one in every respect. To say that Missy was more than a windfall on top of landing the role was an understatement for Mr Blasphedemien.
The guy with nothing to lose but his pride looks at the computer keyboard on which he is meant to play on whimsically as Metofeaz Litigatti as he transcribes what the Illiterate Poet John Lazoo has to say. The sun shines prodigiously outside his window. It reminds him that for now he is in the land of plenty, but for how long? Before he has to hit the road on what will be a world tour of planet Earth to promote the work he came here to write, which may have something to do with 9/11.
The draft of John Lazoo "Without remorse, without alibi, and without burden," sits on the floor. The guy who can't string a sentence together to save his life looks at the work he's here to transform from his nonsensical rant in the name of love, for which he's used a murder trial as a skeleton for a story he has into a novel. The idea itself, of what's going on, would make a great novel. Only if a couple of other devices, a name the ideas guy calls the stunts he pulls thinking little of their ramifications, or does he? The last one he pulled was, three years ago on the one year anniversary of 9/11, when he sent an email to a list of people that included some of the world's biggest names in entertainment with the subject line: GLOBALL ATTACK. It was the name of another idea he had for a new sport, one that would replace war and it would be based in New York City, the capital of the world, which was split into sectors - the Northern and Southern Sectors. Some say it was a thoughtless stunt by an amateur, while others believe it got the CIA's attention, which was the stuntman's intention….
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday September 18th 2012
"White Light"
The glass train prepares to leave the—station in the sky—another name for the dock at Neon City, capital of the SFD. The explosion that rains glass down on the alleyway, showering the new arrivals with diamond confetti as a welcome gift, sends each one of the shells with their new soul out into the Dream Dimension anticipating the wildest of escapades, the most amazing adventure or the most spine chilling encounter imaginable. The explosion emits black body radiation that casts white light upon the exiting event, as it is known. The entity ducks into a building to save himself from being spotted by one of Afanasy's unit. The exploding train symbolises that this is the end of the journey for now. In the heart of the dimension, at the Dimension Forks, is the gateway to the AmalgaMension Dimension (AMD). Story has it that only one character has ever made the complete journey from earth to here in dreamland and then onto heaven or the AMD.
The entity looks around him. It appears he's inside the attic of Johnny Shawshank's old place. It doesn't feel old and dusty. In fact it looks clean and upkept. The armour Johnny wore in his battle at the dimension forks and, at Clarenta's compound, hangs in the corner. Rows of REPRO files, like walls of hieroglyphics, take up exactly one quarter of the room in a corner. The reruns of past episodes of the current story, or end-to-end saga, still look fresh. Music coming from downstairs sounds like emotional techno funk. The entity spots a mannequin, something that he had only heard of briefly in a previous REPRO, which is the SFD's version of a Blockbuster Movie, only that it's acted out by all inhabitants of the land. The mannequin belonging to the Imager who used to own a shop further down the lane was meant to have immense power in the right hands. Dress the magical mannequin in clothes and formulate the path for whoever will wear the clothes' destiny.
Hemis strides to the tune in his head as if he was on his way to an office for his first day in a new job. The way he walks through Hell's Kitchen, up around 57th Street, in the early hours of the morning in the dark is an oddity. The last thing Missy said to him before she kissed him on the cheek runs through his head again. "White light comes from black body radiation…" Missy, who has an Afro-Cuban heritage, couldn't have made the point any clearer. John Lazoo, who was meant to have been protected by the Aryan Brotherhood when he was inside, appears to Hemis to be the type who would've kept to himself. He probably would've had the smarts to do deals with all the gangs and not cross any one of them in the process of delivering what he had promised them - his services as a hit man. That means all the hits were approved and then carried out by James Elton with precision, which would've made Lazoo the smoothest of operators to have been able to carry out his role within the prison walls.
Hemis chooses to switch his thoughts to his co-star Missy for now and ignore the travesty of James Elton AKA John James Lazoo's early life as he enters the apartment building he lives in.
The banks of the Brisbane River are an ideal place to watch the city from at night. The moderately cosmopolitan city still shines like a gem made of high-rises and apartments. Its perfect reflection on the water is dragged along the river by the "Island", a barge transformed into a party on a deserted island. The party goers, flashing tits and ass, are oblivious to the conspiracy, grander than any previous story, being hatched as they float along the heart of Queensland's capital.
The long hours of weaving threads so spindly that a spider would not be able to find it into a story are just a part of the job. In fact if the guy had chosen to document all his research from soul searching and conceptualising, he'd still be in the planning stages of the work. The fact is, where LMLA-ink comes from, the only documentation needed is one's autograph.
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday September 19th 2012
The entity hears a song rising through the rafters as he toys with an idea. He looks at the armour on the wall and then the mannequin. The feel-good tune is a Christmas carol, meaning that someone down in the MMD is up to something. Out on the street, effervescent candy, like snowflakes, tumble through the changing atmos. The perfect parcels drift on a scented current which seems to obey the hands of a temptress somewhere, and then they land and melt into puddles of foam that clean the surfaces before they evaporate. Or someone catches it and eats the candy, in which case a glow comes over them before their eyes light up to accentuate the pleasure they get on consuming the outpouring descending upon them.
It is obvious to onlookers that the tide has shifted behind the second horizon and the sheer veneer of sky has become a frontal movement of positivity once more. The cathartic nature of the work being written nurtures the origin of it all, creating a seamless story that transcends all walls of the stage and theatre, which is the world, the universe and the mind that conceives all of this to be possible, with an outside chance of it being true…
The entity ponders his musings before he approves it for broadcast on the spectrum of light that is information, and so be it, that someone or something finds it to be of value, then at that point in time it becomes knowledge, and we're all the better for it having been said.
"Espresso, please." Hemis says while looking up at Jimmy Afra behind the counter, who looks at Mick Haze. Inside the caravan of caffeine, there's a bit of apprehension about serving Hemis. "We've seen you at Lazoo's" Mick Haze, who has a thing about Lazoo and his cohorts, spurts out. It's on the count of his loyalty to his friend Jimmy, who did time following the Tongue Murder Trial for perjury. Hemis already has his money ready, which Jimmy snatches, "It's green, aint it?" Jimmy's big eyes widen at Mick Haze, dressed head to toe in leather.
Jimmy and Michael, two punks from New York's club land, who had been minor celebrities during Studio 54's heyday, are still lost in that era overcoming any sensibility that threatens their style since their fifteen minutes of fame. Hemis had read about them in magazines and heard stories of their involvement in Lazoo's case. Afra and Haze, two of Harold Clarenta AKA Hariss Clariss' cronies worked in tandem to torment Lazoo who was under the eye of the FBI as possible accessory to the bigger fish, Clarenta, who the Feds had wanted for decades but could not touch. Clarenta, an operative who turned during an operation in North Africa in the early '80s, was wanted for trafficking humans, arms, narcotics, and information.
"One short black," Hemis hears Jimmy as he sees the cup being placed in front of him. Thoughts of Lazoo and LMLA-ink being up to their necks in what most people would not be able to conceive, other than from an arm chair or seat in movie theatre, sends shivers up his spine.
"Fraternising with the enemy, I see…" Hemis hears her voice. He looks up into the caravan to see the looks on Jimmy and Mick's faces at Missy's appearance. "Caffeine's a commodity, everyone sells it nowadays…" Hemis, who can be awkward at the best of times, finds something to say that hopefully will not offend Jimmy and Mick, who Hemis thinks are quite cool in a Beavis and Butthead, Britney Kevin, and Lady Gaga Lady Gaga kind of way. "You lay down with dogs, you get butt-sniffing tendencies…" Jimmy somehow gets away with his statement due to being Afro-American. "I think it was fleas, dude," Mick Haze interjects, before Jimmy goes on to lament his point. "Fleas, flies, they be circling that orifice. And then snoopy goes and sticks ITS face into that SHIT? Explain the captivation in that there phenomena?"
Hemis can smell the coffee as it wafts in his face. "Four legged mammals do that…" Hemis says and then he looks around and Missy is standing so close behind him that the tips of their noses are touching. "Four legged mammals do what?" Missy's question is probing. "They're fascinated with each other's anus, aren't they?" Hemis says as he realises he's holding a most awkward stance, torso twisted, and Missy, who he has a mad crush on, in his face. "Well go on, get your coffee that you've already paid for and let's go." Missy sounds like she's ordering him. And then Hemis notices Lazoo in the distance standing on the steps of the warehouse watching them.
"The Guy"
The Guy looks at his new name on screen, the G capitalised and all of it italicised. Actually, it was one of his old handles. The one he used after he graduated from The Kid from Nowhere, and when he couldn't use his own name, John Reyer Afamasaga, as it was the name Tone Horroh was using in the US. The name looks classy, an adjective he and his crew hated back in the day. But today it holds the same nostalgic qualities as a pair of flairs, an afro, or an Atari video game.
Writing Lazoo was a lesson in finishing school, both in terms of polish for the perpetual performer and literally in the art of finishing for the talented but often wayward character whose cover it was to be that way.
Putting aside his cloak of a bad boy and picking up the soldier inside to rise to the occasion was difficult but it had to be done, before anything of significance could happen. Profoundness only comes from a soul who knows what it's like to feel the pain of his mistakes. Admitting that even as an agent with job to do and a cover to excuse his behaviour, he had made some mistakes. That was the first part of the process. A meticulous planner and precise practitioner, his mistakes were in the way that he treated people, cover or no cover.
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday September 20th 2012
The armour floats across the room to where the mannequin looks as if it has turned to face the amour. The amour opens itself at the seam of the breast plate and then moves to cover the mannequin, which seems to be lost inside the amour several sizes bigger than the lithe mannequin. It seems that, if whatever force was holding the armour up were to let it go, the armour would drop to the floor. But then the mannequin's magical powers come into play. The malleable torso expands to form rippling muscle that fill out the once forgotten uniform that belonged to one of the Dimension's forefathers….
Inside the warehouse, Hemis waits for someone to say something about him buying coffee from Jimmy and Michael. The fact that no one mentions anything about it either means it must've been an unmentionable act, or it wasn't worth a second thought. That changes a second later when Missy, apparently from her heartfelt apology, accidently spilt his coffee when she backhanded it off the table.
"I would be more apologetic if I thought it would undo spilt milk…" She goes on to twist her part in the accident into something more sinister by placing the thought in Hemis' head that no amount of apologising will fix the problem, and he should therefore get over it as it's burdening her from having to apologise. Hemis looks at Lazoo for his response to the situation which had escalated out of hand.
"They park their caravan there to remind me of what happened, regardless of the fact that they were extras, so to speak. Jimmy doing time was his own fault for getting involved…" Lazoo sounds normal for once like he feels sorry for Hemis after Missy's behaviour towards Hemis. As Hemis sees the coffee puddle on the floor starting to spread, he looks down and away from Lazoo who has him fixed in his gaze. The puddle reaches Missy's feet, which she looks down at as the coffee gathers around her shiny black shoes. She merely looks at them, not reacting, then she looks back at Hemis as if to say 'look what you've done', which is how Hemis feels right at this moment….
In the summer of '97, Feeaz Fontain AKA Metofeaz Litigatti waits for the phone call from The Guy down in New Zealand. SIL HOUSE on a Sunday morning is abuzz with the affluent soul from "Return of the Mack", this summer's smash by English TRUFUNK Soldier Mark Robinson. The Pirate, AKA John Page, is in town. Seeing him and his fraternal twin James Elton, AKA John James Lazoo, together warms Feeaz's heart, who was the last person Lazoo and Page know who saw their mother Janine Elton. Janine's boys sit under the arch of the SIL HOUSE Café logo. Genisis Jones, who Lazoo finally plucked up the courage to talk to in the park, walks by outside the window. Lazoo, not known for his conviviality, especially, basks in the moment his pitiful story has allowed him. The smile on his face when he sees Ms Jones, whose response to seeing him is identical to his, is brilliant to say the least.
The phone rings at the back of the café where Metofeaz thoughtfully watches proceedings that even he, as an optimist, would deem too good to be true. Litigatti lets it ring, bringing attention from Simon, the owner of the café. "It could be someone calling about orders," Simon, an aging sound and lighting guy, who saved every penny to buy the café goes to grab the phone, but Litigatti snatches it before Simon can. "Metofeaz Litigatti, welcome to Manhattan's Most Exclusive Salon of Love," the seemingly funny way he answers the phone is not a joke. But it works when Simon rolls his eyes and holds a hand out for the phone. Metofeaz places a hand over the receiver and tells Simon, "It's for me, now go brew some coffee, or rub up against a waitress with that belly of yours, or do whatever it is that you do." Metofeaz, who has a knack of saying stuff others would be held in contempt for, motions with his head for Simon to leave his own kitchen…
The phone call from The Guy down under was to confirm that it was too early for him to try and get into the US through the front door via his day job at computer giant IBM. His last attempt in '91 didn't work. Travelling under false passports was too risky now due to technology. And since 1994, the Network had hardly used The Guy, opting to mobilize Tone Horroh who was using JRA's name in the Network in the Americas.
Speak of the devil, Tone, a gangster from back west, enters into the café. He has a mean streak just from looking at him. Looks aside, he and John Reyer had very little in common. Tone was excitable, and haphazard….
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday September 21st 2012
"When you're strange / Faces come out of the rain…" The entity hears the lyrics and the larcenist finds comfort in the song. He must find out where it is coming from. The alleyway is crowded with characters more akin to noir than a historical drama, which he is dressed for in his armour. The music seems to have left a trail of women with heaving busts mesmerised by one Mr James Morrison lampooning as a story teller/singer. The end of the trail leads the entity who now has form and shape to saloon doors that swing often. Behind the swinging doors the entity can see merriment and folly he can only attribute to the liquor flowing freely from the bowsers of the jumping establishment.
The entity in his armour places a hand on one of the doors as he decides he will face the source of the music that has him intrigued as to whether he is strange or not. The notion that he was somewhat normal intrigues the entity. And that, on observation, he too would show signs that he was capable of feelings and emotions attached to appropriate responses at chosen times in keeping with particular scenarios. The entity steps back to take a look at the name on the banner of the bar before he enters into it. "Raven Tavern," is the name of the establishment. He'd heard about it. Or, maybe he'd imagined it on the New Global Realm? One never can tell these days….
Genisis appears in sunglasses and a scarf, holding her white gloves. Lazoo immediately responds by grabbing his jacket down by his side. Missy looks down at the pool of coffee around her shoes and then back up at Hemis.
"See you two in a few hours, learn the lines and we'll have a rehearsal when we get back," Lazoo seems to have dropped the act as he reads something Genisis hands him. It looks like a speech card with bullet points on it.
"Missy, that coffee will stain your shoes," Lazoo says and again Missy just looks down at the puddle and then up at Hemis, who feels very uncomfortable right now.
Hemis loosens up somewhat when he hears Lazoo and Genisis leave, closing the door behind them.
"What are you going to do about it?" Missy, who leans on the table, sounds serious as her eyes look down at her shoes. It stirs Hemis inside. "Are you serious?" Hemis asks. "Serious as a warning sign on a pack of cigarettes…" Missy's response leaves Hemis stricken. "I want you to lick it off the floor" Missy nonchalantly announces and then she smiles, waiting for Hemis' response.
"I'll mop it up," Hemis calmly offers. Missy begins to nod her head as if what Hemis had said was what she intended for him to do. Then Hemis quietly gets up from the table and exits the room, as if he doesn't want to disturb anything.
Genisis Jones looks at the person she finally got to meet seven days ago after weeks of him showing off to her in the Park. He's relaxed today, less anxious around people than he normally is. Maybe it's because his brother, who flew in from Silicon Valley where he's an engineer for a large computer company, is here. "It's because of you," Lazoo says, and once again he dumbfounds her with how in tune they are. She is still pondering whether to make mention of the fact that his uncanny ability to read her mind, whether or not he is aware of what he's doing, is beginning to become unnerving for the psychology masters student. "It's either a gift, or we're two random people who de-randomise each other…" Lazoo goes on. The fact that he almost whispers what he says to her, letting his smile and brown hazel eyes do the talking, makes him even more potent for Genisis.
"When you're strange / No one remembers your name…" Jim Morrison and the Doors on the Jukebox remind Genisis of the type of character she might have on her hands. And then Lazoo pulls something out of his pocket. The pearl and silver contraption the size of a make-up compact is burnished with embossed sides. "It's a Sliver, Page boy gave it to me," Lazoo uses his nickname for his brother when he explains who gave him the device. "It's a new type of cellular phone," Lazoo says as someone passes by outside the window with one not as stylish as the one he hands to her.
"Sliver? Interesting name for a communication device…." Genisis smiles as she takes the device. "Anti-Hero archetypical kind of approach. It's either that or it's along the lines of it hurts so good. Who knows? These creative types and how they access our lives…" Lazoo who is in his late twenties, sounds more like a theorist than someone who spent the first twenty one years of his life locked up in institutions and then prison.
Lazoo sighs as he watches Genisis as her mind computes what he just made up on the spot. Her beautiful smile makes him forget that he just bold-faced lied to her. Her beauty cleanses him and his admirable intentions, which will hopefully buy him another second in her life, in which he will never lie to her again.
From the kitchen, Metofeaz notices a reaction from Genisis which he hadn't seen from the operative in years. He had used Ms Jones off and on since the Network had recruited her in Vegas over twenty years ago in 1986. The only time Genisis' facial expression changes somewhat is when she forces a smile for whatever reason. Litigatti ponders the possibilities and crosses his fingers that it must be something unrelated and that John Lazoo & Genisis Jones' budding friendship was going swimmingly.
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday September 23rd 2012
'The psychedelia of it all is what makes it something of value. If it could be easily described and then recreated by any mortal then it wouldn't be worth the bandwidth it takes to send it to the New Global Realm.'
The entity muses, smiling unashamedly, as he slides his empty glass forward for the barmaid to refill.
The journey to the SenFenide Dimension is usually a trip one does not choose to take. So when you find yourself in the Dream Dimension it normally takes a while to ascertain where you are and what it is that you're up to. And normally it's around about the time when you figure out the answer to these two questions that you suddenly have to leave. Sometimes it's to your own great relief, other times it's with a feeling of like having just been woken from the most fantastic dream and you are suddenly faced with a sobering reality.
"What will it be?" A voice asks. The sassy slant is refreshing for the entity who has had his fair share of drama in recent times. The entity keeps his head bowed, not wishing to spoil what his ears have found. "The usual," the entity replies. "The usual, aye?" the voice becomes noticeably excited. "Yes, the usual." The entity sees if he can drag the moment out for a little longer….
Missy takes a good look at Hemis as he carries her to the lounge. She looks down at her shoes dripping coffee as he makes her feel light headed from the way he just bent down, which Missy thought was a move to kiss her, and then he scooped her up in his arms. "It's marble and, plus, I'm going to mop it up like I said I would," Hemis reconfirms for Missy what she likes about him, that he's strong and dependable and he will do what he says, unlike the guys Missy had known previously.
As Hemis places her down on the couch, Missy decides to kiss him again on the cheek, something Hemis had been waiting for since it happened last time. "You do that like you're kissing a baby," Hemis sounds like he's complaining. "Well, why don't you rectify it?" is Missy's flirtatious response. Hemis, who likes things to be perfect, responds with a nervous, "I wasn't sure if you're in character or not…."
Missy stares back at Hemis as he studies her face close-up, and then she lets him go by removing her arm from around his neck. From this angle, he looks taller to her, and even more diligent, as he finds the mop and begins to clean up the mess she made….
The dusty part of town is where the cab ends up. The driver, sweating Taco Bell as evidenced by the wrapper on the floor and from the odour, signals they've arrived when he stops in front of a dive hotel and holds his hand behind him for Genisis or Danielle to pay him. Genisis looks out the window at the hotel that was described as four star, and then at the meter which says $11.00. She looks at the driver through the rear vision mirror and wonders what she and Danielle are still doing inside the smelly cab….
Outside on the pavement, Genisis looks at their luggage on the sidewalk and then again at the hotel that was meant to have a pool shaded by palm trees and a view. She can see the Palm tree and a pathway barely definable from the weeds down the side of the building.
"Was it like this in the dream?" Danielle's sarcasm always seems worse than it is at times like these.
"Embrace everything!" Genisis smarts and then she makes a concerted effort to stay on top of their spiralling fortunes when she picks up her luggage and marches for the door of the Vegas hotel.
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday September 24th 2012
The entity takes the glass and downs the drink, before slamming it down on the bar. No sooner had the glass hit the bar top, commotion erupts. The entity keeps his head down, only choosing to see the world from a skewed perspective in case holding his head high would cause him some unwanted attention.
Bodies being thrown across the room, by big hitting creatures that resemble man and nature fused for worse, fly through the air and then hit the wall and become stuck. The end result is a wall of bodies in a state of shock that continue to scream. If it wasn't for the music, you'd be able to hear their agony from being in a constant state of pain after being hit by a creature with tree trunks for limbs and a bolder for a body.
The entity, still with his head down, takes a good long look at the creatures someone's conjured to get his attention, and if they're worthy of him breaking into a sweat.
"Another please," the entity says to the sweetest voice he's heard. "Sure. You know them?" the voice asks, referring to the latest gang that blew into town. "Not from a bar of soap," the entity says and then he decides he'll treat himself to a little more of the barmaid as he allows himself to see the hand and fingers that place the full glass down in front of him….
Missy is careful of how she sits as Hemis, on one knee, uses a cloth to wipe the coffee from her black shoe. "Do you wish it was a high heel, or maybe even a stiletto, that you were wiping creamy coffee from?" Missy asks and then she notices that her black skirt that comes down to her ankles is parted, showing off her fishnet stockings. She bends a knee to show a bit more of her stockings, in case he would rather be polishing stilettos than her chunky platform shoe….
"I like that you're afraid of the sun and that you prefer a solid heel on a sole to a nail." Hemis places one foot on the ground as he waits for Missy to put her other foot in his hand for him to wipe the coffee from it. "Pick it up for me, like it's delicate….and in a glass slipper." Missy sounds eloquent rather than 'Nu Yawk'. Hemis looks down at the floor for a moment and tries to figure out a way forward for him and his co-star as he hears someone at the front door. Missy sits up straight, confirming for Hemis that they may have been in a slightly compromising position. "Quick. Sit here." Missy pats the spot next to her like she was summoning a child, which is slightly better than a baby, to sit there.
Hemis, not one to jump into any situation, places a hand on the couch and then he pushes himself up to be sitting next to Missy. "Next time, I want you to take the shoe off and give me a foot massage," Missy's comment is agonising now as Hemis realises the torture she had just put him through, which he lapped up every second of. "What was that about?" Hemis asks as he hears Lazoo's voice, "Hey we're home…."
"Cashier?" Genisis repeats to the lady dressed in a Bellboy's uniform sitting behind bulletproof glass decorated by pelts. The glass covers the booth in the corner of the foyer of the dive hotel in Vegas. Suddenly, a red board drops, narrowly missing Genisis' fingers. And now Genisis and Danielle can hear the lady behind the board screaming at them, "Cashier is my name, you horrid people…." Genisis, not one to be held back by anything or anyone from getting what she has paid for, which the fantasy holiday to Vegas was starting to feel like, steps back and takes a look around for a door to where Cashier begins to scream obscenities at them.
"Cashier's an artefact of someone's morbid dream," Genisis looks at Danielle to see if she heard the voice. Before either girl can confirm, a guy steps in between Genisis and Danielle and is standing almost with his face up against the red board.
He's wearing a bandanna and clearly marked Wayfarer sunglasses by Ray-Ban. "Watch this, but never tell a soul about it, or else every heel will break on every last pair of shoes you buy." The ingenious sounding character starts to smile, reminding one of a pirate as he knocks on the red board. "Cashier, its Page here. Johnny Page, purveyor of the untold truth in a perverse sort of way that can either make your toes curl, or milk curdle depending on your cuppa tea of course…."
"Are you English?" Danielle asks, quite taken by the handsome stranger. "No, I'm a Pirate who has not an ounce of piracy in him, which makes me a welt on someone's arse and birthmark on someone else's."
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday September 25th 2012
Resolutely, the entity stops short of looking up from the barmaid's fingers and hands that push the refilled glass to a place he does not have to look up from. "There you go, sir, now you need not look any further, in case what you already have is ruined by what you might gain." The entity bites his tongue, tasting the familiar tang of attraction. He can feel the warm blood that he enjoys sucking from time to time, a lesser substitute for the hunger he can imagine in the hands that retract from the glass he snatches and then he throws the contents of it to the back of his throat.
"Damn!" he says and then licks his lips while still looking down. A shadow of a looming figure hovers over the entity that remains bent in two over the barrel of sorrow he gathers comfort from. The behemoth, an entity much larger than the one glued to the bar, feints an ambush on the entity with entitlement and then it thinks better of it, leaving the armour clad spirit to find itself in the bottom of the glass.
The alarm goes off, sounding another raid on the Dimension by entities and souls from other dimensions and the entity in Johnny Shawshank's armour, which no one has mentioned a word about, keeps his head down.
Outside on Neon Strip, a SFD Control Unit can be heard marshalling citizens who are willing to go to war….
Hemis senses the heat from Missy seated next to him in the dark auditorium, as on stage Lazoo and Genisis rehearse a scene from the play. The scene is a small scene in which the couple will appear as a cameo which is designed to fulfil the Metafiction requirement of the play and it was also a nifty marketing ploy by Lazoo. Hemis feels Missy's hand find his leg as Lazoo kisses Genisis before he goes into hiding after news of the Tongue Murders hit the front page of the Times.
As the kiss intensifies, so do Missy's actions, which Hemis does nothing about. Her hand roams his thigh and then it sheepishly rests on his knee till she cannot help herself when she turns to him and takes his hand and places it around her shoulder. The awkward situation becomes worse for Missy when Hemis refuses to help her out in fear that he will not be able to help himself.
Needless to say, onstage, Lazoo comes up for air and decides to turn one of the spot lights on the audience, at which point Missy pretends that she was trying to get out of Hemis' clutches. "Cut!" Lazoo calls out….
No sooner had John Page, a name Genisis recognised from the letter in the orange envelope, which she cross referenced in the postcard from Wisconsin, finished his random speech about himself being some sort of truth, the red board is raised. There seems to be little or no sign that Cashier ever felt harassed as she shuffles papers and she smiles attentively at Page. "What can I do you for?" Cashier keenly enquires. Her smile seems to have taken a good ten years off the woman's face. And the eagerness to be of help makes Cashier a lot more approachable and suited to her role behind the reception desk of what's meant to be a hospitable place.
"You can do me for a room, and by showing my two friends from…." John Page waits for Genisis or Danielle, who seems more susceptible to his charms, to chime in, which she does, "We're from New York." John Page looks at Danielle, who is almost identical to Genisis except for the dark brunette hair, till Genisis gingerly adds, "New York State, the place where Pink Ladies sprout up in your dreams?" Page bites his lip to conceal his reaction to when someone has the key to unlock his heart. Page was recruited by the Network before he reached puberty. It happened when Feeaz Fontain, Page's older brother and only kin was recruited by the Network, leaving their handler, only known to them as Mr Businessman, no choice but to take on the younger kid also. Page was a bright kid with a penchant for larceny that the Network manipulated so it would benefit their cause. Page's instructions were simple, "Go steal!" The order could be referring to anything, from someone's heart to a safe combination or a piece of Intel. It didn't really matter what the object was, Page could steal it from under anyone's nose.
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday September 26th 2012
A willowy thought of something that happened some time ago leaves a trace of anguish and so the entity summons the barmaid to refill his glass so he may wash the pain away. He slides the glass forward and then he waits. A patient soul, the entity doesn't hurry anyone, instead he waits. As he waits, he absorbs thoroughly, for the first time, his surroundings. Sounds of shells outside being corralled does bother him, but he's resigned to the fact that if he lifts a finger he will be roped in to be a leader of some sort and, right now, he has ills of his own that he would like tended to.
The wall of screaming souls, where bodies are stuck in the agony of limbo is quite a sight and one you keep well away from. Some of the creatures have been known to spit the length of a carriage of the light train, which he hears is arriving soon with a new batch of tourists and sight seers in shells that might end up on the wall of screaming souls.
A tour guide is a job he might consider if the terms were right. But, then again, staying put isn't the worst case scenario by any means, he muses as the barmaid arrives. Today, he would like to see what the rest of her arm looks like. Her voice thus far reminds the entity of a kiosk assistant he once met in the MindMorph dimension. She was stationed at an etfiction book kiosk, at a rendezvous location in Greenwich Village around the year 2045.
Hemis hears the background music come on as, onstage, Lazoo places the remote control down on the table before pulling Genisis to him. For a second there, Hemis thought Lazoo was going to come down on him for fooling around with Missy in the dark. Instead, Lazoo shares a candid moment with Ms Jones on stage in front of them. The song is the main theme for the play. It's the Burt Bacharach classic, "The Look of Love," sung by Diana Krall. Hemis, a realist if he were to have another side to him as an artist, doesn't prescribe to the notion of "If you're happy and whether you know or not, you must do something to let the whole jungle know about it…" is caught out by the moment. Lazoo, not known to show any emotion whatsoever, holds Genisis in the stage light. The word on the street, depending on who you talked to, was that Genisis put herself through college working as a Madame in one of Harry Clarenta's brothels where she met Lazoo. Another version was that, Genisis worked in the brothel in a Human Resource type role to assist the escorts with any problems they had. A further twist on that version of events was that Clarenta had Lazoo build the brothel and then replaced him with his ex at that stage and, as the manager of the brothel, that effectively made Genesis a Madame.
"It's on the third floor, where you can be on top of it all. The place where you have the best sleep." Cashier hands Page a key to a room on the top floor of the hotel and then, as if it were an afterthought, she slides under the glass a second key to Genisis who takes the key and quickly gathers her luggage, before following John Page, who enters the elevator that opens for him.
Inside the lift, the good looking but quirky guy, who has removed his Ray-Bans, pretends he's alone in the elevator, or at least that's what it feels like to Genisis and Danielle, who has a rascally look about her, obviously already moved by the Casanova of operatives and his undeniable way. Page hums along to Burt Bacharach in the "Look of Love," playing on the elevator speaker up in the corner, which he looks at. "Lovely horns, really is a camera however," Page says without a concern causing the two girls to look up at the speaker. "Wave, say hi to mother." Page, a covert operative who uses charm and wit to compensate for the worldliness and sophistication that other agents have, is an effective instrument for the Network at the age of sixteen and has been for two or more years. The lift comes to a halt and the doors open. The mustiness and smell of stale cigarettes is intensified by the rising heat from the floors beneath. A door slams and someone down the hall yells out in pain, as the sound of someone having sex in this setting almost makes Genisis dry retch, but she manages to hold her cool as she thinks about the bigger picture as it is written in the work….
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday September 27th 2012
"Serum?" the barmaid's tone changes, becoming sultry all at once, as if she had just learnt something about her captive audience. "Serum, to set me free?" The entity decides to test the waters as he takes in a proportionate eyeful, which includes the barmaid's shoulder and the neckline. "Serum of rhapsody, I hope?" The entity likes what he sees and stands up straight, but still only choosing to take in the barmaid's hands and the right side of her body. She has her hair up and the wispy bits that hang loose have an effect of their own, like stray light around her slender neck. "The serum is lexical, Johnny," the barmaid says to the entity. It brings a reaction from the entity. He stretches his neck muscles to the left and then to the right. The look in his eyes is pensive but also warm, saying that forgiveness is within his repertoire of reactions to whatever the outcome or the truth is. "The Oracle or the Warmth sent you here for a reason." The barmaid sounds like she is privy to information.
Her easy way with him is beckoning him to look at her face but he will not allow himself to do so, not just yet. His inclination to fall heavily for someone who engages him for whatever reason concerns the entity as he begins to feel the range of emotions that come with full faculty being bestowed upon him gradually as each moment passes by. Irascible Trepidation, a phase an entity undergoes as it seeks out the shell which it feels most comfortable in, has passed. "Do you know the poem?" the barmaid asks, as the entity is already reciting the words…. "Irascible Trepidation / Opportunity knocks / Rattling a rascal / In his cage for now / callous, confused / at normality / Craving mayhem / And a shallow grave / I submit to whims / That have me see / You in my arms / Sanity I cradle / The irascible soul / Shall rest / For Trepidation's / Expedient torrents / To arrest the solemn / Yet restless mind"
Lazoo looks at the manuscript on the table. Its content is what he endeavours to bring to life for whatever reason. The words on the page are legible in the candle light but then the air is stirred and the flickering candle light hides the words that will now abide forever in the hearts and minds that remember them, of which the actual events live on in Lazoo. Hemis watches as Lazoo takes another look at the page. Lazoo sent Missy to bed hours ago and since then it's been only the two of them hovering over the small table with a candle that stopped wasting away the moment Lazoo promised, "We work till the light is wasted." That was three hours ago, when Hemis last looked at his watch. His eyelids weigh more than the responsibility of playing young Lazoo, which all of sudden dawns on Hemis. The driblets of wax that have amounted to foreign objects at the base of the candle feel like they have found their way into the sockets of his eyes. But Hemis stands tall in case Lazoo senses weakness or sniffs fear from him.
Genisis looks at the number on the door and then at the key she holds. The fact that their room is directly opposite John Page's escalates matters beyond comprehension. Messages to self of harmony, and positive self-talk will be of no use at all as the turn in their fortune has no end.
"I have an open door policy, ladies, there's nothing too minuscule or too gregarious for me to consult upon, from undergarments with single letter names…." Page backs into his room when he realises that he's better off shutting his mouth and his door behind him. Once inside the room, Page finds that the door will not close, it's as if the latch will not hook into its cranny. Locking it won't work either; the rod will not insert itself into the fissure. After a while, his captive audience, Genisis and Danielle, wait to know if there'll be something else in between them and the weird guy across the hallway, especially Genisis who makes sure their neighbour knows that there will be no fraternising with them. "We'd appreciate it if we weren't aware of your presence." Genisis is polite but direct, which Danielle frowns at for Page's benefit.
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday September 28th 2012
Johnny—to the entity, the name sounds like a label rather than a title. Nevertheless, it's how the barmaid, making her way down the bar, wishes to remember him, or refer to him by. Johnny looks at the empty glass which has remained there for quite some time. He felt like he was being unreasonable when he enquired a third time as to where his refill was. It almost felt like he was being punished. It was either for not knowing the secret word or for having upset his favourite barmaid in the world.
Sometime later, when the new arrivals in the Dream Dimension had been showered by the exploding glass train, Johnny finds himself out on Neon Strip. The barmaid hadn't returned to refill his glass, so he took that as a sign to leave the place where he had gone to see if he were strange. Shells, who had found each other on their trip to the SFD, walk arm and arm down Station Alley, the smiles on their faces take in the lonely entity who bows his head to duck their pitfall glances.
One or two temptresses come close to luring the mercenary into the dark doorways in which they peddle what his shell yells for as he wanders the dark arena of the seedier side of town. "On Plagues and With Ghosts," Johnny says to one lady of the night, only for her to mock him with rendition of the poem he quoted the title of: "I ate her / Mind, body and heart / till she was in all of my parts / hardening when I dreamt of her / and shortening when I thought she were gone / but in those moments, little less than a hair…." Johnny wears an awkward smile that he hopes will dissuade the voluptuous vamp which is dissolved when her twin, almost, places her hand on Johnny's shoulder and the recital becomes a twosome, fortifying the morsel in unison for Johnny to eat, "I still heard her and her fear / I am here I hold her / in both ears / in both arms wrapped around / up and down her figured / Fine and moulded limbs and buns / she knows me and holds me / when up and when I am / down a winding path / to some door I shouldn't be / There begging and pleading / on plagues and with ghosts / to riddle me to the bone / with lots of lust." Johnny's eyes begin to glass over. The potion in words which was a poem of an anecdotal antidote for such encounters is flipped in reverse by the seductive pair as Johnny joins them in the final lines of his demise, "that I must / not trust…."
Hemis exits Lazoo's habitat, a warehouse modelled after Hariss Clariss AKA Harry Clarenta's Compound, the site of most of what went down in the late '90s. The Compound was legendary for the decadent orgies that Clarenta wanted Lazoo to be part of. The quarter acre hidden behind high walls and rainforest further uptown was also the location for the final and gruesome scene in Harry Clarenta's life for which, according to folklore, Lazoo was definitely present. Hemis takes a moment on the doorstep as fatigue sets in. The early morning air fleetingly beats exhaustion only for lethargy to return heavier and more cumbersome than before. Hemis reaches for the rail running down the side of the stairs as it comes to pass that he had made it through an all-night session with Lazoo unscathed. The stress he must've been under must be catching up on him, as he realises that he was running on pure adrenaline. Jimmy and Michael, an ex-boxer who still sports a bent beak from Lazoo during one of the all-nighters back when Lazoo first performed the play Hemis was to star in, pull up in their SUV towing the caravan of caffeine. Hemis is too tired to think about what they might be thinking about him and the only thing to do is to go over and get a coffee….
Inside the room, Genisis leans back on the door as Danielle flops face down on the double bed. A scene from a b-grade horror movie comes to mind when Genisis looks around the room. The shag pile carpet looks like it's been waxed, and the furniture may have come from up to three different yard sales. Whoever the set designer was, they went to great lengths to bring the "Dive Hotel" to life. The only thing that says it wasn't the handiwork of some creative type and this was indeed real was the stench. Genisis dares herself to take a step on the carpet that is matted in places so she can unpack, but she is unable to force herself to touch it. So, she takes a leap and makes it to the bed. "Ouch," Danielle, who lays face down, mumbles and then she turns her head to face her best friend since elementary school. Genisis, the compassionate one, who has become neurotic since the cab pulled up outside, feels as if her head is about to explode from trying to fathom how much further this could be from what she had imagined. Danielle, the inventive one, seems to have switched on an autopilot of some kind to deal with the discrepancy. "I'm still waiting for Dom DeLuise to jump out of the wardrobe," Danielle says indifferently and then she bites her lip. Genisis sees the funny side of it which she clings to as she thinks about calling home….
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday September 30th 2012
He feels a full pair of lips, plump and fleshy, brush his. They are cold from not having yet been enticed and then pulverised. Beneath the crimson skin, hot promise of passion persists as advertised in the woman's eyes. The woman behind the shell's, hands relax him as they massage the knots away. His head moves as an end to the cajoling going on, which he must keep within some context or else there is nothing else to do but to devour the mouth that opens and invites his tongue to live a little, and the hands that start to roam his chest looking for a heartbeat….
The back of his hand that hangs by his side can feel the comely place between the woman's thighs through her thin dress as his back gets a taste of the other's buxom body as it caresses him, her ends noticeable as they find crevasses in the cuts of his muscles he thought the armour would protect.
Johnny, he can hear the barmaid saying the name. The clarity of which he can hear in the midst of coaxing from the two women is quite astounding for the once feared warrior whose only mode of unwinding was to have women till they expended any subsequent and latent energy in him following a war. The entity reaches around behind him and takes the hands that massage him and pushes them to the side. He then moves forward and kisses the woman in front of him on the cheek before he excuses himself from the shadowy doorway and makes his way back up Station Alley towards Neon Strip….
Hemis opens the door to his apartment…the breezy atmos makes him think whether or not he had shut the windows to the loft. Music that reminds Hemis of home is playing and the smell of bacon summons an appetite he forgets about when he's on a mission.
"Is that you honey?" the voice that used to make Hemis smile confuses the actor who's been up all night rehearsing the scene where Lazoo turns up at Genisis' apartment twenty-four hours after the news of the murders broke. The scene required deep concentration from Hemis as Lazoo watches on from across the street as the media assemble outside Genisis' apartment, blocking the entrance to her place as they hound Ms Jones for her looks and her story as a good girl from upstate New York working in an exclusive Manhattan brothel and as John James Lazoo's love interest. There were rumours that all seven murdered men frequented the brothel where Ms Jones was doing her internship as a psychologist had already surfaced. Lazoo, on the run and wanted, was powerless to do a thing and could only watch on as Mr & Mrs Jones arrived and then were escorted by the police through the media cordon and up the stairs where their daughter appears dressed in black from behind the bars of the doors of her apartment building.
"It is you…" Hemis re-joins the here and now, putting the scene Lazoo made him rehearse for six hours straight away for now. Standing in the middle of his small apartment which resembles a gun tower with glass walls all the way around is his ex-girlfriend from back home in Wisconsin….
In the full length mirror, John Page twirls the silver revolver; he sees the safety is on, so he twirls it faster creating a whirr that suits the blur, fuzz and mess in his head. The door to the hotel room that won't lock, let alone close, adds a certain Russian roulette feel to the definite high noon drama going down. The message he received was "Rendezvous Dive Bar Vegas." He'd been doing odd jobs in a homeless shelter in NYC while keeping a low profile after completing a record five missions in a space of twelve months with up to three of them running simultaneously at any given time. Most of the work was industrial or corporate espionage, ranging from taking down executives and replacing them to stealing blueprints and spoiling patent applications to one hit. All of this of course as a teenager, mostly as cleaner, or mail room clerk or as an intern, which Page, with no education to speak of, gets a kick out of.
News was that Tone Horroh was going to be present. He was a hit man in his early twenties, a successful one and the Network's latest installation as the leader for a crack unit it's been trying to setup. The team of spies came from the other side of the divide as part of an experimental project code named PNVN for Project Nature Versus Nurture. Whoever this Horroh character was, Page, who was here to audition for the Part of Lazoo in the four man team, was positive that he would bleed like any other motherfucker if someone put a round in him. That was something Feeaz, his older brother, had taught John Page, the Pirate. Feeaz had been given the part of Metofeaz already and it was just the parts of Lazoo and Afamasaga that required filling in the crew named LMLA-ink, which stands for Lazoo, Metofeaz, Le Mac & Afamasaga, incorporated in writing or a narrative….
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday October 2nd 2012
"Johnny," the entity says as Afanasy, an agent for Dimension amongst other things, goes through his preliminary checks. Then the Russian spy from down in the MMD takes a windmill swing at the entity with his left arm, and with his other hand he produces a weapon resembling a sabre which he uses to horizontally slice. The entity angles his torso back to his right and then he crouches, all in a moment before Afanasy executes his next move, causing the Head of the SFD Control Unit to smile to himself. "Shawshank, you're precision is your own worst enemy. Only you would lead me to believe that it's you…" Afanasy watches Johnny closely as he stands back up from his crouching position. "Will that be all?" Johnny asks as Afanasy throws the sabre away. Johnny watches the weapon as it refracts into the gutter and then the sweet smell of burning sugar fills the air. "Love that smell. The smell of protons as they de-sack and cinder into the habitat…" Johnny smiles and then he turns his back on his one-time friend from behind the second horizon.
Johnny's footsteps are pronounced in the long silence of being watched by someone who knows who he is as he walks away. He breaks out into a cold sweat, soaking his back in an instant. For Johnny, as an entity, it's a relief but also a weird thing to be thankful for as he realises that phase two of the AmalgaMension was underway. The bizarre sensation —a cold sweat—to be thankful for is probably one of the last experiences in which the entity or soul and the shell are distinguishable in the process. Johnny feels the wetness but does not suffer the attached anxiety, just a warm buzz around the nucleus of the soul giving off an aura, showing that the lights are on. Johnny reaches the top of Station Alley, and turns to the right. From the way he turns, you can almost imagine a drill sergeant in the background shouting out orders for him to turn to the right….
Hemis tries ignoring the fact that his mobile, which is on silent, is vibrating as he puts on a brave smile for the woman who broke his heart. She is now standing in the middle of his apartment, expecting him to respond in a manner which is totally unnatural when one considers how they ended things.
"Fuck this shit!" Hemis says, and then he looks for his mobile in the pockets of his leather jacket. First the left one, then the right one, and eventually the deep inside pocket. The look on his ex's face is a bemused one, probably from how much Hemis, a Christian boy, had changed since fleeing his hometown less than a year ago.
"My, my, the boy from NYC…." his ex's sarcasm grates on his nerves. However, Hemis apologises, "Sorry, I meant the phone. Damn thing annoys the fuck out of me…" Hemis sees that it's Missy calling him as he loses sight of his ex who walks around Hemis like she's inspecting some foreign creature that she's discovered. Hemis notices the unopened mail on the small round dining table, three of the letters are from her. "I just didn't think it was right to communicate after what happened between us," Hemis explains in an attempt to pre-empt his ex asking him about the unopened letters.
Tone Horroh looks out the window of the Limo that brought him to Vegas from LA. The tinted window slides down, the Nevada sun beaming UV Rays that penetrate the darkness of the cabin he sits in and he wonders whether the call from Mr Businessman is a set-up. News of John Page AKA the Pirate and his successes on the East coast and in Europe are beginning to agitate Horroh. "The Chosen One! You know that's what they're calling me." Horroh not so much as gloats but, in more of a false modest tone, confirms that he's egotistical and therefore a liability when the time comes for someone who is steady and level-headed to lead the impending crew of agents who will basically be untouchable.
The role of Afamasaga, the leader of LMLA-ink, which is the name Horroh will assume once he agrees to the part, is only a formality for the former hit man who had already influenced major outcomes in OPEC operations and contracts which needed endorsement. The next step was a new identity and a step into the lobbyist game in the shadows of a handful of senators.
A cab pulls up across the street in front of the hotel. Inside is Metofeaz, or Feeaz Fontain, one of the two confirmed members of LMLA-ink. Horroh is not concerned about Litigatti, a sniper who does security consulting work for the UN, shadowing diplomats ensuring they're safe from the likes of himself. Litigatti qualified for the crew with criminal backgrounds due to his father being a foot soldier with the Sicilian Mafia and for his connection to Jon Pierre Solomon, the Network's Poet Soldier, who raised Feeaz and Johnny Page….
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday October 4th 2012
Johnny hears the music, first in mono, like his ears were blocked and then it comes at him and the citizens of the SFD full blast. The surreal wave is denser than water but without the wet particles, just a heavy air that one also feels buoyant in. Johnny feels the beat as shockwaves from the bass penetrate the liquid atmos like torpedoes shooting off in all directions. The good vibration that spreads from the shooting effect leaves smiles on the faces of everyone in its path.
The fecklessness of the scene Johnny finds himself caught in is contagious as elements of his past float by him like a montage of mayhem. Tender moments few and far between the chaos that he is one of the instigators of bring a tear to the eye of the entity who ensured that the line between decency and what's corrupt was never blurred. Maybe it was his ability to stay incorruptible that was one of the reasons why he was so unpopular with some of the powers that be, who also knew the value of having the cut-throat-creative near, just in case they lost control of their own game.
The catchy tune, which has the SenFenide Dimension in a grip, anachronizes the events taking place and gives everyone a view of the reason for the avalanche of emotion. Johnny looks up into the blue of the second horizon at the acts of heroism and selflessness, his show reel running for the masses to witness the real reason why one man holds their interest after having captured their imagination….
Lazoo looks around the stadium, white light flashes running the circumference of the upper deck of the arena. Then, there's darkness followed by speckles of flashes from cameras trying to capture the moment in the mooted mood in anticipation of the main act, one of the biggest bands in history.
Lazoo lifts his right foot by bending his knee as he stands with his arms folded. He can feel the holster and then the silver revolver strapped to the outside of his right leg. Meanwhile, he holds the piece under his arm through the slit under the arm of his three-quarter coat. Genisis, who rests her head on his chest, has both arms around John James Lazoo's waist as if she is still worried that he might want to go off somewhere. She has her eyes closed like the sound of his heart beat is soothing. Missy smiles at Lazoo, making him take his hand off the weapon and put it around Genisis who opens her eyes and smiles at Missy. "He should be here soon," Missy says to Genisis. For whatever reason, Missy feels nervous. Hemis hadn't returned her call. "He was up all night, Missy," Lazoo offers Missy a reason as to why Hemis hadn't called, on cue as usual. "I'm okay, he's only a co-star," Missy slips into character making Lazoo and Genisis laugh as they look at each other….
Genisis pulls her short skirt down as she feels air circumnavigate the airs of her personality. Vegas is decadent and pleasurable. Her peach apricot lipstick shines like her eye shadow as her white teeth gleam in the black light. Her head spins in the dizzying lights of the magnificent marquees and monuments to the wonders of the world that line the strip. Danielle is as equally excited under the bright lights. Tomorrow, there will be walk-on parts for a U2 video being shot here in Vegas but, tonight, the girls from upstate New York will live recklessly as they decide to stay at the dive hotel, which was Genisis' idea, and the trade-off for Danielle was to spend the money wired to them by their parents for an upgrade to a better hotel for a night out on the town. Up ahead in the distance is the crazy guy from across the hall, John Page, dressed as a Pirate.
Music from another dimension orbits the MMD, or the MindMorph Dimension…traffic lights across the planet go haywire, Orange, Green, Red, and then Green, Green, Green…John Page stands in the middle of the road. He looks like a vagrant, homeless, crazy and oblivious to responsibility, which couldn't be further from the truth.
"Told you he was a nutcase," Genisis laughs as Danielle, who clearly has a weakness for bad boys, becomes more intrigued with John Page who stands in the middle of the road. The Pirate points up at the traffic lights on the boulevard….Page bows his head, his arm raised to point at the traffic lights. All lights at the crossroads intersection are red not that anyone would notice. Inside the limo that faces him on Las Vegas Boulevard are Metofeaz, Tone Horroh, Hannibal Ammer and Mr Businessman. The music in John Page's head sings the praises of Mick Jagger….
Inside the limo, the mood is cordial. "He's a good kid. Even if he doesn't play the part of Lazoo, there's other work we can have him do…" Metofeaz puts in a good word for his kid brother. "He's older than James by minutes. It shows. Evolution is obvious," Ammer, an underling at the CIA, adds his two cents worth, at which Mr Businessman, the boss as far as Metofeaz is concerned, frowns, "Janine's boys are equal. James is the preferred option for his psychic ability of course. But Johnny is just as valuable to us…."
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday October 5th 2012
Stream of Consciousness is when the shell and entity merge. They say it creates a cognitive engine that stems the dimensions; its gears are made up of awareness, unconscious when in the SFD and conscious when behind the second horizon in the MMD.
Johnny stretches his neck muscles left and right and then he squares his shoulders, enthusiastic about his prospects and the future. Neon Strip, the place he's heard all about is as vibrant as the cross dimensional advertising he's seen, like the one that wipes across the sky. The guy who has just stepped off the light train has a tear in his eye that escapes before dropping to the ground. On hitting the ground the tear splashes, forming dozens of globes with different adventures that spin around the guy who looks like Johnny. The guy snatches one of the adventures and then the slogan appears "Nitro-Dini". The slogan is personalised for the tourist and so Johnny, who is still somewhat conscious, makes a mental note that it's someone else's ambition or devotion and not his.
Within the next respite, the entity is hit with the equivalent of a blow from someone angry, lashing out in fear of his or her life. Johnny tries shaking the knock off but it comes again, and again, till he relaxes himself. Unsure if anyone noticed the episode, he straightens himself and takes a look around. He then squares his shoulders and once more he looks forward to his bright future. No sooner had he made the decision to relax and let his destiny guide him to where he will attain his aspirations and hope, he feels a sense of relief come over him. The calmness gives Johnny composure, as in the sky he sees the beginning of someone's ad. The guy who looks like him walks down the Neon Strip, looking as if he's on a mission. The music that plays surrounds the dimension in a cocoon of happiness, sweeping the citizens up in a flood of goodwill that warms their hearts. Johnny takes another look around him and likes what he sees, causing him to forget about the guy in the ad in the sky for now….
Missy checks her Ne0—TeleWorld Silver. The sleek pearl device cannot give her what she wants right now and that is news of Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien and his whereabouts. So, she does what she normally does, and goes into her secret stash of sad Whitney Houston love songs, which no one would suspect her of keeping from looking at her. The molecular gun that Darwin could not dispute, the enzyme of emotion, Love, seeps into the scene, "nitro-dini". Missy hears a message from one of her favourite characters in the SenFenide Dimension, the place where she will hopefully escape to tonight.
She quickly browses her Sliver's Show Reel for the alias of her rainy day music in aide of her sudden reaction to Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien who she barely knows. Anything right now will do as Missy begins to panic, sensing the imminent hum of the F3quenZor, another one of Missy's happy devices when her world feels like it's about to turn to custard, so to speak. "Ah," Missy sighs as she finds the app with her favourite chick songs. She dons her headphones and then she clicks play as she lets her heart sink into the oblivion of new love, carried there on the alms of Whitney's voice….
John Page, a thinker, who belies what he's known for as being excitable and unpredictable, believes that destiny follows hope, as fate heeds fear….
Headlights facing him in all four directions outnumber his aspirations, most of which nurtured by Jon Pierre Solomon, the only father he knew of, and Feeaz his older brother. Inside the vehicle with the only headlights that matter right now is Mr Businessman who wants to see his act of cascading the traffic lights. In reality, he wants to see what happens when Page gets hauled away in a cop car, and which way Page chooses to go after that, whether it's to the pen for outstanding warrants for the Pirate, or to the sanatorium where Page will set up for his next mission as lab rat for a pharmaceutical. Right now though, it's the coveted part of John James Lazoo, as in Little Lazoo from the Poet Soldier's POEMBOOK and STORYBOOK all grown up that Page is after.
Inertia sets in as Page's brain scans the frequencies on the F3quenZor a telepathic relay looking for the nodes he needs to connect to. Careful not to hook into a dormant node or entity which might lead to disaster when the entity finds a shell, Page sends a signal to the end point, and then he waits for an altered response to confirm that his message hadn't just bounced off an entity without a shell or body.
The traffic lights remain on red. The motionless state of affairs which contrasts the location, an intersection on Las Vegas Boulevard on a weekend night at around ten-thirty pm, couldn't have offered up a better audition for John Page. To add to the hubbub, a crowd has started to gather. Off in the distance, Page can hear the news helicopter as it leaves a helipad on the roof of one of the towers along the strip.
On the pavement, safe from the headlights and the horns that now begin to sound the people's frustration as the lights remain red, are Genisis and Danielle. Genisis doesn't laugh or mock the crazy guy dressed as Pirate who stands in the centre of the intersection, for some reason unbeknown to her. Maybe it's the "theme song" for the scene as it were, that plays in the background, romanticising the whole thing, making her forget that she knows the person that the flashing lights in the distance are coming for. Genisis won't forget the first time she witnessed LMLA-ink cascade the traffic lights. No one ever does….
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday October 7th 2012
Johnny once again finds himself at the lip of new life and his haunting past which looms from an ever-changing alley behind him. Moments before, Station Alley was an optimists' platter and now its grave shadows are deep, casting doubt on Johnny's future. Across the line he looks down on, there is adventure to be had and entertainment in all forms. The giant leap is but a single step over the imaginary line and into the future as determined by whoever is brave enough to venture into the light.
Johnny looks to his right and sees The Raven Tavern, a haven for his kind. The doors to the place swing in the wind, indiscriminately. He makes a beeline for the swinging doors before the shadows in the alley catch up with him…..
Hemis looks across the table covered with a checkered blue tablecloth made of shiny plastic. It's a copy of the one that covered the table on that night when John Lazoo first gazed into Genisis Jones' eyes on their first date. The table cloth is now stylised and all the tables have the exact same covering, candle holder, and utensils in the restaurant now owned by Jon Le Mac, unlike the clashing incongruity of the décor on John Lazoo and Genisis Jones' first date, eight years ago in '97.
Hemis looks down at his Ne0—TeleWorld Black Box which was delivered today compliments of LMLA-ink. Hemis has somehow managed to make the device he holds down by his side stop from jumping like a fish out of water when someone calls or texts. Missy's last text was twenty-four hours ago. Since then he's had to contend with his ex announcing that she's staying with Hemis. He couldn't sleep last night from having to share his bed with his ex who smiles at him. "I just knew it! That we were meant for each other…this proves it, you bringing me here where Genisis and John had their first magical date…" His ex is definitely in denial as far as Hemis is concerned. For a start, she made the booking; secondly, she's paying for the ordeal on her daddy's credit card. Hemis manages a smile after pitying her for as long as he could, hoping he could find something nice to say to his ex.
John Page's soul, the essence of someone or their being, re-enters the body that Pirate is in. Page knows the feeling, having been through the process a few times already since coming to Nevada to find his entity in the desert and for the audition. The number of entities fleeing and finding new shells or bodies to inhabit outnumbers the bright lights of the gambling capital of the world. The colliding spirits in the air make the atmos thick with activity, as if the smog and pollution weren't already enough. For those susceptible to inhabitations, especially in locations close to the Nevada desert, the landing pad for entities from other dimensions, it can be a chaotic time. Page can see the helicopters in the sky, their search lights find him as he hears them. A little stunned by the attention he's received in Vegas, unlike on the streets of New York where the crew could find a street corner, which they can easily pack out with people—friends, champions for the cause and their friends—within minutes to impress someone like Mr Businessman, Page has already made his mind up that he will die for the cause. Maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, but he will, and his next move will be to take the mission offered to him by a pharmaceutical company to acquire samples of a new wonder drug being developed by a rival company. He will get himself into the funny farm on the outskirts of town, where patients, unbeknown to them, are guinea pigs in the final stages of the testing of the new wonder drug for depression….
"Anarchy! Dude," someone in the crowd shouts. Page places a hand over his eyes to shield his vision from the helicopter lights that hover above him. In his peripheral vision, Page sees the pavement lined with tourists, players here to take on the odds, some with a plan, and others with a method or system to beat the odds, and the rest here just to enjoy the Oasis from a sombre reality. She stands out like a lighthouse, Genisis Jones. Her importance to the cause must be immense. A girl from the middle class without links to the Network that can be traced as far back as 9 AD, which must mean her presence has something to do with the future of the Network, a secret sect that connects the New World Order with Intelligence communities and the Underworld. Page smiles for the person who shouted out Anarchy as Page confirms for himself that there isn't such a thing as a political system… and all that we have is land, resources and those who try their best to be the boss of it… within that battle, manifestos are created and those who prescribe to them…creating falsehood to occupy the masses with an allusion that they have a say….
John Page sees the blue and red lights weaving their way through the calamity of halted cars. They say a true mastermind does not need a watch, that his heart and mind have the plan saved from the time it is hatched….
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday October 9th 2012
Johnny stands at the doors of The Raven Tavern. Inside he can see that it's festive season. A mercenary of sorts, a vocation that Johnny fell into at a young age and has come to terms with, Johnny bows his head in fear of an enemy noticing him as he pushes the saloon door back and enters into the milieu of inequity.
Another one of the 'unwashed' is sucked up against the wall of screaming souls, a cairn or hall of fame in these parts. The latest one to be thrown at the wall sails through the air wailing in self-pity before he lands on top of his pal with a splat that drowns out his friend's misery. Johnny keeps to the outskirts of the ring made of sorry souls all waging bets on the outcome of a fight between a local and a cross dimensional traveller. Johnny recognises one of his own when he sees one. Always up for a game, especially when there's a wager and a pretty lady to witness the outcome that he will have sewn up already somehow, which his audience and opponent are oblivious to….
Hemis takes hold of Missy's hands around his face as thoughts of his ex, sitting in the auditorium ruin the moment. "Cut!" Lazoo calls, but Missy is still lost in their first kiss in the play about the play, or the story about the story… Finally Missy's lips detach themselves, and then she opens her eyes before she lets Hemis take her hands from his face which he obviously doesn't want to do. Footsteps belonging to his ex sound promising, but then they both realise that they're heading for the stage. "Damn it!" Hemis almost sounds disappointed. He thought the kiss would do the trick and put the ex off.
"That was great, but…." his ex's voice is disturbing at the best of times, as it comes closer. "She's coming up here," Missy whispers, also too scared to look. "Why did you bring her?" Missy stresses. "She had nowhere else to go." Hemis is equally stressed. "Why didn't you drop her off at the animal shelter, or something?" Missy makes sure that Hemis knows she doesn't like his ex around…..
Genisis Jones, who hails from "New York State, the place where Pink Ladies sprout up in your dreams…." stands out in the crowd gathered on the sidewalk even though the helicopter's spotlight is on John Page who stands his ground as police on foot arrive. Page has more important things to tend to right now than the relevance of a girl in all of this. He senses that it's time to cascade the traffic lights for a member of the CIA, letting him know that Page has the connections and the brass to carry off just about any job. Page looks at the limo, and then at the lights as the officers step down on the road.
Inside the limo, "You look into this," Mr Businessman looks at Ammer. "He's about to do it," Metofeaz is as nervous as ever as he sees the cops arrive. "Cheap and nasty I say." Tone Horroh's comment irks Litigatti. "Step outside, if you're not onside, will ya." Metofeaz let's Horroh know what he thinks of his negativity.
In the crowd, Genisis watches as she witnesses the cascading of the lights for the first time. The significance of the stunt is about hacking into the system, but in the most passive show of defiance possible, John Page raises his arm and points at the lights. The police closing in on Page also look at the lights that turn Orange, Green, Red, and then Green Green Green….
The success of the stunt can be measured by the crowd reaction. Genisis looks around at the cheering crowd and then at the cars with flashing headlights and blasting horns, which go back from the lights in all directions as far as she can see.
Meanwhile, the look on Page's face is calm as he's wrestled to the ground and cuffed....
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday October 10th 2012
Johnny circumnavigates the turbulence in the centre of the room. Onstage, Psy from the MMD, a dancing mutant whose hands flap like a bird, while he appears to be riding a four legged mammal of some kind, plays emotional techno in the form of GANGNAM. Johnny makes it to the end of the bar, so he can see all the way down it. Bar flies hang on for dear life as all sorts of creatures, mutated and barely recognisable, lounge around making any outcast feel at home. Last time he was here, Johnny recalls meeting a covetable woman behind the bar, who showed him attention. Johnny surveys the patrons for bounty hunters. He sees that nothing much has changed. The vampires do not speak to their prey, and the glory hunters do not converse with their bounty, and the tourists are naive to the fact that the predators will devour them outside the walls of Raven Tavern, and the bounty hunters will maim a visitor for reward.
Hemis hangs his head as he walks hand in hand with his ex back to his loft that resembles a glass gun tower in the heart of Hell's Kitchen. Lazoo had called off the rehearsal when Hemis' ex insisted that she show Hemis and Missy how it's done—Kissing Passionately—with Lazoo, to which Hemis wasn't sure what to say. When Lazoo asked Hemis what he thought of his ex-girlfriend wanting to demonstrate passionate kissing with the director of the play that he was the lead in and Hemis had shrugged his shoulders, that was apophasis: Denial of one's intention to speak of a subject that is at the same time named or insinuated, as "I shall not mention Caesar's avarice, nor his cunning, nor his morality," the situation reminded him of this quotation and it resonated with Hemis. Thinking back, Hemis wants to laugh at the situation and his ex, which is better than wishing she would get nailed to the wall of screaming souls in Raven Tavern.
"What, the freak's a FREE-QUENZOR?" The detective's southern accent is so pronounced it almost sounds like a fake one. Page looks down at the table on which there's a pack of smokes which the good cop, who had already left, brought in. The bad cop's gifts are the coffee and donuts. "You're the bad one, ah? And I mean that with the utmost!" Page raises a finger in the air, "I mean the UTMOST Respect," Page continues to hold the floor as he takes a glimpse at the two-way mirror and then he carries on with another monologue to kill the time as he waits to see how his audition went, "It takes time on a journey that never ends. But soon you will come to a place where you are able to lead the way as opposed to following… this is when the innate and authentic take control and become what I refer to as an established node, capable of receiving data on the F3quenZor…" Page pauses again to see whether the bad cop is the dux or dunce of the combo. He has a look that says he's listening for clues and watching Page's mannerisms, meaning he's the smart one merely acting bad. Or is he just a bad actor?
No sooner had John finished his assessment of the officer questioning him, Hannibal Ammer shows up. He's shown in by the supposed good cop, who signals for his partner to leave the room, leaving Ammer and John Page the Pirate alone in the room.
Ammer is not the most agreeable of characters and gets by on being deceitful and slimy. Lax and unsure of himself, Hannibal is a liability which makes him the perfect lackey. Page knows the story of Hannibal well. The latest Hannibal Ammer is in keeping with previous versions, or incarnations of the character as it were, which is how Network operatives are taught to view one another. The previous Ammer was decommissioned in '65 by the previous John Page, making the first meeting between the incumbents all the more intriguing…..
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday October 11th 2012
Johnny can smell her perfume as she comes closer…and then some barfly snares her attention, leaving Johnny hanging. His selective recall, something that allows Johnny's kind to carry on living with themselves, allows him to remember the scent she is wearing and who she is. Focusing on certain memories help an entity and shell in becoming congruent during transmutation, which is part of the AmalgaMension process. Johnny hears the barmaid appease a barfly, who thinks he and the barmaid have something from the way he becomes possessive and aggressive towards her. Johnny looks the other way, wishing not to hear anything further lest it annoys him. The mere fact that Johnny was worried about what he might feel if the barfly offended her concerns him somewhat, as Johnny tries to stay positive about the barmaid who obviously has something to do with how this leg of the story will unfold.
Missy lays listless, lost in some warp she is loathed to admit is anything more than a mad crush on one's co-star. What bothers her more is her omniscient view of Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien, who appears to be trouble now that another woman has transpired. Missy is concerned how she was led to believe that Hemis was open to exclusive intimacy with her and then out of the blue, a beau from nowhere, or somewhere back Midwest, appears like an elegy that sparks fear of its imminence. Missy tries recalling if she had feared another woman coming between her and Hemis and then a smile creeps across her face as she catches herself out and how ridiculous she is being about the whole situation. She and Hemis were not an item and the likelihood of that happening was more remote than the truth in whatever a male has to say….
Genisis looks into the margarita mocktail, and then at Danielle who shares the same dreary look as Genisis. What promised to be an eventful evening fell away to this, after the excitement of watching the Pirate bring the Vegas peak hour traffic to a halt. And then there was the climactic ending, when he was hauled off in a cop car after it took several police to contain Page who didn't really seem to be fighting their attempt to arrest him. It was like he was uncontainable, but not uncontrollable, or even threatening. It was more like he was boundless due to some deific power. Genisis, not religious but neither agnostic, finds herself assessing the situation in celestial terms. She dare not let her best friend Danielle know in what light she sees John Page, especially following Danielle's response to the recent dreams she'd been having. Page had more or less validated that the dreams were relevant when he vouched for them at the booth after Genisis has said "New York State, the place where Pink Ladies sprout up in your dreams?" Something that, at the time she wasn't sure why she had said it, seemed to work in getting them a room at the dive hotel but after that no one had said anything further about it.
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday October 15th 2012
Johnny waits patiently for the barmaid to arrive. Another barmaid, the one who serves the un-dead, looks down at where Johnny is singled out when he's ignored by the barmaid whose job it is to serve the living, or entities with shell or body. Johnny has an embarrassed look, which he makes a concerted effort to shrug off; looking around the bar as an act of defiance, which says he doesn't care. Everyone is united; from the vampiric, who cannot be seen in the bending mirrors that line one wall of the saloon, to the uncarnate entities, which the scorch fires that flare up from the floorboards expose as exuberant shadows on the ceiling, to the hard-faced vagabonds who would sooner slice you than smile at you for any currency…Johnny takes a step back from the bar as he finally feels outnumbered, not that any of them were about to attack. It was their knowing looks that stun him, causing him to do something, which maybe he should've done by now. Johnny finally takes his chance and looks at the woman's face to see whether it's her, the one he had fought for previously to win her hand….
Hemis lays wide awake in his loft apartment, which is barely bigger than the size of broom cupboard. The glass walls and roof allow the full moon and the stars to be the ceiling at which he gazes. Next to him, fast asleep, is his ex. Somewhere in the myriad of constellations above him is the map of his journey, which he knows Missy is a part of. The person next to him reminds Hemis of so much hurt and of his past. But he is too weak to tell her that it's over between them, instead he plays along in hope that she'll do what she did previously and take off with someone who'll show her some attention. Till such time, Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien, who has no male role model to speak of, will harbour all that he does, and shelter his aspirations from his ex, who thought he was a loser when they were together….
John Page enters the club, coked to his eyeballs. Hannibal wasn't that bad after all; a few grams of Charlie seemed to do the trick. They say an addict is the worst friend one can have, at least a liar knows when they're lying.
Metofeaz sees the look in his kid brother's eyes. The project, which began before Metofeaz was born, is a cruel and merciless one. The notion, or to be more accurate in the case at hand, an argument took place some years ago, whether it was nature or nurture that determines the success of an agent. John Page, the eldest of Janine Elton's twins, was left to his own devices and James Elton was given the opportunity to change the course of his journey at a very young age, when James bungled the chance offered to him by Mr Ghettis and he nearly killed Mr Ghettis when he ran the old man over with a plough in a cornfield in Wisconsin.
Metofeaz uses the F3quenZor to grab the Pirate's attention as Page spots Genisis Jones, a school girl, who the Network has identified as being in the .001 percent of the population. Page takes a moment to register that he's being communicated with telepathically. Genisis proves she is who she is when she turns and finds the booth in the corner where Litigatti and Tone Horroh are seated watching her and the Pirate who's now making his way to the back of the club….
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday October 16th 2012
Johnny looks away as doubt plunders all hope that she was the one that he had fought so hard in the different shells to catch up to. The sound of the light train piercing the second horizon as it arrives at the station in the sky takes precedent for the moment over Johnny's dilemma, which he is positive everyone is privy to more than he'd like. Within the walls of The Raven Tavern, all beings, with or without shell, are equal. Gravity defines which direction an object moves in accordance with applied force, or magnetism, at the core of a liaison whether it be dynamic or whether it is of opposing forces. Johnny begins to second guess the physical memory in the sinew of flesh and bone that houses his soul. He begins to walk the bar looking for proof of a conspiracy, arbitrarily swatting whatever is in his path as he waits for someone to offer up information in fear of being the next to be whacked….
Hemis sits in the backseat of the BMW, behind Genisis Jones, who he can see in the side mirror. Lazoo drives like an old lady almost, a happy one who lets every car in in front of him from the side streets. Next to Hemis is his ex, who jumped at the chance to take a road trip back to Wisconsin where she'd just come from. On the other side of his ex is Missy who has been texting Hemis nonstop since they picked him and the ex up for the road trip back to his home town. For Lazoo, it will be his first trip back to the cottage he last saw on the eve of his ninth birthday over twenty-five years ago. He'd been back to the town itself when he was sixteen years old, only to be arrested for bank robbery within twenty-four hours of arriving there, but he hadn't been back to the cottage on Mr Ghettis' quarter acre since he was a child. "Research! That's what this is about," Lazoo says as he finds Hemis in the rear vision mirror and then Missy, leaving the ex feeling left out, to which she recovers well, by asking Lazoo, "Do we have music?"
Genisis spots the Pirate in the crowd and then, when he sees her, he suddenly turns and starts walking to the back of the club. It looks like he's going to where two men Genisis recognises from the hotel are seated. It dawns on Genisis how alike all three males look once they're all in the same frame. The one with the perfect smile looks like he and Page are quite close, and the third one seems standoffish towards Page. It's not until the one with the nice smile, who has a hopeful look, says something that Page and the gruff looking one shake hands. "Brothers?" Danielle's question surprises Genisis. "No, rather, clones," Genisis tries making her comment sound like a throwaway line like she does when she combats Danielle's sarcasm. Genisis senses Danielle's annoyance in her remark and looks away like she has no interest in the Pirate and his two friends, getting one up on her friend….
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday October 18th 2012
Long in limbo
Long in limbo Spilling thrilling In distillable speaking When if, and if when Consequentially Hypothetically Indescribably Still As again I try In the sun And in the rain If there were some snow Would most likely, Be in there also In wind Making May Be Is Will! Curly, Wurly, Bits Bitten and chewed upon Cursive and creatively Seemingly simplistic A Tantric episode All on his own With nothing to bare And then Once all has been Shared, sheared And therefore Shaved With nothing To Save
"Long in limbo / Spilling thrilling…" Johnny says the words into the face of the cowering individual he's decided to pick on next. He spits the words, venomous and with intent in the face of a cross-dimensional courier who called into Raven Tavern for quiet ale and was about to leave when Johnny appeared to have lost the plot. "Please, Mr Shawshank, I have a family waiting for me in the Subterranea of the AMD." The courier hopes that admitting he and his family are rebels would appeal to Johnny's softer side, but he too is treated with disdain as Johnny continues to wage his fury on the unsuspecting patrons inside the war-free zone. As Johnny discards the courier, he finds another to terrorise, and he now begins to scream the Poet Soldier's work at the top of his lungs. Veins bulge in Johnny's forehead and neck; his face redder than the protruding blood as he uses another's words to express his plight, "In distillable speaking / When if, and if when / Consequentially / Hypothetically / Indescribably / Still!"
Hemis gingerly takes over from Lazoo, looking at him in the rear view mirror to continue on from where he left off in "Long in limbo," a poem written by Jon Pierre Solomon, the Poet Soldier. "As again / I try / In the sun /And in the rain / If there were some snow / Would most likely, Be in there also…"
"It's all about commitment and dedication to something," Lazoo cuts in as he explains what the poem is about. "Long periods in isolation serve two purposes. One, you get to know yourself, and two, you come to understand your values, intrinsically… Carry on," Lazoo looks to Missy to continue with the poem.
"In wind / Making / May / Be / Is Will!" Missy recites the work like it was her own, "Curly, Wurly, Bits / Bitten and chewed upon / Cursive and creatively / Seemingly simplistic / A Tantric episode / All on his own / With nothing to bare…."
Drumming as tyres hit speed bumps when the car crosses lanes on the freeway add backing to the words that sink deep into the minds of those who doze in the late autumn sun….
"And then Once all has been / Shared, sheared / And therefore / Shaved / With nothing / To / Save…" Tone Horroh, who can be eloquent, makes Jon Pierre Solomon's words his own, while keeping a hold of Page's hand as if to make a statement.
Page bites his tongue as thoughts of a Liverpool kiss crosses his mind on hearing Tone Horroh take the Poet Soldier's words in vain.
Metofeaz's fears were well founded when he spoke out against the appointment of someone in the US to play the role of John Reyer, who Jon Pierre Solomon the Poet Soldier had personally recruited to head up the crew of misfits when JRA was still a boy of only five years old.
"Long in Limbo, written when JPS was holed up in a safe house for more than three years…" John Page gets possessive of the old man and his work, only for Horroh, an imposter as far as Page is concerned, to retort, "Written about Rozelle, or Janine?" Tone has a smirk on his face that Page would dearly love to wipe with his fist. "Written down under. From the line 'If there were some snow / Would most likely, Be in there also,' he was holed up somewhere where there was no snow, and we all know he never set foot in Africa."
"Is she part of the game?" Metofeaz changes the subject when he asks Page and Tone Horroh a question. "The girl wearing the I Love U2 badge at the bar." Metofeaz takes a drink as if to cover his face. Tone Horroh takes a look as Page considers his answer and Genisis Jones' safety….
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday November 2nd 2012
Imogen, an entity with entitlement, drops through the atmos like a stone destined to find its place in the story about the story being written. The glass train pulling into the station in the sky's glow recognises the entity against the backdrop of the tall buildings that line Station Alley. Imogen pierces the glass train, sending ripples in all directions that wrinkle the seamless matter that takes on many forms, depending on its transporter process. Inside the carriage, souls and soft tissue amass confidence as they find each other for the journey into the Dream Dimension. Imogen scours the talent for a shell to inhabit before she decides to be patient and give the spirit she's been taken by the opportunity to combine with whomever it wants. Imogen leaves the train as those inside it fall into euphoria from having connected spirit and sinew….
Outside in Station Alley, she finds the bronze statutes of Imager and Bella sitting in a cove at the waters edge. Imager was the designer and dressmaker whose body Imogen inhabited on her last visit to the SenFenide Dimension. Bella was an orphan who Johnny Shawshank tried saving. The mission failed when somehow Johnny failed to bring all three of them together. Harry Clarenta, a dictator of the SFD, made sure that whatever story Johnny found himself in, with the aim of making Imogen his own so he, Bella and Imogen could be a family, turned into tragedy for Johnny.
Missy leans on the car parked outside a diner on the outskirts of Toledo Ohio. She can see John, Genisis, Hemis and his ex girlfriend in the window of the diner. From where Missy stands, she can apply a story to the seemingly cordial scene in which Hemis' ex takes the role of Genisis from Missy based on the moment they're sharing in the diner, right in front of Missy's eyes.
Inside the diner on the side of the highway, where the Greyhound bus Lazoo was on after he was released from prison at the age of twenty-one stopped at, Hemis feels like he's getting to know the Illiterate Poet as James Elton was cast. His ex has stopped pestering Hemis, in which has lightened the load Hemis was carrying. Outside, Missy, who could well be Hemis' soul mate, stands alone in the afternoon sun like a statue on the side of the highway. Her demure pandering to Hemis' need for humility set her aside from other girls Hemis had met. The mere fact that she does not mind sharing Hemis' attentions at all says she is confident far beyond her years….
Page doesn't feel like wasting another breath on Tone Horroh, a known hit man from LA who Hannibal Ammer has recruited. But if the truth be known, Tone's also a chip off the old block, only nasty, with a penchant for the macabre, which Horroh markets as a brand of vigilantism that he's managed to sell to some powerful sponsors who call on Tone when they're in a bind. The same backers throw Horroh victims, mostly paedophiles who Horroh feeds on to satisfy his hunger for Morbid Mayhem as it's known in the Network. Every so often, someone's address and phone number, whose crime and profile is so nondescript that having a number would bless the poor soul, turns up in Tone's in-tray for him to off, no questions asked.
Page does what he has to in the savage world he lives in and that is to let Tone know that, if it came down to it, he would have no hesitation in taking Horroh's life, just as Page knows Horroh would not lose a wink of sleep in reverse.
"You're so cocky you have no one watching your back. See the blonde at the bar?" Page says to Horroh and then he waits for Horroh's response. If he looks at Genisis, it means that he's angry with Page for his disrespect. If he ignores what Page is saying and keeps staring with the same blood red look in his eyes, then he's just angry and Page in his Pirate costume from a fancy dress outlet is about to be the unlucky recipient of Horroh's wrath…..
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday November 9th 2012
"The New Global Realm"
Johnny senses the rumble in the foundations of the Dimension before the realm of the surreal is summoned to life by one mere mortal and their aspirations behind the second horizon. The strewn shells that litter the floor of the saloon—Raven Tavern—show signs of life as they check their jaws and limbs for broken bones. Johnny almost feels guilty for the pent up anger he expressed blindly. The shaking foundations remind everyone that a REPRO hasn't yet begun, or the scene that they're in is merely someone's fleeting imagination. The quaking subsides and a buzz begins to reverberate. Starting inside the bar, it spreads out onto the strip and soon it grips the forgotten planet, giving everyone a sense of direction and new hope. The place is shoulder to shoulder and continuing to fill by the second as those who were nailed to the wall of screaming souls straighten themselves out after being freed. Johnny notices a face peering in over the saloon doors; he looks to see who the inquisitive eyes are focused on and sees it's the barmaid. The moaning of many as they breathe for themselves, not clinging to some source that saps life from them to keep itself alive, redistributing a limited supply to its sucklings, kvetching for life or death, whichever hears them first, is at first a seeping noise that gathers momentum till it's a gush or impassioned wave of exultation…Johnny takes a second to collect his senses…amidst the conundrum of elation and freedom being handed out by someone behind the divide, Johnny hears words being spoken in private between two people….
"Make sure you're connected…." Lazoo points at the wall of maize; a would-be curtain if this were a fantasy story. Hemis is already adrift on Lazoo the illiterate poet's voice. Rows of attentive maize sway reverently in the breeze, incessant change; jilted dark rolling clouds that append themselves to the right of the horizon catches Hemis' attention. Inside the car, the three women watch as Lazoo introduces Hemis to the field where it happened. The place where James Elton's story took an oblique turn for the worse. Hemis feels the growl from the universe—a rumbling sound—that turns into a deep pounding bass; resonating with hairs on the back of his neck, for sensing danger, or excitement unheard of, unheralded and that no one would expect to happen on the road's edge on the outskirts of Wisconsin.
"Are you okay, son?" The voice sounds familiar, but Hemis cannot put his finger on who the voice belongs to. To confuse matters further, Lazoo places an arm around him. Hemis looks to his right to see John James Lazoo the Maestro with his bright gleaming smile, the one that says "Just smile for the camera, and you'll be fine…." Hemis' head begins to spin from the weight, as the equilibrium floods one side of his head. "Fuck!" Hemis manages to blurt out; unsure of how loud he should or shouldn't shout….
John Page, Tone Horroh, and Metofeaz Litigatti look at each other… three of them seated in the backseat of a 65 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. In the driver's seat is Jon Le Mac. Out from the haze of the Vegas lights, and in full flight through the Nevada desert night, which still harbours heat, there's only one the thing that stands between LMLA-ink and the heavens behind the thin veneer of sky—the bass—on the stereo. The music is from the future and it talks about an age or time when every man alive on the planet has the opportunity to reach out to someone, and connect with them regardless of location, race, colour or creed.
"The New Global Realm, gentlemen," Jon Le Mac from the West Coast, an associate of Tone Horroh announces the mission that they've been called to deliver. "The fall of the Berlin Wall will be a precursor to the greatest man-made organism in history the New Global Realm. The commercialisation of what's commonly known as the internet…" Le Mac eyes the vagabond Pirate, the sniper and smiling assassin, and Horroh, the hitman in the backseat.
"The New Global Realm is the precursor, pretext and platform for D-Commodity, or Data Commodity, which will replace oil, as the natural resource, most wanted…." Metofeaz looks to his left at Page and then to his right at Tone.
"When will this happen?" Le Mac asks a rhetorical sounding question, which Metofeaz answers. "Within five years, sometime in the early nineties. The Guy will win the trust of those in the clandestine trade, whom the powers that be rely upon for information. Having done so, he would've proved Mr. Businessman to be right in hiring us…."
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday November 23rd 2012
"I still haven't found what I'm looking for"
Johnny follows the path that opens up for him as people spill out onto Neon Strip. The quaking had stopped and the people were eager to see who the stars of the new REPRO were. Johnny quickly notices a track to an open door as he contemplates not being one of the stars of the REPRO who people begin to become excited about. His heart quickens and he is thankful for a pulse. But then the normally reserved entity reminds himself that, in the case of him being one of the lead characters in the REPRO, he'd better bring any anxiety or disquiet from wanting to know if he is the star of the show under control or he may be replaced in the next breath by the owner of the story about the story being told.
A plethora of thoughts, maybe fluent fluid, flood one side of Johnny's skull. The pantheon of ideals and vision become blurred with turmoil and chaos for a flash, suggesting indecision and wavering hopes of many somewhere, who somehow invested faith in a no hoper…. Johnny, disenchanted, ponders perilously; if he is indeed one of the main characters of the REPRO that has begun, and whether he is the protagonist or the other. This is the burning question on Johnny's mind as he enters into the open door of the only house on the strip. Johnny realises that it's the only house on Neon Strip as he sets foot inside the wooden cottage, buried deep in and amongst the high rises and glamorous temples clamouring for status on the neckline of the Neon City, the jewel of the Dream Dimension.
"Is that you honey?" Johnny hears the voice call out, and within the time it takes the secret agent to decide whether he will play or be played, Johnny reconciles all doubt and answers, "I'm home honey…"
"What are they doing?" Missy asks as they watch Lazoo enter into the maze field. "John wants to show Hemis that the story is real and not some fable…" Genisis says as she watches Lazoo disappear into the maze with Hemis following behind him.
"Still haven't found what I'm looking for," the DJ on the radio announces the U2 classic. Dark clouds roll over the field. Rain drops mark the body of the car parked on the side of the Wisconsin road with the driver's door open with a trail from it to a parting in the cornfield. Genisis sees the back of her man as he vanishes into the field where he was arrested as a nine year old boy.
Hemis looks for an answer as to why Lazoo, a known disciplinarian would be leading him into a corn field. Images of blood splattered designs on maize sheaths panic the kid for a moment. "Ease up, I just want to show you the spot where it happened." Lazoo's mocking tone doesn't help. Such was Lazoo's reputation that Missy, Genisis and the ex in the car watching them vanish into the field does not alleviate the anxiety attached to entering the maize with a suspected mass murderer and confirmed master in the art of coercion.
"Hear that?" Lazoo's question awakes Hemis from his fearful state. The music was encompassing, not necessarily loud, but it was like they were swimming in it. Or, that's how it felt to Hemis at least. Hemis cuts the sound with his hand as if he was aiming to drag himself forward like a swimmer in the swelling ambience that surrounds them. "U2, Still haven't found what I'm looking for," Hemis smiles as he experiences what he's only heard of the—F3quenZor. The F3quenZor is a telepathic relay, gifted to the blessed ones, and only accessible by those lucky enough to meet up with one of the 3 pillars of the F3quenZor who are able to anoint a node giving them access to the private communication network reserved for physics with a particular purpose in life here in the MMD, or MindMorph Dimension. John James Lazoo, one of those entities with entitlement who is able to bestow permission for one to access the F3quenZor, has a warm smile as he pulls back the maize to show Hemis a scene from the past….
The Guy who had seen the members of the band up close a few years back in a club in his home town of Wellington, New Zealand, still gets the jitters, a mix of anxiousness as he awaits the move to go down, the one he's flown in to witness. Across the street, are the probables for LMLA-ink which includes a stand-in for himself, in the form of Tone Horroh dressed as a ranch hand with a moustache, making him look Mexican. Next to Horroh is Jon Le Mac, who reminds one of a more compact Denzel Washington. Then Page the Pirate and Metofeaz Litigatti dressed in sleek black. Genisis Jones, a school girl, will walk up to Bono any moment now with a particular document which the lead singer of the greatest rock band in the world will sign. The act, which has taken nearly twelve months to coordinate, is pivotal to the movement starting to sweep the Network. Inroads had been made by the young blood installed recently, none more influential than the kid from nowhere, or The Guy, also known as John Reyer seated in back seat of the limo watching the action, part of the filming of U2's video for their soon to be smash hit album the "The Joshua Tree".
"Drink?" Mr Businessman sounds more nervous than he lets on. The sheik, who sits facing The Guy, has a condescending smirk on his face as he holds his glass out for Mr Businessman to pour him a drink. "Here," The Guy asks for the bottle, snatching it from Mr Businessman and takes a swig from the bottle…..
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday November 26th 2012
"Girl On Fire"
Imogen looks out the window…drums that pound deeply sound out the beginning of a REPRO. The spellbinding rhythm that shakes the foundations of her tiny cottage stirs emotion deep within, showering the thick-skinned person with an outpouring of imagination that embarrasses the woman who wishes least of all the citizens of the Dream Dimension. A smile covers her lips for a moment, and then she irons out the fantastical thought that she was a lead character in the REPRO. The fact is, as a citizen of the SFD, she has a part to play in the engrossing story and, for that, she should be thankful. Anything more, like a featured part, would be a bonus for the single parent who recently met someone, whose footsteps they might be coming up the path to her house. Imogen had met Johnny at Raven Tavern where she works after dark to pay the rent. Johnny, a free spirit and a kindred one but a man nonetheless, seemed kind enough and had received high praise from Bella, her daughter, which was a relief for Imogen.
"Mommy! Johnny's home!" The delight in Bella's voice warms the mother's heart. The smile on Imogen's face is sustained as her daughter, who is old enough to begin school, begins to sing the words of the song surrounding the dimension in a liquefied atmos that suspends smiles for longer and intensifies all emotion to a point of disbelief….
Missy checks the calendar on her iPad, September 4th 2012. The txt from her older sister Lina, better known as Polina Rada, the Princess of the New Global Realm, wishes Missy good luck for her role in GUIOPERA V "The LOOK of LOVE" LAZOO II.
"JRA will see you right. He may be the Cut-Throat-Creative but he has a heart—LINA <3"
Missy Lévon feels the pressure normally reserved for Polina as text messages from the rest of the crew arrive. The next virtual bouquet is from Jon Le Mac who has been a father figure to Missy, since he and Missy's mother Arley became an item nearly five years ago now. Missy's heart aches as she considers this year's storyline in which Hemis is a character.
Missy frowns to keep the feelings at bay when she sees an ad for the new release by Alicia Keys—Girl On Fire. It reminds her of someone. Twenty-four hours out from the biggest day of her life and also one of the most painful moments, and Missy can't help but cascade her thoughts to keep her from thinking about Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien.
Genisis thinks back to the time in Vegas. If she had known that she was a part of a conspiracy to change things in the Network, by bringing in new talent which she became a key player in, when she handed Bono a document to sign declaring his support to onlookers who had been waiting for the signal at the precise moment, she would've fluffed it.
Bright eyed and optimistic about the future, it only took a quiet word from Metofeaz Litigatti on the side of the road as Genisis and Danielle waited for their walk-on parts in the video for "Still haven't found what I'm looking for," for Genisis to decide that she had been, as Metofeaz put, "hand chosen for the occasion."
The rest was history, and her meeting John Lazoo in Central Park years later was just another tale to the end-to-end saga The meeting was a self-fulfilling prophecy with circumstances and ordeals which Genisis and Lazoo endured for the sake of who they were and what they meant to the many who relied on their unique and unfathomable love in the story as hope. The grim modern day fairy tale of devotion and commitment was worth every tear she shared, including the ones that bulge her eyes when she thinks about Missy and what she must be going through during this trying time. An email from Missy arrives. Genisis notices that it's addressed to all the women in the group; Lina, Santina, Arley, Sharon and even Rocol. There's no message, just a YouTube link, which Genisis clicks on….
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday December 2nd 2012
"A Prosperous Year and Happiness…."
Johnny looks over his shoulder as he enters the cottage on Neon Strip. The mood changes… Snowflakes, as it would seem, begin to tumble from the heavens. Johnny hears a serenade reserved for love in this festive season in the air as the thunderous anthem about a girl on fire fades. It reminds Johnny of another time behind the second horizon when he finally places where he'd experienced the event before, a sign that the entity and shell were combining in an amicable fashion. Bella, Imogen's daughter whom Johnny had become fond of in a short time, can be heard singing from somewhere inside the small house, which makes Johnny want to laugh as the child, without as much as a breath, changes tact from the previous song to the Christmas carol which comes on strong bringing extra cheer to the trance sphere behind the second horizon. People, happy that the REPRO had begun are elated when the yuletide atmos, which some of them remember from the other side, sets in. Johnny smiles to himself, but he also dares himself to count his blessings as he enters the warm home where good tidings flow from.
Across the road, in the window, under the arch of the logo—SIL HOUSE CAFÉ—Missy listens to what her mother says. Next to Missy is Polina the Princess of the New Global Realm, which comes alight as Mobile phones; Slivers, Memoirs and Black Boxes from Ne0—TeleWorld vibrate, summons and flip overtly to notify fans world wide of the LATEST UPLOAD….
Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien uses the cuff of his olive woollen jumper, which hangs out from under the sleeve of his leather jacket, to wipe his nose. She hadn't changed…maybe her posture had improved, but her spectacular smile that offsets her sad and longing eyes remains, to this day, the highlight of Hemis' day.
Hemis spots Metofeaz Litigatti crossing the street, with hands plugged deep into his leather jacket, anxious but also eager to be inside the amazing atmos that radiates from the Tribeca eatery at this time of year. A Christmas carol filling the street and surrounding areas sends a tingling sensation around the planet. Cheers from bystanders watching members of LMLA-ink assemble to begin the run to end of this year's GUIOPERA stay on an even keel as anticipation of Lazoo and Genisis' arrival keep the few lucky ones who stumbled across the gathering waiting.
Hemis thinks about making himself known to the group he once knew. They probably would still remember him. Hopefully they'd forgiven Hemis for not showing up on opening night of the play….
A Christmas carol blends into the atmos at this time of year as mobile phones everywhere confirm that the online scribe down in Welly, New Zealand, responsible for the story of our times, is back to finish this year's GUIOPERA. Lazoo lets Genesis' hand go as she wraps herself up in the everlasting dream that began all those years ago in Vegas. She continues to spin slowly on the ice in reverence of what she and John Lazoo share.
Snow flakes, unique and authentic like the feelings John James Lazoo, born James Elton, has for the woman who closes her eyes for the gentle snow falling on Central Park to kiss.
"He's warming to the task as Poet Soldier and Mastermind….hell, in less than two years he's broken down the old Network, found himself a woman who he loves, and given up smoking…all of this on his own without gum, or a gun, budget or backup…" John Lazoo says to Genisis more for his benefit than hers. "I know. He's the genuine article. With a smile only second to yours," Lazoo hears Genisis' commitment to the cause. "Persecuted for no reason other than being born under a star…" Lazoo finds it hard to say what he just said, but he does. The agent, who converted many to take up a cause he was born to hate, abhors his past…
OPV (Omniscient Point of View)
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday December 4th 2012
Hemis slides to a standstill. The cloud of dust he creates as he comes to a halt on the dirt road could be seen by anyone watching and waiting for something extraordinary to happen out here in the middle of nowhere. Hemis looks over his shoulder as he uses his arms to balance his landing. He wants to see if he can see the cottage as he cannot see it in front of him. Finally he stops. The warming soles of his shoes is a sign of the speed at which he was travelling when he decided to trip the light fantastic and escape New York at Christmas time, where he'd seen her, Missy, enjoying herself without a care or thought in the world about him, Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien, to whom she had sworn to be true to till the end of time.
His hypersensitivity to everything, maybe due to his unique molecular composition, means the dust settling is as profound as an illuminating sunset, or the cry of a new born baby. The sound of dust settling is reminiscent of tongue crackling candy. The sound subsides and the countryside comes to life, taking Hemis' senses on a joy ride when his body experiences the transformation as he becomes part of the scene. Once he's consolidated or morphed with his environment he can then go about his business, which sometimes can take an age, in the MMD or Earth terms this can literally mean a life time, or it can be quite straightforward. If Hemis had a memory he would remember the last time he came to the Mid-West in search of an explanation as to why he's having such difficulty getting back into the MMD, his first choice of destination. Failing that he'll take a ticket to the station in the sky and make a new start in the SFD, from there he'll apply for AmalgaMension and make his way to the AMD. In regards to his previous journey to the Mid-West, Hemis spent a decade, in earth terms, trying to get off the dirt road.
This time Hemis waits for a gust of wind to invade the plain. Hemis jumps on board and lays himself flat assuming the form of a letter being sent somewhere. Soon Hemis is airborne on the stream that travels west and then it fades over the edge of a farm. Hemis spots the farm house in the distance, where the yard looks well kept. There is life. Someone sits on the porch. And a dog sees him as he lands, careful not to bring too much attention to himself…too late, the dog begins to bark. "Damn animals," Hemis mutters.
Hemis' words become indistinguishable in the next moment as music transcends from some celestial place, as his word and thought is swallowed by the encompassing ambience which brings a warm smile to his face. The sound is in the air, each particle, life changing as the emotional wave moves across the farmyard, like the sun unmasking its face from behind a cloudy veil.
The simple but memorable lyric goes, "The look of love—is in your eyes…." Hemis takes a step towards the farmhouse, eager to know if the person on the porch, who seems to be gazing out into the countryside at nothing in particular, will talk to him or not. Maybe the scenery is just a mooted backdrop for something else, or maybe it's part of an augmentation of this reality and another which the woman, who looks like she's in her twenties, yearns for. Hemis takes another step and he is almost face to face with the woman. Standing at the edge of the porch, Hemis' chin rests on the top of the paling so she's looking directly at him….
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday December 5th 2012
Janine looks out over the farm. Memories laden with hurt and guilt litter the yard. Irrepressible pain hankers for the numb young woman to acknowledge the abominable agony that tortures the mother now and forever….Within the last year, Mr Ghettis the kind hearted farmer, who gave her a roof over head, had died, not to mention what pains the mother more than anything else in this world—her son—James Elton, who was taken away from her one year ago on this day.
Inside the once cosy cottage the recurrent song on her phonogram restarts. The arm carrying the stylus robotically drops to find the edge of the well-worn vinyl. The crackling is in tune with the cloud of dust off in the distance. After all, it was cyclone season, but the pattern was wrong, it was a trail, suggesting a car or object made the dust and not a life sucking column, an incubus of air raping the land.
Dusty Springfield's voice is like prickly silk or mother's milk on a see-sawing day in the wake of what Janine Elton had just seen. The song was her boy's favourite. He would fall asleep to it whenever the young mother, who grew up in an orphanage needed him to. A chill in the air raises Goosebumps and then it's back, the eerie yet familiar warm and comforting feeling that melts the Goosebumps away. It almost feels like her blood is made of chocolate, flowing like liquid sensation to all parts of her body, warming Janine and lifting her spirits. The dust in the distance settles and the air between here and the place where the unexplained activity is happening becomes like a vacuum for the fatal mother's vision. The tunnel becomes more pronounced and then an area above the fencing on the porch is clearer than ever. Its clarity contrasts the space outside the area the size of a face. When Janine Elton, whose mother never came back from the store one day when Janine was just three years old, relaxes and breathes, she no longer has to listen for her mother voice telling her what to do next.
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday December 6th 2012
Hemis decides on his target and then he immediately relaxes into his environment, enjoying the presence of pollution and electricity, a concoction which gives him some body, as such. Carbon dioxide is his friend. It gives his silhouette from the radiation and smog in the air form as he free falls through the trash atmos. The resistance from having mass feels amazing. The roof of a yellow cab he thought he had in his sights becomes indivisible. But then as he drops he remembers that he's back in New York, meaning that there are a lot more yellow-colored vehicles down there, which causes Hemis to decide to let destiny show the way. Hemis closes his eyes and lets the wind take him to where he is meant to land….
Down on the street…Metofeaz Litigatti steers LMLA-ink's company car, a New York Yellow Cab, whose only passengers ever are Lazoo, Metofeaz, Le Mac and Afamasaga and maybe one or two others for good reason, through the warm yuletide that flows through the evening traffic on the streets of the Big Apple.
Playing on the stereo are Mariah Carey and John Legend. The songstress and maestro furnish the airways with the vibe people all over the planet have been waiting for.
"The whole world / feels a little bit more love / when Christmas comes…"
The song reaffirms for Metofeaz what time of year it is. The busy operative smiles to himself as he sees his Ne0—TeleWorld Black Box flip on the seat next to him. It's a notification that LATEST UPLOAD has just hit the New Global Realm, or the Internet. Chapter thirty-nine, which signals John Reyer the cut-throat-creative's return to write the SASBWAH, the Story About the Story Being Written or the memoranda from which so many agents around the world now rely upon for their detail, is confirmation that the Poet Soldier will guide the Network home for Christmas. JRA took a leave of absence but the cut-throat-creative is back following major world events which took centre stage over the last month or so…the US Presidential Election in early November, to which the build-up was fierce and captured everyone's attention no matter their location. Then there was the Gaza Conflict. And last but not least the world premiere of the Hobbit which took hold of the city in which JRA presides. And now, Metofeaz, who still freelances for select agencies and is a consultant for the UN, knows the outcome will be an uplifting one for all concerned, none more important than everyday people reading GUIOPERA V.
And then Metofeaz remembers what is actually happening in his own life, let alone the troubles of the world he deals with in his various roles. The ex-sniper sometimes wishes for easier times as a soldier when he followed orders and did not think about his actions. Of late his roles as analyst and advisor have taken a firm grip on his life leaving little time for anything else other than having to think for everyone else, and their people. JRA as the Poet Soldier, makes life a little easier by firstly having proved that LMLA-ink are a unit. Their mode of communication, which no one can pin point how they share the Intel, is a secure operation, capable of handling and sharing highly classified Intel for the sake of peace. Secondly, via the GUIOPERA the SASBWAH is delivered, giving over ten thousand agents the information they need for numerous operations running simultaneously.
Metofeaz grins and bears his reality. Missy lays in a coma. She's been that way since the beginning of the GUIOPERA on September 5th. Her mother Arley, whom Metofeaz saw off and on for years, is distraught. Even though she and Jon Le Mac are together now and are right for each other, Litigatti feels obligated to be there for Arley Lévon. It almost feels like Metofeaz is overcompensating for the past, but that doesn't bother Metofeaz as his concern is real….
Hemis rapidly closes in on the bulls-eye….The roof of the yellow cab was nothing obviously, as Hemis finds himself seated in the back seat of it. In the driver's seat is Metofeaz Litigatti. To Hemis, it almost feels like he is being chauffeured some place, and that he is part of a scene, like in the play. "So, where are we going?" Hemis decides on the 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' approach.
Metofeaz feels a chill in the air. The bump on the roof must've been a snow ball from the friends on either side of the street warring. He turns up the stereo as he makes his way to the hospital….
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday December 7th 2012
"Viva La Vida"
Hemis looks out the cab window. He pretends Feeaz knows that he is in the back seat and that they're on the way to pick up Lazoo, or Le Mac. Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien, a prankster of late in his out-of-body form, decides to mess with Metofeaz Litigatti AKA Feeaz Fontain. Ignoring the festive cheer in the name of Saint Nicholas for the possibility that Saint Peter will call his name and enable him to come back to the formidable form of flesh and bone, Hemis leans over the seat and changes the radio station. After scanning the crowded band for a clear signal for effect and to find a suitable track, Hemis finds a station playing the exact song he had in mind. Maybe his cause has gained widespread support like the one John Reyer anchors for LMLA-ink for the sake of Prosperity through Positivity from Patience. And someone has hijacked a radio station somewhere for Hemis to prove their point, but for what? A great question, Hemis admits to himself. For what reason does he continue to roam the MMD in his current creepy form, scaring animals, children and the sensitive ones, like he himself was….
Metofeaz pulls up outside Polina Rada's apartment building, where the young woman waits for him to pick her up so they can visit her sister Missy in hospital. As he waits for Lina to get inside the vehicle it happens again, the weird occurrence that's been happening over the last few months. The radio begins to tune itself. As always, like he had been taught right from when he was a boy, never react to anything out of the ordinary, instead observe your surroundings for any abnormal activity which may be the cause or the effect of what it is that you're witnessing. "Note that you're witnessing whatever is happening, not experiencing it, so you may respond accordingly…" Jon Pierre the Poet Soldier's words remind Litigatti of his stance….
Outside the vehicle, Polina can hear the song that reminds her of happier times as she approaches the company car. Ironically, it reminds her of her time in the orphanage in Russia, when all she wanted was to find a family. Such were the pressures on the young woman, who now heads legal for one of LMLA-ink's interests, that she yearns for a time when she had nothing…
In the back seat of the cab Hemis feels like lunging forward to strangle Metofeaz when he shows no concern for what could be classified as paranormal activity. Only Polina getting into the cab stops Hemis from strangling Metofeaz. Hemis quickly slides to the other side of the back seat as Polina hops in and closes the door….
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday December 10th 2012
"I'll be Home for Christmas"
John James Lazoo, born James Elton in the year 1970, hovers over the hospital bed in which Missy Lévon, his biological sister, sleeps. On the multi-media unit Lazoo had installed in the private hospital room, Michael Bublé sings Christmas carols. The idea is that while Missy lays hopeless in a coma, in no-man's land she'll have everything that he and the crew have.
In the darkest corner of the room Hemis wants to bawl his eyes out as he watches his hero stress about Missy. Hopeless and helpless to avenge whoever is responsible for Missy being in this state, Hemis assumes the worst. It must've been someone she met after them; Hemis grinds his molars as he contemplates what he would say to whoever is responsible for Missy's current state.
The music, mellow and mushy, heart-warming and homely, causes Hemis to almost vomit his organs, in an effort to feel what it might be like to have blood running through his veins to a heart he no longer has. The turmoil in Hemis' head, which his body doesn't own, is exaggerated when Lazoo's Black Box goes off.
"John speaking," Lazoo answers his phone. The sound of Lazoo's voice is welcome in what has been a soap opera saturated in sombre silence since Hemis landed in NYC. The Christmas carols serve no purpose for Hemis for whom warm and fuzzy feelings are like continuously watching someone on TV enjoy a taste sensation; sooner or later the look that comes over the person's face begins to repeat itself to the viewer….
Lazoo looks down at the floor, in hope that the nagging feeling that he should read Missy the manuscript of the play will go away. He notices the shine of the well-polished surface doesn't reflect in accordance with the light mostly coming from the frosted glass window on the swinging doors and a lesser source, the windows facing the street through which dim street light at night shines through. In particular, the peculiar way there seems to be an area in the corner darkened by something covering it, but what?
"See you soon," John James says to Metofeaz, who is on his way up with Polina to see Missy, and then he puts his Black Box away. Something tells Lazoo to ignore the peculiarity in the diffraction of light tonight.
Hemis accepts that he has no power in the MMD after trying to freak Metofeaz in the cab by changing stations on him without a response. But should he have some fun with Lazoo? Whom Hemis once idolised and probably would still if it weren't for Hemis' incapability to communicate with the living. Admitting that he was not part of the "Living" was a major step forward for Hemis. After a while, Hemis decides not to even try and toy with Lazoo, like he tried to do with Litigatti. Hemis spots the manuscript of the play lying on the bedside cabinet. Missy still had it, the original copy of the play Hemis was meant to star in as John Lazoo….
On a hunch and a covert tip-off from Litigatti on the phone, Lazoo decides he will ignore the experience and behave as an observer of the scene would, just like a witness. The first thing he sees when he turns around is the manuscript of the play on the bedside cabinet. "New nodes could've been added," Metofeaz casually dropped the warning into the conversation when he called to advise Lazoo that the company car had been tampered with.
A txt message from Genisis at home snaps Lazoo out of the unnatural mood that has cast itself over the evening. It also brings Bublé back into play, shedding light on the shadowy moment….
LATEST UPLOAD: Tuesday December 11th 2012
"Come over here…" Breakbot, an idiom for French disco to lounge by, plays on the elevator speakers. Polina has her headphones deeply rooted in her skull. Litigatti is away with the fairies. Hemis stands in between Polina and Metofeaz as they ride the elevator up to Missy's hospital room. For Hemis, the silence is deafening now. The security camera up in the corner surveys spontaneity, so Hemis decides to test his sovereignty in the land of the living; again, maybe his status has changed. The buffoon always goes down well in small enclosed spaces…better still, flatulence! Hemis steps forward from in between the passengers, so he's standing out in front of them. And then lowers his torso so his back is straight and his hands rest on his knees so that his butt sticks out like he's about to booty pop. Reality snaps him out of his little game when he's reminded of his non-being by his absence in their reflection in the lift doors that open up, which Polina and then Metofeaz walk out of leaving him bent in two trying to conjure wind. The doors close, and Hemis manages to exit the dropping elevator before Polina and Metofeaz reach the end of the corridor….
Metofeaz only just begins to enjoy the warmth of the private hospital when the chill returns, like a block of ice in between him and Polina. He can understand how Polina may feel at times towards them, her family, for all the ups and downs and upheavals which through it, no one had expected anything from Missy, but of Lina, it was different. It was unspoken, not even written in the work, that Polina Rada, Princess of the New Global Realm, was expected to behave in any particular way. If truth be known, it was Polina herself who put the high expectation upon herself. Naturally, one would suspect of a gifted child with high IQ, off the scale psychic ability and looks of a model. And so why did Missy, with equal talents, succumb to the illness which Polina also suffers from and had overcome with minimal attacks, and definitely nothing as severe as the coma lasting two-thousand-three-hundred and twenty-eight hours, or since September 5th? Polina's worst ordeal with the mystery illness that the children from eggs frozen back middle of last century suffer from was hospitalisation for a few days. Something which Polina is conscious of is what she went through during that brief but harrowing time, one day, and not the 97 days, or three months that her sister has been unconsciousness.
Polina feels the aches meant for someone in their twilight years run down the right side of her body. It causes her to hold that side of her body with her left arm. An arthritic life stemming from dysfunction, a metaphor that hurts Polina on recognising it, but physical manifestation of something that's meant to be a figure of speech riddles Polina with fear as they near Missy's hospital room.
Hemis places his arms around the two people as both living creatures reach out to push the doors to the hospital room open. On the left is Missy in her bed, with tubes to bags of medicine and wires from lobes to the latest monitoring devices. A dichotomy, from what LMLA-ink know about the ordeal that Missy is suffering—whether to take matters into their own hands or follow protocol. As property of the US Government, as is Polina and Lazoo, Missy, in her current state, must undergo the tests and be under observation for a set period of time - no less than 365 days. Hemis looks up at the cameras in all four corners of the room at the same time Polina and Metofeaz do. Right now, the private person wishes more than anything else that he could register in front of those prying lenses….
LATEST UPLOAD: Wednesday December 12th 2012
Hemis lands in the most auspicious surroundings, a hundred thousand plus pairs of eyes roasting those fit enough to stroll Wellington's Golden Mile upon red carpet. The ghoulish candidates for the fugly and loveable roll of Tolkien's tongue and onto Sir Peter's canvass…Gollum, linguistically where the lilies lay in the master craftsman's book-burned brain that was reared on the bible and tempted by concepts which he toyed with in his writing stylishly criticising industrialisation, the origins of today's computerised capitalism. Hemis jumps out of the way as more stars roll by. Hemis is here to find JRA, the author of the story he is trapped in. He spots Lunar Bois on his balcony, champagne in hand, the ad man notices the disturbance down on the red carpet, but does nothing. Having been a victim of John Reyer the cut-throat-creative's himself, Lunar Bois was the last person to warn the author that one of his characters had found their way to WELLY where the future Poet Soldier has been hiding out.
The year is 2003… Missy Lévon and Polina Rada are 14 years of age and living in New York. Hemis in Wisconsin is yet to hear about Lazoo and Genisis Jones, as the finishing touches to the original concept in the form of a play is still being written, hence the reason why the author of Lazoo, who was an Orc in Lord of the Ring's Return of the King is not here today in the crowd. The novice writer who doesn't own a computer is busy at municipal library on a free computer. There, he rewrites the ending of the concept.
Hemis recognises Aleisha in the crowd, another one of the characters from WELLY STORY but he doesn't know how. Downtown Wellington has been overtaken by Lord of Rings fever and Hemis is none the wiser about what he is doing in this place apart from the notion that he has to find the reason why he is here, a mysterious loop which supersedes the "egg or chicken" scenario. In this case, what is real, and what is fiction? Add to that the idea that the author is an ardent postmodern expressionist only really concerned about pushing the boundaries of creativity. Endeavouring to morph reality and fiction while he experimented with what was possible with only words to wield, posing new avenues for engaging an audience, his case—Narrative Marketing. If this was purely a marketing exercise, then the lives of many, which includes Hemis', is but a lie….
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday December 13th 2012
New York's streets are filled with predictable losses and broken promises, not to mention dreams that melt the moment you open your eyes, especially at this time of year. On the stereo, the Christmas carol—Driving Home for Christmas—by Chris Rea cajoles the heart to show its face regardless of what is actually happening. It's like a time-out from reality for the sake of those not old enough to accept responsibility for their own actions. A cynic's depiction of the falsehood colored red, dragging a sleigh from pole to pole, and a masterpiece by capitalism.
Metofeaz who is aware of the folly, but who is part of an organisation which relies on fads and infectious waves of consumerism, drums on the steering wheel of the company car as he waits for Tone Horroh who has proven that he is more than a capable stand in for JRA who is still in exile, down under. A sweep by the Network picked up a prospect in the Mid-West. Shem-I-Coke is the code name for the teenager who has come onto Mr Businessman's radar following an international campaign run inconspicuously via thousands of independent bodies, organised by a team of up to fifty agents part of a project to discover new talent, for the new crop of intakes that will carry on the Network's work.
The young poet's work had the intonation, width and breadth to house asylums of conduits with pipe dreams and novice aspirations. Multi-faceted, the fourteen year old from Wisconsin, whose mom ran off with the minister of the church when he was still in diapers, was not only a dramatist but also a leading man with poise and passion who could express poignantly through his piercing eyes, elongated context, mixing and therefore joining the dubious and the serious together for the purveyors of the truth…
Tone Horroh broods over the news that they may have discovered someone of the calibre of Jon Pierre Solomon. He was the kind of character capable of leading the entire Network, an idea that had crossed Tone's mind more than once. Careful not to let on that he is not the least bit interested in the kid from the Mid-West just around the corner from where Lazoo was raised, Tone decides to act up as he sees that Metofeaz, who will no doubt offer the new talent an opportunity with the crew, is waiting in the company car.
Metofeaz steels himself as Horroh reaches for the door handle. Smart money is on Tone complaining about the company car, and why they don't already have a limo. This could be because of a number of reasons ranging from why LMLA-ink don't have a chauffeured driven car to whether or not the offices have been swept for bugs…Metofeaz turns the radio up as Tone hops in. The music drowns out all thought for now as they head for Le Mac's place up in Harlem and then onto Lazoo's to collect the maestro.
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday December 14th 2012
"All I Want for Christmas"
Beneath the arc logo of SIL HOUSE Café, Missy and Polina—dizygotic offspring—chat and laugh like most teenage girls do. The topic of interest this morning is the possibility that there is a new agent their age who might be joining the crew. Such is the interest surrounding the kid from the Mid-West that even the younger members of the crew, namely the female ones, were excited about the prospector with the limerick to counter seriously handsome looks coming to NYC to try out for a place in LMLA-ink.
Polina had never seen her sister so excited before. The experience was quite an eye opener for everyone as far as Missy, the quiet one of the two, was concerned. "He's a cross between all four of them, barring Horroh." Polina's eyes widen as she pokes fun at Missy about the new talent Metofeaz had told them about, claiming that the kid around the same age as them was in the mould of the men the two girls looked up to. Just as Polina finishes having fun with Missy, the company car rolls into the frame created by the window the two girls look out of. A thrill rises from the street on which people are careful not to make a fuss about seeing the crew in person. The tingle infusing those beyond the glass permeates the interior of the establishment made famous by the infamous four. The production that comes to life each time anyone of LMLA-ink steps foot in SIL HOUSE Café is already underway. Simon, who is once again the manager of SIL HOUSE, clicks his fingers and the staff know their lines and where their first places are. All of a sudden people on the street who were on their way to somewhere they may have scheduled days, weeks maybe months in advance, make a beeline for the door to the Tribeca eatery where sometimes. if you're lucky, Lazoo the Illiterate Poet can be seen writing notes on a napkin. Polina sees Simon reach down behind the counter. Goosebumps are summoned as one considers what song Simon will select to thicken the atmos, already rampant with the will of emotion in anticipation of what is possible, from having LMLA-ink, plus Polina Rada and her sister, in the house…
Polina's smile becomes a staid state when she hears the chimes to what was her favourite song at this time of year….
Inside the Yellow Cab, Lazoo sees the two teenage girls in the window. "Shem will break which ever one's heart he ends up choosing," Lazoo says about the Kid from the Mid-West, whom the Network has advised LMLA-ink they will take into their crew as an intern.
Metofeaz looks at his Black Box, as does Lazoo when premonition tells them that what's happening to them can be foretold, a moment, if that in advance of it transpiring is already written.
Back inside SIL HOUSE, chimes to Mariah Carey's Christmas offering stirs the atmos to say the least. Fans notice that Polina, especially, finds it hard to conceal her response to hearing the song which defined Christmas for the orphan. It was well documented that her first Christmas with her adopted family was also her last, when shortly after their first Christmas together her dad John Page AKA the Pirate was killed in the line of duty. The song reminds Lina and everyone of that first and last Christmas for her. Missy, who had grown up with their surrogate mother Arley Lévon, quickly forgets about the dashing prince from the west who will get her in every way possible as she takes her sister's hand in an attempt to absorb some of her pain.
Polina senses the imminence of tears that will flood her view of what is meant to be a festive time of year. She tries her best to disguise the pain with a smile that says 'they're tears of joy'. But the vibrating of phones around the place confirm that her story is history and that the tears around her are for many reasons, from lost love to love lost…
LATEST UPLOAD: Saturday December 22nd 2012
Hemis looks at the radio which continues to send out messages of all kinds. Some in keeping with the season, like the Mariah Carey Christmas carol, and other messages not so obvious to the untrained ear, or mind to be exact. For now, the Christmas carol, "All I want for Christmas is you", makes his little one year old stepbrother laugh with glee and that's all that matters to Hemis, who's been charged with making sure that the child is fed. Hemis' dad and step mom are at the local bar, where they've been since this morning. The TV had stopped beaming signals, alerting Hemis of imminent danger if he didn't notify certain people in high places of a conspiracy which implicates some of the top names in the infamous New World Order. Hemis smiles as he does a once over of what he'd written for the day. The word count was close to ten thousand. Last night in his dream, Hemis travelled back to New Zealand to where the movement was beginning to take shape. On his travels Hemis had sighted a document that was being written by an unlikely source. The work in the form of a manuscript for a play would be the concept outlining the key points for the cause. Hemis gets up from the table, one of the few pieces of furniture in the small wooden cottage on the edge of town. The aching floorboards creak as Hemis walks towards the window, a square opening in the wall covered over by flax curtain. The flimsy flooring, which is the roof to Hemis' bed at night, under the house reminds the young practitioner of Astral projection, which is how Hemis proposes he crosses the divide between him in the US and John Reyer down under in New Zealand where the end-to-end saga is being scribed. Hemis had read a few books on the subject of Astral Travel, which is commonly referred to as an out of body experience, but mostly it had come to him, the art of transporting one's mind and soul on the astral plane through hours of practise when Hemis, who is fascinated by psychology and namely Sigmund Freud, started experimenting with self-hypnosis. It was during the in between stages, when one relaxes themselves making the mind supple, just before placing the thought, or making the suggestion to self, that Hemis discovered the ability to project his being to some place he wanted to be. Hemis reaches the window and looks over to see whether his kid brother in the walker, whom Hemis has nicknamed Lazoo, is okay. The baby, who is destined to be trouble from his smile and being born into this shithole, lifts his arms towards Hemis for Hemis to take him out of the walker which, it becomes apparent, is stuck from being caught up in some clothes and rubbish on the floor when the baby becomes excited at the prospect of being taken out of the walker and starts jumping towards Hemis. Hemis ignores the child and pulls the cord to roll up the flax curtain, revealing that there's a fine but cold winter's day outside. Hemis pulls the wool collars of his brown corduroy jacket together and nestles his chin in his chest between the warm lapels and begins to blow warm air into his coat while the writer admires nature, the creator's handiwork. In the background, the baby becomes animated; the noise of the walker rattling like it is about to break is enough for Hemis to want to pick the child up….
Hemis frees the baby's foot from the walker, which drops to the ground. The walker makes a shattering sound, and then it tips on its side so it's one with all else that's strewn around the place from having being forgotten and neglected. The baby clings to Hemis as he stands up straight. The baby's arms around Hemis' neck make Hemis feel useful, maybe even needed for the moment. Human nature often finds a way into the intuitive teen's mind, wedging feelings deep inside Hemis, which kids his age wouldn't understand and would tease him about. Truth be known, Hemis, a naturally gifted athlete on top of his creative talents would probably beat to death any kid who challenged him, something which Hemis has the self-control to stop himself from doing following an incident which led to him and his alcoholic dad ending up in this hole. The deep thinking teenager doesn't wish to think of the incident a year or so ago. Hemis looks at where the baby points; it's at the maize field off in the distance….
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday December 23rd 2012
Missy stands on the sidewalk, she's bent in two as she says goodbye to her sister behind the back window of the chauffer driven car. Polina lives with Santina San Fé, Polina's adopted mother just around the corner in Manhattan and Missy lives with the twin's biological mother, Arley Lévon, in the brownstone Missy turns and walks towards. The sudden thought which curls the corners of the fourteen year old's mouth upwards towards the sky without limit, is not an accident. Missy is certain that Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien of Wisconsin is the maddest crush a girl can have….
Inside the company car parked further down the road surveying the events… "It's a match made in heaven," Tone Horroh says as if it is the last word about the contentious issue of how they will bring the new agent Shem-I into the fold. Metofeaz catches Lazoo's reaction to Tone Horroh's recommendation as Metofeaz looks for a place to hide his anger, finally settling on the gutter outside the driver's window, which forces him to sit up and look the other way in disapproval of Horroh's suggestion that they should manipulate Missy. "We can bring him in as an agent. We're an accomplished agency now," Metofeaz says, looking out the window.
Lazoo uses the thumb and forefinger of his left hand to massage the bridge of his nose, his eyes now closed from not wanting to be a part of what's happening. For a split second he considers what, if any, defence Tone Horroh, sitting in the back seat directly behind him, would have if he would nail the sleazy son of a bitch with a right hand to the throat…. "Let's sleep on it for now," Jon Le Mac's suggestion is the best idea for the moment….
Missy senses an overwhelming feeling of wonderment come over her…it must be the stars aligning for her, she hopes as she reaches the front door. The moment has the young woman, not normally known for being nonplussed, flummoxed when her mother opens the door to find her daughter standing in the doorway with a huge grin, ear to ear, with nothing to say for her behaviour.
Inside the company car, the tension building has a safety valve…music, on the radio, gives the key figures in the Network's drive to reinvigorate engagement between the agencies following a time when many were disillusioned by events that took place early on in the twenty-first century something to smile about. C-Lo and Rod Stewart singing 'Merry Christmas Baby' forces the headstrong members of LMLA-ink to remember one of the crew's founding principles in trying times…No matter how important or how serious the problem at hand is, if you immerse yourself in it, you will not be able to solve it… Even Horroh manages a smile for the timely intervention via the airwaves. Then their Black Boxes start to flip while the neighbourhood with children of all ages come out of their houses as if they're looking for something that's happening on the street….
"Merry Christmas Baby…" Missy senses the warm feelings that awash her before the music that circumnavigates the immovable obstacles of being a crew member surrounds her and her mother, who looks over Missy's shoulder and out onto the street. "Are you expecting someone, mom?" Missy asks, finding it hard to conceal her happiness, which is rare as of late. Teenage years, plus being a member of LMLA-ink and a young one at that, whom other youth look at with envy, but if the truth be known, Missy would trade the solitude and discipline that goes with being an agent in a blink. "No, just you," Arley sounds unconvincing as the music in the air gathers potency, warming Missy's heart not yet entirely lunged in promise of Hemis, but fairly close. Missy looks around in time as doors to houses along the street open and children come out of their houses. The smiles on their faces from being born in a land truly free of danger, no guns, nor threats of killing sprees, a place where an education doesn't cost you your life…. Missy sees the company car parked down the road, explaining the scene that gathers feelings as faces of twenty children and their seven guardians appear in the sky….
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday December 24th 2012
Johnny Shawshank waves the glass train through to its berthing place at the station in the sky. An alert that there is a stowaway on-board has all staff watchful. Johnny had applied for a place on the SFD Control Unit as sweeper, someone who sweeps the cargo, or passengers looking for trouble. His role means that the placid character is sometimes called to exert force upon shells he deems to be unfit to make it into the SFD. A difficult job when you consider that one of the attractions of the SFD is that it's a haven for characters that are not what you call your typical hero, but more in the vein of an anti-hero, or rebel with a cause. So the line between acceptable and inacceptable is sometimes blurred.
The stowaway's name is Hemis. Unconfirmed sources say he has a hostage, one Missy Lévon. Both characters are from the MMD in the year 2012, sometime in the final quarter of the calendar year. Johnny, a former soldier who worked the wastelands at the dimension forks during the early days of the SFD, has a flipside to his placidity, which can be triggered by almost anything. So it was a surprise when Afanasy accepted his application for the role of sweeper, which Johnny is way overqualified for, better suited to interrogation of the high ranking, and more sinister suspects trying to make their way into the Dream Dimension rather than a kid playing Light-jacking, which is when someone sneaks on board the glass train.
Imogen looks out her kitchen window. Another flash of a horrific scene behind the second horizon asphyxiates her view of the horizon. Carnage in the SFD involving children chokes every parent, sibling, aunt, uncle and member of society who is unfortunate enough to hear of the Massacre in Connecticut. "Bella!" Imogen's immediate reaction is to shout out her daughter's name. "Yes Imogen!" comes the reply, settling the mother's innards. Normally, at this point, she'd remind Bella that "Mom's" the word. But Bella who comes running from the shrill in her mother's voice is greeted with a heartfelt embrace that smothers the child in her mother's thankful arms. Imogen hears the glass train arrive at the station. It reminds her of Johnny at work as a sweeper checking the cargo, a name for the passengers which is a hangover from the bad old days when entities and shells arrived in the Dream Dimension on their own accord. Since one of the original incarnations of Johnny Shawshank had driven his convertible into the second horizon and ripping a hole in the screen, the powers that be decided to build the glass train to transport the visitors to the SFD.
On-board the transporter, travellers in various degrees of AmalgaMension wait for the moment when their shell has been inhabited by an entity or spirit, giving the body a temporary permit or body or soul for their stay in the SFD.
"Shem-I" Hemis repeats to himself his new name, one that he was given back in the MMD when he was recruited by an organisation only known as the Network to the few who are a part of the secret sect. Next to him is Missy, who looks a little bit startled, to be quite frank, something Hemis would never admit to, considering the circumstances under which he managed to get Missy to come with him. It had taken Hemis years. He always wanted Missy to come with him on his cross dimensional travels when he lived in the MMD, but never succeeded in enticing Missy to take the leap with him. And then, when his life in the MindMorph Dimension ended, he continued to court her in after dark, but still without any luck….
Johnny spots something down the back of the last carriage of the light train. Down below on the station platform, which is a decent drop, people start to gather for the disembarking of the light train which right now resembles an elaborate ice sculpture in the sky carrying millions of entities and hollow shells, which some are in the process of combining and others wait to find their match. Johnny makes his way down to where two shells Amalgamated, from how they both have facial expressions, the young woman's less dynamic than the guy's, who sees Johnny coming down the train and stands up. Something that Johnny had learnt in life was that if someone becomes confrontational, which this guy is, he either believes in something strongly, or he disagrees with something with equal conviction. Whatever his belief he sees Johnny as a threat. Something else tells the sweeper that his role in the REPRO will be defined by what's going down.
"Missy!" Hemis looks down at the ground as he says her name again, and then he grabs her hand. "Missy, leave the talking to me," Hemis whispers as the guard who looks familiar gets close. Missy hears the voice, and it's Hemis', which can't be right. The same can be said about the surroundings which seems to be the inside of a huge glass sphere with tubular furniture made of ice but only warm when you touch it. So Missy decides to play along. Hemis lets go of her hand and stands up, which Missy knows is the wrong move as she looks around the long shaped room with people sitting in rows like in an airplane, or a train or maybe even a theatre from how she feels like she has an omniscient view of the room and everything going on.
LATEST UPLOAD: Friday December 28th 2012
Down in the MindMorph Dimension, named for the way minds are addressed and held captive, and then morphed into one by a slogan, a tune or merely by flashing a symbol, Missy feels the breeze through the back of her hospital gown. Missy stands at the edge of the promising patch, where the sun warms a place for people to gather. She recognises Hemis standing next to her and, when she strains her eyes, she can make out John James, Metofeaz, Le Mac and Genisis amongst others. The crew are having one of their famous picnics in the park on a glorious summer's day, so why should she feel a chill in the air? Missy questions the scene for its authenticity even though she can feel the summer breeze.
"Feel like joining in?" Hemis asks, not really interested in Missy's answer. "They're the reason why you're in this state," he quickly tags on to the end of his question before Missy has time to think of an answer to the compromising question. It makes Missy cling to Hemis for moral and physical support as she tries to figure out why she is standing in the shadows watching her family enjoy themselves….
Hemis hears himself in the MMD where he's detectable by limited means at the same time he pulls himself together in the Dream Dimension or SFD where he has a visible form to face the guard approaching them on-board the glass train at the station in the sky. Still seated, thankfully, is Missy who looks disoriented, which is a good thing as it will make it easy for her to pass for an entity and shell during the early stages of AmalgaMension.
Johnny knows immediately from the shell's stance that something's amiss with the couple fitting the description of the runaways who both appear to have shells but are in a state of cross-dimension referencing—a state—which Johnny knows well. One of the pair has to be alive down in the MMD, as the originator or creator of the dream which gives them access into the Dream Dimension. The dreamer then has to have access to the F3quenZor for them to register on this particular frequency or wavelength. The other person can either be a citizen in the SFD, where they're a character in a dream, or they're an entity Light-jacking. Cross-dimension referencing happens when an entity is present in multiple instances across time, in a dream which is being shared by more than one entity that may have inhabited one or more shells responsible for the dream. Either way, a crime has been committed according to the Cross-Dimensional Council and Afanasy has agreed to cooperate with the council and arrest the Light-jacker who hitched a free ride on the glass train and, in doing so, undermines the Council and its efforts to enforce some sort of order across the dimensions.
"Shem-I, approved node on the F3quenZor via JRA's Semi-System in the MMD. Ability to Astral Travel…" Hemis takes a chance that he's the anchor of the dream that got them here, which would make the date of the dream sometime around the turn of the twenty-first century when Hemis in his early teens started travelling, or projecting himself on the astral plane. All things being equal, Hemis and many before him travelled to and from otherworldly events where deeper more godly experiences were had for the sake of keeping those interested motivated to uphold the promise or possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. This group's pursuit for the out-of-body experience superseded the glass train designed to transport travellers to the SFD, a move by the council to outlaw the culling by Afanasy and the SFD Control Unit.
"Follow me," Johnny says, surprising Hemis, who looks down at Missy for her to get up. No sooner had Johnny decided to forego his duty and aid the fugitives in an effort to force change the only way Johnny a former mercenary knows how, then the sirens alerting the citizens of an invasion sound…..
Imogen hears the siren in the air and Johnny comes to mind as snowflakes begin to tumble from the heavens in the effervescent light of a melody that descends upon the dimension like a magnificent mist that enlivens altruistic feelings and deep emotions between lovers lost in that imminent kiss…. Imogen smiles; almost embarrassed that her sensibilities could be harassed and she would succumb in the atmos that thickens with tantalizing thoughts of an arresting allure that tingle Imogen's lips and other sensory skin all over her body.
Outside the cottage wedged in between the skyscrapers that make the skyline and create a fence of facades of commerce and power on Neon Strip, Bella looks up at the heavens above her as snowflakes like tears, which Christmas time has frozen when it turned a sorry tale around an assumable bend in order to mend a broken heart or deliver a dying promise, fall through the sympathetic air of the Dream Dimension. The child, still spirited even after others had failed the orphan time and time again smiles bravely into the sky from where snow falls, and finds her face, melting to meld with tears of indifference as Bella hopes for the best in yet another attempt to find a family that will have her….
Hemis holds Missy up with one arm as he takes a coat that Johnny, a thief in another life, rips off the back of a woman in heels they pass on Station Alley, who as it turns out was naked under the fur coat. "Fashion isn't a priority right now," Hemis tries not to sound ungrateful as he wraps the fur coat around Missy, who he keeps telling himself would've come with him to the SFD on her own accord.
"You've transported her mind here. It's okay when just her soul is here for brief visits spread over a period of time with her mind and body still intact back in the MMD." Johnny reminds Hemis of the danger of disassembling the apparatus, which Hemis wasn't aware he had done up till now.
"Why are you doing this?" Hemis asks Johnny the mercenary as Hemis scoops Missy's body up in his arms without losing a stride as they hurry to flee the scene before Afanasy's men arrive. "I want to get back to the MMD, if you really want to know the truth," Johnny admits to Hemis his agenda for helping him escape the scene which will soon be crawling with Afanasy's men now that Johnny has vacated his post as sweeper, or first line of defence against rogue entities aboard the glass train….
LATEST UPLOAD: Saturday December 29th 2012
John Lazoo's voice floats in and out of the story he's reading to Genisis, who's in the throes of childbirth. Labour's agony prolongs the arrival of their first child. The once pristine place where pompous superfluous graduates in crisp uniforms mutter terms they have learnt is alive with action to match the pain Ms Jones' ignores for the side-splitting adventures of Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien in the SenFenide Dimension.
John James is seated next to her in a recliner with his Ne0—TeleWorld .GOR (GuiOperaRender), a tablet named after its primary function of Rendering the GuiOpera in multiple formats across various mediums on the New Global Realm. In the bed on his other side is Missy who is in her one hundred and eleventh day of a coma which has Doctors baffled as to the cause of the coma. The Electroencephalography device, one of the machines Missy is connected to, notes little to no movement in Missy's brain activity. One constant was the music, which provided a fluctuation in readings which doctors advised was not necessarily a positive reaction as the responses were at times dense and could be translated with inverted implications but coupled with pulse trigger data of electro transmissions suggested there was little or no discomfort for Missy. Lazoo looks at Missy and then back at Genisis whose brave face masked by a sympathetic smile causes Lazoo to rethink having Missy in the delivery suite when Genisis' only concern should be herself right now. But knowing Genisis she wouldn't have it any other way. Lazoo looks at the work on the .GOR and for a moment he feels sympathetic for those around him who have had to endure what comes with being associated with Lazoo, especially Genisis who insisted that Missy be brought into the room so she was a part of the experience, which she would've been as Little Lazoo's God Mother if she were present in the flesh….
Hemis convulses, looking for something to hold onto as he re-enters the hospital room to find Missy is still lying there…and so, once again he does what he did the time before and lifts Missy out of the bed and flees. On returning to check if the move, which he had carried out with conviction, had worked—removing Missy's body from the scene—to find that she was still there in the hospital bed, Hemis collapses in a heap.
Lazoo's word for word account of what's happening to them wizzes around in the air. The detailed story takes its time tormenting a dejected Hemis who no longer holds out any hope of a happy ending to this year's GUIOPERA.
Somewhere in the back of Lazoo's mind he had a faint belief that his reading to Genisis as a form of hypnosis which Genisis had taken to, would also act as a stimuli for Missy….
LATEST UPLOAD: Sunday December 30th 2012
Hemis looks at Missy as he carries her down a crammed Station Alley on which he follows Johnny Shawshank. The town was now full of citizens who have flocked to Neon City with news that a stowaway on the glass train is on the loose. Hemis lifts the woman, who he loved from the moment he laid eyes on her, higher making her body easier to carry through the crowded street. Premonition enacted somewhere else affecting Hemis, sending his muddled mind fearful thoughts of what he would do if he couldn't be with Missy who has fallen asleep again after a brief spell when she came to on the glass train.
Johnny Shawshank knows about the reward for Hemis' head as he pushes people aside to make a pathway for Hemis. A Light-jacker for eons, Blasphedemien was worth a lot of currency in whatever dimension. Down in the MMD, Lazoo and company would welcome the return of their Missy, which would happen if someone were to kindly ensure Hemis was eliminated in all dimensions, starting with the expelling of his entity in the Dream Dimension. The expulsion of an entity from the Dream Dimension is only possible if the entity is proven guilty of a crime punishable by death nowadays. This is made easy by Afanasy's zero tolerance of stowaways. But in the bigger picture and for the greater good the message could be sent to all those who consider escaping reality down in the MMD letting them know that hell continues in heaven for those who look for an easy out from life's ordeals. Johnny, a simple man, tries to arrange his thoughts about what to do with Hemis who he's harbouring now, due to the mercenary's first response when he realised he had a wanted man cornered on the glass train and that he might stand to profit from the situation, a decision Johnny begins to question as he sees in the sky that Afanasy himself was on his way to investigate what was happening.
…John Lazoo sees the EEG monitor on Missy's side of the room register activity above what's been the norm. He looks to see if there's physical correlation to the wave that continues on its curve, but there's nothing more than a flutter of eyelids shut tight, protecting Missy from a world she had no right to be in—a pang of guilt hits Lazoo in the sternum as he looks for answers to why Missy continues to suffer. Genisis breathing in unison with imaginary drums that beat in another dimension for a kidnapper eases Lazoo's mind for the moment as he reminds himself that he has to be here fully, all his wits about him, for her, who has been there for him over the years. "It's not your fault," Lazoo hears Genisis' ever present voice, consoling as ever, and it reminds him that he should be thinking of others and not wallowing in self-pity.
Lazoo, for the moment, considers what John Reyer has been suggesting in the story he's reading to Genisis and Missy to be what's actually happening and Lazoo's experiences with Hemis, a kid from the same town Lazoo grew up in who came to New York to be an actor so he could be like John Lazoo, become weird and pliable to the work in progress….
Moonlight in between the quaking floorboards makes for an Arcadian setting. Hemis has trained himself to numb his mind and dumb his lips when what's happening begins. The bending boards bow unnaturally as the sound of bedsprings stretching to breaking point skew and scare off any sense of reality Hemis has left. Hemis stares at the floor above him where he's domiciled by those two who he refers to as his inept guardians who go at it like crazed animals with someone they brought home from the bar. Hemis lays eyes wide open…the dust permeating on his face and drying his bold eyeballs, falls from the floorboards covering his rigid body in a shroud of disgust….
The municipal facility, a library, one of the locations which John Reyer, a jack of all trades and a master of many more, has marked as one of the places he will allow himself to visit during his time as the Poet Soldier, which will be no less than two decades; is solemn as it is serious. Hemis spots the reformed man, who could pass for his dad at a computer, where he types away at a manuscript designed to motivate young minds looking for something to believe in. The ethos behind the text is love defies fear, the father of hate. The characters in the story were created to carry the message to a mass never before reached, due to accessibility. But with the advent of the internet, and its potential for touching more people than ever with a message carefully delivered so it's more palatable than the news, and more enchanting than the guilt laden burden of religion yet more believable than advertising, the end-to-end-saga may just be what the world needs.
LATEST UPLOAD: Monday December 31st 2012
Right now in the Dream Dimension…Johnny sees Afanasy in the sliver convertible as it pulls up at the end of the alleyway. The only place to hide is in a doorway to his right. Johnny looks over his shoulder to see if Hemis, with Missy in his arms, is still following him. Shawshank, a Houdini-like character, takes a look up the side of the building he's about to lead his fugitives into. Loud music and cheering from inside the rowdy joint make it as good a place as any for Johnny and his runaways to hide. Inside the doorway without a door, where there's room for the three bodies and not one more, Johnny knocks on the wall to the left four times and then he stops before knocking once more and then he pauses again. Then he knocks one more time followed by three quick taps and two more triplets, followed by a single knock and then two more triplets and finally a single thump on the wooden door. Hemis guesses the code from the knocking as Afanasy and some of his men pass by within reach of where he and Missy are perched in the doorway as Johnny waits for a response. Johnny takes a moment to confirm his whereabouts in time. It crosses his mind to check his location on the scope-of-time when he sees that Afanasy, who passed by the door, was not in uniform. The SFD Unit had been around for some time now; it had been a few eons since Afanasy and his cronies had gone official. Johnny looks at his captives and the possibility that the scene they're in right now is under Hemis the Light-jacker's control becomes probable.
"Been here before?" Johnny asks Hemis and then he looks at the ground, closes his eyes and prays that Hemis will not lie to him. The silence perpetuates the theory that Hemis would've been culled at daybreak on the dock for being a rogue entity before civility took hold of the SenFenide Dimension. "Let me rephrase, when was the first time you visited the Dream Dimension?" The window in the wall which no one could see opens and Johnny recognises where he's at, Raven Tavern, fortifying his fear that Hemis has hijacked the REPRO, as up till now Johnny hadn't recognised the place he frequents regularly.
"Stipulation stipulates, you must be able to jig in the fond light of my whims," Johnny says the password to Mandy, co-proprietor of Raven Tavern, who opens up the door. Mandy, who can normally be found atop the long bar dancing which is why she was brought into the lucrative business, gives Johnny the once over and then checks out Hemis holding Missy in his arms. Johnny can tell that the unusual event of Mandy being anywhere but on the bar top where she loves to gambol with one hand on her pistol locked and loaded and ready for anyone the wall of screaming souls does not suck up is due to the fugitive alert that continues to sound throughout the dimension.
"He's here already with her," Mandy confirms for Johnny that his fugitives Hemis and Missy have already been referenced inside her establishment from a previous visit to the Dream Dimension.
At the mention that Hemis and Missy are inside Raven Tavern, Johnny finds reason to enter into the place he hasn't gone near in a while. He pushes past Mandy who has her usual cheeky grin. "She's here, you know…" Mandy calls out to Johnny as Hemis carries Missy through the door which Mandy pokes her head out of looking for signs of Afanasy and his crew. Shawshank pretends he doesn't hear Mandy warning him that Michelle, Mandy's business partner who Johnny has history with, is working in the bar right now….
Autumn 2005…"He's the one, he even looks like you. Has the swagger and sneer…" Missy tugs at John Lazoo's arm and continues to badger him, the director of the original play, who Hemis Chokery-Blasphedemien is going to play as the lead character.
"Take five please," Lazoo calls out from the auditorium to the kid shielding his eyes so he might get a glimpse of John James Lazoo, the Illiterate Poet, auditioning him for the lead part in a play Hemis knows inside out. Lazoo looks at his writer, Missy, a fifteen year old high school student. Without Missy, whose idea it was to revamp the one man play Lazoo had performed back in the late '90s at Hariss Clariss' compound, there would be no production. His interest in the project was purely to support Missy, who up till now had done all the work from writing the play to posting ads online for cast members. Well, one cast member to play the lead male part opposite her.
Something nags at Lazoo, normally a clear headed person that in and amongst all of this, the play he agreed to produce and direct for Missy, there's something he should have picked up on. Something glaring at him in the face which once he placed his finger on, it would sync a few other events together telling a story or solving a problem which may or may not exist already. It wasn't that he didn't trust Missy, after all Missy was family, yes an operative, but she was family, raised by Arley and the extended family. ..It was more a case of whether Missy was aware of what the "The Guy in the GAME," the one man play Lazoo wrote and directed was, not even what it was about. One of the first things John Reyer the Poet Soldier did after LMLA-ink, who were formed back in the early to mid-eighties, was he designed devices for covert communications which the members of the crew could easily utilise or fall back on when in the field. The rough outline of concepts for songs, poems, plays, and screenplays were distributed amongst the Network, with a fair few of them ending up in the mainstream under new names by some of the world's most famous artists. All tolled close to 7 Billion dollars was generated from LMLA-ink cloaking devices between the early eighties to the late nineties. For fourteen years the MILL operated, not for the sake of profiteering from the proceeds but for keeping the key players; artists, directors, and producers in check for the Network. Then, on a summer's day in '97 in Central park New York US, all that changed….
Late 2003, Hemis gets up close and personal with the writer he's come to see about spreading the work like a virus to as many minds as possible. Hemis gets a hang of the fact that he's a figment of his own imagination in another person's imagination, which gives him an outside chance of being something if the person whose imagination Hemis is trying to infiltrate considered Hemis as a character in the story he's writing. Something which Hemis doesn't see on the pages the Novice writer splatters his thoughts upon. But that doesn't deter Hemis as he thinks about the future and the day he will appear in the SASBWAH (story about the story being written) alongside Lazoo whom Hemis has already visited in New York.
Hemis reads onscreen what the Novice has written since the last time he was here. Hemis finds Lazoo's and Genisis' love and the writer's passion for it unnerving at times, especially when it becomes the implied motive for the tongue murders for which John Lazoo is charged. Nevertheless, the vessel to deliver such love into the hearts of those who need it is sometimes irrelevant. The meaning of it all will be explained when the story about the story being written is told.
LATEST UPLOAD: Thursday January 3rd 2013
Inside Raven Tavern seated at a table in the corner are Hemis, Missy, and Johnny on one side. Hemis feels a tickle in his throat which he doesn't want to admit he has for fear he will end up having a coughing fit and now isn't the best time to show any weakness as across the table is Shem-I, a younger version of Hemis himself, which Hemis had been told about when Mandy let them in the back door. Next to Shem-I is obviously Missy, alive and well, happy…laughing at whatever crap Shem decides he will blurt out. Next to Hemis is Missy, barely alive and muttering something as she hangs her head like she suffers a never-ending hangover from debauchery and abuse of all substances known to a foolish man's mind.
Johnny Shawshank watches Hemis as Johnny counts down to the moment when Shem-I realises that Hemis is a replica of him due to having arrived in someone else's dream or having travelled the astral plane after Shem-I did. Entities don't recognise each other like shells do using physical attributes. Entities understand each other by one's aspirations, fears and desires, regardless of mental and physical capabilities to fulfil, fight or flee the three cognitions that define an entity. The balance of an Entity's 3 Cognitions creates a Sáwol-Profilia by which entities recognise other entities. Johnny looks over at the bar to where Michelle is, something which he had promised himself he wouldn't do for Imogen's sake, who Johnny lives with. Like Shem-I and Hemis, Imogen and Michelle ended up in the same place at the same time, only Imogen was a figment of Johnny's imagination, but such was his passion for the character, Imogen and Bella from a previous REPRO re-conjured themselves by recoiling their bronzed states after elevation to the AMD, or the AmalgaMension Dimension, and were back again just when the story would have it, a happy ending for Johnny and Michelle. Cogent argument propels Johnny's sensibilities to expel any desires for fear that he be a lonely aspirant with only air to his name if he were to pursue the beatific figure, who bides her time serving alcoholic serum that is an elixir to unsuspecting clientele, and was indeed a killer for hire in her spare time.
Johnny's vision of beauty is disturbed by the demonic sound of two voices in unison—Shem-I had recognised the replica entity and had obviously overwhelmed and possessed Hemis. "Hi Hemis, my name is Shem-I-Coke," the chant goes…Hemis takes his arm from around Missy. Hoping he might stop what's happening, Hemis grips his own throat with both hands, but the words still keep coming, "I'm out of place and out of time, so I guess it's just bad luck that I find myself cross referenced by the original entity of my shell back in the deep dark hole under the floor boards in Wisconsin…" Hemis' face reddens as he tries harder to throttle the sound of his own voice, spluttering the words he cannot help himself from spewing out. It was like he was on a tandem bicycle without brakes, having no say about the movement of his pedals. The propulsion by Shem-I, the rogue entity who arrived here before Hemis, was too powerful for Hemis to control….
Missy wakes to music from the New Global Realm. Jazz Funk made for and by the TRUFUNK Soldiers floods the brain's neurotransmitters. Synaptic connections forging their relevance on the myriad of mindscapes trigger endorphins, which swivel their simpatico, enticing like-minds on the F3qenZor. Millions accessing the soon to be not so secret telepathic relay force Missy, one who was born a node on the F3quenZor, to wait for her turn to jump on board so she can see if she can reach Shem-I-Coke. She can't wait to see him again. Or, to be exact—hear and feel him again—since they won't be able travel some place together like they did last night till tonight in their dream; a Faux pas, when it comes to her role as an agent. But then again, her and all of the members of LMLA-ink were recruited for their ability to utilize their Psychic abilities in the line of duty, a fact that none of the crew discuss or admit to in person. Her coming out and declaring that she Astral travels, which is how she met the new recruit Shem-I from Wisconsin, who is yet to arrive in New York in the flesh so to speak, will only delay any chance of promotion, which Missy could not be bothered about at the least. Polina was doing fine and was well on her way to becoming "The" Princess of The New Global Realm, and quite frankly all the attention and responsibility was a turn off for Missy who had as much ambition as Polina had, but preferred to move in the shadows rather than be submitted to the perverse overtness of the limelight.
Missy's Ne0—TeleWorld Sliver, which sits on her bedside cabinet, vibrates and instantly the mood declines for Missy as reality sets in when she considers that its Tone Horroh contacting her for when the next debrief with Hannibal Ammer will take place. The last one was long and labored. The session, unlike the classic LMLA-ink ones in the old bar in Chinatown, took four long hours, during which Missy, who has a photographic memory like most of the crew, dictated to a stenographer in a room at the Hilton, word for word, the contents of the manuscript she had read while on her celestial journey with Shem-I to visit the Poet Soldier, John Reyer, down under….
Hemis crawls out from under the cottage. He stands up and looks out over the plains as far as the naked eye can see and farther than the nimble mind can conceive. Hemis' ambition had finally run out of patience and he had to follow his dream. It was now or never! Not to mention the reason, or his motivation to get to New York now, and not later was Missy Lévon. His girlfriend had found letters from Missy, but that didn't bother Hemis. In Hemis' mind it was payback for her doing it with the jock on prom night, Hemis' birthday in the room, Hemis had saved up all year for.
It had been almost two years since he had finished his medical and psych eval for the Network, which Hemis had passed, and no one had contacted him. He can trace the last contact from Hannibal Ammer, the "Grand Puba," as Tone had put, back to around the time he had started projecting himself on the Astral Plane.
"Hey sssss-ooon, you're worthy of a decent ass fucking and that's it!" Hemis hears the old man on the porch. The maggot's language is abusive as usual but what can one expect from one's eldest sibling when they're also your father. And then he hears the bitch next to him in a g-string and nothing else to grease a frying pan with a raspy cackle, "Ya li'l fucken faggot, why don't ya fly off into the blue, where your kind live, amongst the fairies and icklelairs…" Hemis waits for their daily amusement to subside, which he is the victim of. It usually happens when they get around to asking Hemis for money for smokes or some moonshine from the Ghetty Jones in the next farm.
"Here!" Hemis with his back faced to them looks at vast open plains which he will miss as he holds up a bundle of notes for someone to come and get. The offer silences his inept guardians whom he had outgrown. Hemis looks across to the rickety cross he made that marks the grave he dug to bury his half baby brother who died from pneumonia earlier this year.
"I'm going to New York. Going to be an actor. Play Lazoo who came from these parts…" Hemis' voice is shaky in the Mid-West winds. The pent up energy from how long he had practised for this moment sends a wave through his delivery, which his defiant stance as he remains with his back turned to them does not waver….
LATEST UPLOAD: Saturday January 5th 2013
Hemis marvels at how Johnny Shawshank separated him from Shem-I, who was left behind in the burning building. "Should one of us get back here before the others, you know what to do…." Johnny looks at Hemis in the front seat and then at Mandy and Michelle in the back seat. In the rear view mirror the flames rise high into the night sky as Johnny flees the scene in the silver convertible, heading for the Dimension Forks. Hopefully they'll arrive there before dawn, so Johnny's plan will have a chance at fulfilling multiple dreams as it were.
"We're the Icklelairs…" Hemis laughs at how Johnny startled Shem-I, confusing the entity long enough for Hemis to escape Shem-I's hold on him. But then Hemis remembers what's actually happening. Back in the building already enshrouded in a blaze of agony reaching for the heavens, the entities which Shawshank decided should die of natural causes, who Shawshank had left for dead back there, include Missy. Hemis suddenly becomes sullen, as he tries to repress the resentful feelings that start to swell in him. Johnny, noticing the change in Hemis as he realises what's happening after Hemis was dazed from walking into Shem-I's Sáwol-Profilia force field, a defence mechanism entities resort to when they come across their replicas in the SFD. It angers Johnny that Hemis is not aware of the ramifications of his actions—kidnapping Missy in the middle of a dream—but then Johnny decides against making a point at this time after thinking about the situation from Hemis' position.
"Tell me about it. How you got her here…" Johnny manages to sound cordial. Hemis hears the opportunity to exit in a genial manner and buries the tears that start to bulge within him. "Suck it up," Johnny's easy suggestion falls by the side of the road they speed along when the light on the radio blinks and the needle begins to travel right on the dial. The dirty and murky stained glass that protects the red marker moving across the radio spectrum reminds Hemis of the veil of secrecy they were under down in the MMD. The static that the needle finds symbolises the noise that surrounds the many versions of the truth which is the signal that the needle finds. Some radio stations are weak and distant, while others are loud and strong. But then some of the loud signals carry music or information that is irrelevant and grating on one's nerves.
"It was right after I did what I did…." Hemis finds the courage to rise to the occasion as he begins to open up about his account of how he ended up in this situation.
The needle comes across familiar music, the beginning of a song they all know well. It coincides with them reaching the strip of highway that runs the length of the wastelands that is the Dimension Forks, the place where nothing grows, and few men return from, for the barren plains having been designated the war lands and the valley of death. Johnny listens to Hemis has he tells his story while Johnny signals with his eyes in the rear view mirror for the two women in the backseat to hop out as he slows the car down. Hemis still talks candidly of his experience beginning to make light of what he'd done, which is a good sign for Johnny who has a lump in his throat as he contemplates what he has to do.
Johnny decides not to make any further eye contact with Michelle who he will leave with Mandy here at the Forks, a place where they will be safe from any changes that happen in any of the dimensions. "Imogen and Bella are back where they belong," Johnny confirms for the women that everything that's happening is for the greater good, even though they lured Imogen and Bella to the Tavern moments before it went up in flames.
Johnny looks at the radio as the music gets louder. In the rear view, the sun's oars start reaching for the heavens from behind the horizon. In the background, to the music and emotions that run high, Hemis' story begins to sound faint as his expression becomes languid. Johnny revs the motor, a sign of confidence that Hemis was deep in a trance he placed himself in once he began the cathartic process Johnny induced Hemis into.
Johnny slams the convertible into gear, and then he recklessly releases the clutch, sending the back of the vehicle in every direction before the smoking tires find traction on the black tar seal. Hemis' head hangs but his lips still mutter words that would confuse anyone listening. Johnny reaches over as the back of the car fishtails and pulls Hemis' seatbelt tight, straightening the unconscious entity in his seat. Hemis was gone, a sign that Shem-I was successfully laid to rest and now the final act in Hemis' story…speeding down the lonely stretch of highway, the speedometer needle begins to tap on the limit pin and the vehicle starts to shudder. So Johnny eases his foot off the gas, only to suddenly pull the handbrake sending the car into a spin from the steering wheel turned hard to the right… the passing scenery is again rearranged as Johnny spins the steering wheel in the opposite direction and plants his foot at the same time when he counts that they had spun one and half times. The result, a fluke, as he finds himself facing the horizon and in the middle of the road, but more importantly, Hemis was still fast asleep as together they set sail for the horizon one last time….
John Lazoo places his Ne0—TeleWorld .GOR tablet down on the table as he senses something. First he looks to his right and Genisis has a peaceful look on her face as the new mother rests. Wishful thinking would then have him look to his left to see if what was happening in the story had any effect on Missy. He picks up the tablet again and smiles as he looks at the work; an effort by the Poet Soldier to let them know that he cares about his crew, or characters. Revisiting the story of Hemis was inevitable in the wake of Missy's coma; all avenues had to be explored! No stone could be left unturned! In finding the cure or reason for her coma, which had left physicians and experts perplexed, and now looking for help from the outer reaches obviously, when it was divulged by one of the doctors "Hopefully bygones be bygones and the GUIOPERA will divulge what science and medicine have gravely fallen short in identifying…" Sarcasm, Lazoo recognised, but also acknowledgement of the work that they all should be proud of.
Lazoo keeps his head down as his imagination gets the better of him, imagining that Missy was back with the sound of music that finds his ear in this chaos filled with responsibility and action that must be carried out.
"When was the last time you stopped to listen to the music?" Lazoo hears the question. The voice is familiar, but he cannot place who the voice belongs to.
Lazoo looks up to see where the shadow that appears at the top of his view is coming from. In the glass window is Polina holding Little Lazoo, a name they've given the baby for now till he and Genisis decide on a name
Polina is pointing with her head at something. Lazoo looks to his right to see that Genisis is awake and smiling as she too is looking over his shoulder in the same direction as Polina.
Lazoo grins, as it's his only way of concealing real joy as he places who the owner of the voice is.
Polina enters the room with his son, and walks to Missy's bed. Lazoo can no longer conceal the fruits of his success according to the story about the story being written….
Hemis looks over his shoulder at the car parked on the side of the road with Missy, his ex and Genisis in it as he follows Lazoo into the maze field on the outskirts of Wisconsin. Hemis is ready but, more importantly, confident as he has his eye on the back of Lazoo's knees in case Lazoo tries anything.
"Why you following so closely?" Lazoo sounds like he's joking, but Hemis has been warned by Tone Horroh and Hannibal Ammer about Lazoo and how he works. "Unlike most people, Lazoo will use your energy to defeat you…"
That's all it took, a moment spent thinking about what he had been told about the man he had in his sights…. Hemis feels the mud seeping through his jeans as he sits on his arse. Lazoo's grip on his head is tight, letting Hemis know that he had been sprung. The scariest thing for Hemis about being in this situation was that Missy, his closest ally, was aware of who he was. And if he didn't come back to the car with Lazoo his vanishing would be put down to a rat being smoked out. Not that Hemis was a rat, but to save time, that's what Lazoo would use in his report when it came time to write it up.
Hemis keeps his cool as he waits to see what Lazoo knows. But then he decides he will start the negotiations, being the one on the ground with his head in a lock that could turn at any moment giving him his last panoramic view of the world.
"I came to New York on my own accord, after not hearing back from the Network…" Hemis can almost hear Lazoo's brain scan what he said for anomalies….
"The play?" Lazoo finally speaks, Hemis can smell his breath, his anger is evident. "All Missy's idea. I promise…." Hemis' answer disappears as Lazoo's choke hold tightens on Hemis' windpipe and his other hand pulls Hemis' head right side by his jaw, letting Hemis know how close he is to an end when Hemis feels his spinal cord at the base of his neck being twisted to breaking point….
It's the day of the dress rehearsals for the play and Hemis is early. He paces his changing room, the thought that Lazoo knows that he's a double agent as far as LMLA-ink is concerned troubles Hemis. There's a knock at the door, which he'll ignore and maybe it'll go away, and then he hears Hannibal Ammer's voice, "Open up, I wanna wish you luck…."
Hemis opens the door and standing there with a smile that's more of a snarl is Ammer who turned the young operative before he had a chance. Hemis grabs the door posts and pokes his head through the doorway looking left and then right to see if anyone is about to see what's happening.
"I have a gift for you. It's Lazoo's revolver…." Hannibal's sneer is disturbing and Hemis knows that he must get rid of Ammer before someone sees him here. And then Hemis reminds himself of where he is and doom's net falls upon the unsuspecting kid as he considers what if LMLA-ink had approved a twisted ending for him and Ammer is here to end it all.
"Come in!" Hemis grabs Ammer by the arm and pulls him into the room. Hemis pushes the handler down into a seat as he enters the room and then Hemis steps back and closes the door. With his back against the door, Hemis offers Ammer what he thought to be piecemeal that would suffice Ammer's quota of Intel on the subsidiaries as LMLA-ink are known to Mr Businessman.
"Tone Horroh is going to kill you in 2010 as part of the GUIOPERA…."
Those were Hemis' last words.
To be continued….
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