The poets room

***The Poets Room***

The poets room
has nothing in it.
No comfortable furniture,
no radio, no voices,
no clocks ticking, nothing
except the beat in your ear, of blood
pulsing through your heart.

Do you hear?

In the poets room
your favorite movies, start twitching
on the empty walls, whenever
you are brave enough
to chase your images
with words.

Do you see?

In a future of few books,
your mind a library of hush
where crowds devour your creations.
Others enter,
not knowing whether to worship, or bow
in your direction.

Do you believe?

Back to the poets room
friendly in a fantastical way
where you can taste butterflies
and jump stars as if rocks
and always be someplace else, provided
you have pen and paper
to take you.

Can you fly?

****

Monologue of the dirty motorcycle helmet man

Yes, that's me lying on the pavement. I am a dirty motorcycle helmet man. I sell motorcycle helmets but that is just an excuse because what I really enjoy doing is watching the ladies as they walk pass. You see these 'Bibi's', these demons of my heart; how they flay me so? These college 'ladies' think so much of themselves with their mighty educations and their higher aspirations and their haughty expressions. What am I but a gnat, an earthworm, toiling blindly under the soil; suitable for squishing under their heels. Do you know what it said on my packet when I was born? 'Instructions: 'To be squished under the ladies heels' Oof! Squish me lady do you hear! Hurt me! That is what I am for. Squishing! I have a question for you. Why do you pretend not to see me my lovelies? I am here! Right in front of your eyes on the pavement. Everyday I wait outside the gates of your prestigious 'International Women Only College' just to catch a whiff of those dupattas and skin creams. Say lady, what cream do you use? Oof! You bark! You say I should mind my own business? But it becomes my business when said skin cream invades my private nostril space.

Would you like a motorcycle helmet? 'No' you say. I know what it is. I know what is the matter. I am not good enough isn't it? When was a motorcycle helmet man ever considered eligible? I must live in a dream world, haina? It is all status these days. Status! - Status! - Status! Silver - Gold - Platinum. I am not even bronze. Oof! bronze I am not even stone. I am twigs. Twigs on the funeral pyre! Ash! Yes I am ash. No! even ash gets thrown in the mother Ganges. Oof! I am dirt! Filthy defiling dirt! But listen, come closer, I am more. I am more than this dirt! Don't judge me so crudely. Hear the beat? Do you hear! It beats so loud at night even the owl's are scared. That beat is my status. Do you hear? You don't agree? 'Do I disappoint you? Do I leave a bad taste in your mouth?'. Do you know who that is? That is words from a famous song of the Western Kingdom. The mighty U2. I know what you're thinking. What do I know about such Western bestern things? Haina? Ha! This motorcycle helmet man knows much lady fool! I have depths. Deep trenches. Gaping ruts. Ravines that plunge down down down. There is much to see and explore. I am no hollow coconut. No fancy pancy oily gangster - the type you fancy no doubt. You think I have nothing? Let me show you nothing. Lady let me introduce you to Mr Nothing!

You see? Mr Nothing really has nothing. Poor man rummages through scraps of the heaps. With his rummaging partner the pariah dog. He is worse than a dog for a dog has no choice, but a man! Tut-tut. A man can choose. You see? I am not so bad! I have some thoughts. With a bit of work I may even have ideas and who knows one day even ideals. Haina? And another thing I don't smell neither. Unlike Mr poo poo Nothing over there sniffing in the dustbins. I have prospects and I have a skill. Selling motorcycle helmets is not easy-peasy lady-mystery. It is a mystery. An art. Many bahainchaut scoundrels out there trying to fleece you off a few rupees. What are a few rupees you say? A few rupees a day make a man, over a life, a millionaire! Not that I don't expect to move up in the world from my motorcycle helmets. Oh, yes. I will be going somewhere. It is up and up for me. It is also up to you if you are coming on this boat. For I am leaving these shores and heading for Eldorado - the fabled city of gold!

So are you coming? - No? Oof! You are most brutal! Their is cruelty in you! Suit you! Don't expect me to look at you tomorrow. I will ignore you. My eyes will be elsewhere. No, not on another lady! I may be a motorcycle helmet man but I have pride and I have a mother. Yes a mother! What has a mother got to do with anything you ask? Let me finish. I have a mother. And she chose me. And so did God. They both chose me. And for that I am grateful. If only God would choose to help me sell more motorcycle helmets. If only! He can do that for me can't he lady? Surely it is within His powers whose magnificence created the light show I sleep under? Look! I have a customer! See, I told you I am going places. This is a portent. He has heard me! Eldorado here I come! Today it feels good to be a motorcycle helmet man. Tomorrow who knows. But today I feel, right now, at this moment, that motorcycle helmet man is king!

Oof! You giggle! I see you. Don't try hiding it from me. Why do you giggle so? Do I make you laugh? Or do you take pity on me? Oof! Arai, I see you smile. Come here lady. I want to tell you something. Listen: My father (God bless his soul) once put his arms around my shoulders and with a solemn voice said to me. 'Son, remember these words. You might be a motorcycle helmet man, or a chimney sweep, or a dhobi wallah, or a toilet cleaner flushing turds down the hole, or any of these things, but always remember, that no matter what or who you are, or what you do in the world, an apple tastes the same no matter how fortunate or unfortunate the tongue that tastes it'. Ah! You see what fine words he spoke! My father the philosopher. So, look here. I have in my pocket an apple. I bet that it will taste the same to me as to you. Shall we try?

Oof! What do you mean it is not washed!

****

The Monster Munch

The poetry of rural India

Skidding across the continent and scuffing my heels I greedily swallow the lives that flash by me. Lives of rest and lives of woe. I swallow entire lives but they leave no taste. And many times they leave no impression too. These are the lives that left an impression. These foto grafs were taken on the long road to Mumbai. It is mid morning and the sun is struggling to be heard through the veil of a dusty shroud. I often wondered why the landscape had such a forlorn aspect in the mornings. Many times you could see the vultures circling already - before the day had even blinked. Many times it felt like a dream. Are these people people or are they ghosts? Did I see these things? I often wonder whether I was there. It seems like another life to me.

The story of this man is the story of a path unknown to me. I glimpse but that is all I can hope for; a glimpse. We must walk our own paths. Chosen or otherwise. Ah, Reflections! Reflections! I can see what you're thinking. Are these mine own reflections? Can you see them in the water? My reflections?

Such scenes are repeated everyday. Mile upon mile. Life upon life. I view these with a strangely singular eye. Seeing but not watching. Watching but not seeing. Sometimes an image condenses and leaves an impression; like breathing on a cold window pane. This image is rectangular and two dimensional, but life is not. But there is more! Behind this image there is much more! You just gotta look.

We are treading the same path. Will it lead to where I want to go? Perhaps this family knows. Should I ask them? If I am lucky they will not laugh in my face. 'Where are you going?' I often wonder this question of my subjects. 'Where are you going in such a hurry people?' Can I come too? - sometimes they even let me.

The story of an image

Foto grafy is a game of patience. A game you play with yourself. That's all it takes really, patience. You have to spend hours waiting for the 'decisive moment' where the elements in the frame all come together to complete the image. In the case of this image I'd been waiting at the T-junction for about two hours. I'm usually very patient and more than happy to lounge on the pavements edge watching the wheels and the world go by. I remember that it'd been raining heavily that day and though I was wearing my poncho, I was still feeling wet and cold. The sky was gray overcast and the clouds were looking menacing in the distance. I'd taken some shots earlier that day but I knew they were mediocre. I was on the verge of giving up when, thanks to Providence, this lady appeared. I saw her shuffling towards me in the far distance so I got into position and waited. Luckily there was nobody else in the frame when I took the shot. You know what they say don't you: fortune favours the patient - and, might I add, the wet and the cold and the miserable!

The story of an image

Kolkata is teeming with images like this. Its streets are a rainbow tapestry for the voyeur. I spent a whole week in Kolkata. A week I shall never forget. How can you? How can you forget scenes like this? There are no shades in Kolkata - only contrasts. I remember the first morning I arrived. I checked into my room, grabbed my camera, a couple of lenses, memory cards, polarisers, spare battery, sunglasses, bottle of water, and headed straight out onto the streets. I didn't return till the next morning! I'd been out all night; wandering, partaking, soaking, seeing and finally believing. I was headed for the worst places. I wanted to know if I could stand them. Places of beauty and hope hold no interest for me because they are not places of extremes. To feel alive I need to see life lived on the very edge of existence - that dirty spot on the edge of the tablecloth. Of course I got lost, but that's half the point. The next morning I stumbled back to the guest house and told the manager where I'd been. He took me aside and told me I was a fool! Why do I do it? I've asked myself this many times. They say that coming close to death brings you closer to life. Perhaps this is my way of getting closer to the essence of life? The pall of the anaesthetic of familiarity of everyday existence can be numbing. Is this my equivalent of a shot in the arm? I want to drink from the cup of life. I want to experience life in all its forms and structures and rituals and consciences. I want to step outside myself, take off this 'biological suit' called Wasim and put on a new suit called 'someone else'. I don't want to be Me always. Always Me is boring. I want to be You and You and You and yes You. I want to be everybody at least once. I want to be the little girl in this image and the mother that tied her up and the father that doesn't care and the street vendor who sees her everyday playing in the fucking dirt. I want to be the man that walks past her and doesn't notice and the man who sees her and can't take it.

The story of an image

I took this fotograf on my way to the ancient city of Fatehpur Sikri in India. I remember the moment clearly. I was sitting in the front seat of the bus with my camera in my lap feverishly snapping away. It was a hot dusty day, the window was down and my lungs were drowning in dust. And then this open-backed vehicle appeared up ahead. The boys were evidently on their way somewhere to make a delivery; though why you would need so many of them is any one's guess! You could probably make up a little story about them. Anyway, I remember they were looking at me, intrigued by me; me being this 'feranji' sitting in the front of the bus snapping away like a madman! I waved at them in a friendly sort of way and they returned the compliment by waving back and then one of them (you can see his head between the bodies if you click on the image) stuck his head out and made a funny face (or perhaps that is his normal face). Anyway, at that exact moment a group of girls appeared into view so that was my cue to take a shot. I think the image works well. There is a symmetry to it and a comic element. A lot of fotografy is about what 'Henri Cartier Bresson' called 'the decisive moment'. I'd hate to be in that truck though. Looks most uncomfortable!

The space journal of a heretic (folio II)

Friday 24th Nov, 2876
On board deep-space mining vessel 'Aluvium' : transporter of heretics to farthest reaches of the galaxy

'I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precedent, and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature, and that man [is] myself.
Myself alone! I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read...This is what I have done, what I have thought, what I was'
('Confessions' - by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1776)


Confession! Confession! Confession! :-
It was many dawns ago during the reign of the Spanish Inquisition that heretics were condemned to death by the tasty method of burning alive. On the eve of execution, as a sort of appetiser, the poor condemned wretches were paraded along the square. Their heavy shackles picking their ankles to the bone as they shuffled along the rutted path. The boisterous crowds booing at the procession; spitting in their faces, flinging at them horse shit and gawking for pleasure. And besides the heretics always a priest scuttling along side them, with bible clutched in one hand, and with the other hand dodging the horse shit missiles. The priest whispering in their ears in quick-fire guttural, imploring them to renounce their heresies, to save their souls from eternal damnation. And who were these unfortunate heretics? Protestants, witches, Jews, Moslem's, non-believers, sodomites, homosexuals, mutants, freaks of nature, sufferers of Huntingdon's disease, they were all put to the flames. None were spared the wrath of the holy inquisitors. A bonfire hell on earth.

I can imagine their screams. They travel through the ages on the breath of time and whisper to me in my dreams. Death was slow and deliciously painful. I'll elaborate a little further for your delectation. First the skin around the legs would start peeling from the heat. Above a certain temperature the fat content in the legs reaches melting point and melts. As the flames swoop up and gather pace the bodies writhe in excruciating agony. But still very much alive and in full awareness of the horror befalling them. The hair catches fire, internal organs explode from the pressure, blood colludes, the crowd jeers. Can you imagine a more gruesome faith? The medieval crowds lapped it up. For it was entertainment and all the better for it being real and them being heretics. In their final death throes the burning wretches would renounce their sins, plead forgiveness, scream for help and only then would the jeering stop and the crowd be silenced. The flames now total. The souls now departed. Peace at last. Ahh! oblivion!

In those days you could be burnt for thinking. For thinking that man's destiny was in his hands, for thinking that god did not intervene in everyday matters, for thinking that people born with deformities were not (as it was believed) the payback of their parents sins, but rather the result of a physical phenomenon in the womb, for thinking that the earth went around the sun, for thinking that man can improve his lot by rising though the ranks and was not therefore confined to the social strata in which he was born, for thinking, for thinking, for thinking. For nothing is more vilified, nothing is more despised, nothing is more hated than the serf who thinks. If only they'd left those explosive heresies safely locked up in their heads - where no man may see them. The incendiary thoughts hidden in the skull. But what good is that? What good are thoughts if they cannot be flung across the globe like seeds; taking root in people's minds and lighting the sparks of a million glorious mutinies. A billion stars born.

I remember when as a child I'd walk pass 'The Commissars of the Holy' and bow in deference. But if only they could see what horrid (to them) little thoughts I beheld at those moments: You can take away my tongue but my thoughts are tongueless!

And what now? Well now they've invented the 'device'. Implanted at birth so now even our thoughts don't belong to us. Stolen! Private property! You can no longer hide and take comfort in those quiet places anymore. They'll find you even there. What is left? Tongueless, thoughtless humanity - the world now stupid and mute. But alas I am free of all that. A long ago memory. As I look through the window in my cabin I see space for what it is: The absence of everything and yet containing everything. How can something be so empty and yet be so full? Soon the distance will be so great that I fear it will drown out, smother my memories, in a nothingness. My memories a grain of sand in a blackness that has no edge. No edge and no end it seems. I must get off this ship.

The art of cool

I'm cool cos I don't give a shit
I'm cool cos this playground is not big enough for me
I'm cool cos I wake up, look in the mirror and say 'hey man, who's this cool guy!'
I'm cool cos I brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush
I'm cool cos I have a G-Star jacket that makes me look really cool, like it should
I'm cool cos G-Star cool jacket + cool me + electric toothbrush = super cool guy!
I'm cool cos I've read 'War and Peace' and it was shit
I'm cool cos nobody knows who I am
I'm cool cos I don't know who I am
I'm cool cos I don't wanna know who I am
I'm cool cos when God made my brain he rewarded himself by taking a long holiday
I'm cool cos God's still on that holiday
I'm cool cos I'm wearing a digital watch I bought in Guatemala...off a blind man with no dick
I'm cool cos I exist
I'm cool cos when I walk down the street people wanna know why I look so cool
I'm cool cos people wanna sit next to me on buses and feel the force
I'm cool cos I have laser-beam eyes that see through stuff
I'm cool cos I can make you laugh
I'm cool cos I can make you cry
I'm cool cos I can make you see
I'm cool cos I am free
To be me...

Whoever that may be.


Yeah, I think I'm definitely cool

****

The selfish orgasm

The orgasm. What is it about? Let me rephrase: is it selfish or altruistic? i.e. is it about the fulfilment of the partner or the fulfilment of the self?

Imagine two lovers. Having sex. During the period leading up to orgasm the two lovers are able to experience a feeling of unbridled and untamed abandonment to one another. Yes, abandonment. Gone is shyness. Gone is restraint. Gone is frigidness. They no longer pay attention to what the self is doing or what the partner is doing. All the movements take care of themselves, as if reflexively. The sensations greedily absorbed by the vulva, externally and through deep interior pressure, tell the vaginal cavity how to selfishly pulsate, ripple, quiver, and contract on the penis, in order to release itself in orgasm. Reciprocally, the penis selfishly probes and presses, twists a little, it too greedily building up its own orgasmic pleasure. The two bodies writhe in an ascending orchestra. And then the stars explode - just for affect.

And here's the crucial part: the two minds drift into the oblivion of attending only to their own feeling, so perfectly synchronized that the ecstasy of the one is the reciprocal ecstasy of the other. Two minds, mindlessly lost in one another. This is the perfect orgasmic experience. This is how an orgasm sighs, moans, exclaims, expires, exhausts itself into exultant rest. It is selfishness incarnate. You don't care how the partner feels...it's your own sexual fulfilment that matters.

But how could it be otherwise? Are we not separate bodies? Distinct entities? No amount of orgasmic communion could possibly bridge that physical gap. The gap of our bodies.

****

Mmm...Or maybe I'm just talking rubbish? Huh?

I always talk rubbish.

But it's good rubbish, no?

Good rubbish is better than no rubbish

I like my rubbish

It makes me feel alive

Does it make you feel alive too?

The space journal of a heretic

Thur 23rd Nov, 2876
On board Deep-Space mining vessel 'Aluvium' : transporter of heretics to farthest reaches of the Galaxy


LONG JOURNEYS are not good for the soul. Too much idle time to wander and pick clean the shores of one's history. There is the physical discomfort aboard a sailing vessel too. The cramp space, the humdrum life, the sickness, the pickled beef and briny stews that you can barely chew (so you add vinegar to soften the tendons), the chaffing of heads, the endless-seamless-monotonous sea of stars, the wasting of muscles, and of course a constant reminder of what you have left behind and the uncertainty of what’s to come…life is strange. Could it be any stranger?

In the olden days, mighty wooden vessels; creaking and tossing, would ply across the seas so wide, their sails catching the winds, winds that would fling em' from pole to pole, from place to place. Places barely imaginable – places you never new existed other than inside a madman's skull. And all for what? For bounty, for truth, for God and for glory. What’s in the heart of these men that journey through strife unimaginable by others left behind?

There are those whose hearts are greedy; whose sole reason to endure such things is aggrandizement; to quench that bottomless sink in their hearts. Can such hearts be quenched? Is there a fixed quantity of drinking from the cup of 'want' that such hearts will suddenly say: my thirst is quenched, I lay down my cup, I am done! Can that be possible? But those of us who know the true nature of want, and I lay stress here on true, can categorically say that there is no quenching the hearts of these sorts. For the oceans and lands are endless and men’s desires grow with the horizon as it expands its belt.

There is another type aboard. A more noble type one might say; though this is my own opinion and I lay it down here. A type not fooled by wants and greed’s; though this type does not in the least show disdain for his unpalatable shipmates. For he knows that men are simple beasts though they may think themselves exalted by god’s grace – Ha! God’s grace! He laughs! Such a man does not in his heart at least entertain a disdain for these sorts, for deep down, he knows nay very well understands the forces at play in the game of destinies. For we are all touched by the same gravities.

Such a man then, so opposite in character to his shipmates, nonetheless is aboard this ship, but what drives this man; what is the nature of the devil that shovels coals into his inner furnace. And by god! It is a furnace! If ye could only see and feel it. A mighty roaring fire of licking flames that bellows soot and such stuff, and yet, there it burns and there it remains in such a man. There is grief there. For I have seen it and felt its fiery temper. An endless well of grief that stamps its hooves and smokes its nostrils and threatens to overwhelm, yet through some miraculous act of Providence, it remains pacified. Yes, there is passion, deep seething passion inside such a man – but tempered by the hand of a rational kind and the gentle winds of the dust clouds that blow astern. But do not let the outwardly countenance of such a man make you think that he is not driven. There is conflict in him, an unreconciled conflict that cannot be appeased by anything on this world but by something far away, beyond reckoning.

He has been forsaken...a heretic. But how far can you be cast and for how long; for life is a sphere and you will always end up from whence you started. We all do. We travel but only in our minds. The only real travelling we do is birth to death. And even that is a mere flicker in the expanse of cosmic everything.

They didn't want him...a heretic. We are all born of the same earth and breathe the same air and sleep under the same stars. Can someone truly say that you do not belong? Are we not all made from the very same star dust? Am I not deserving!

Alas, I have given myself away. My name is Yakoob. And I am a heretic.

This is my confession:


(To be continued)

Coming soon...the continuing (and never ending) adventures of Super-fly!

Valentines Day (Oh no, not again)

I don’t do love very well. I’ve never really got a grip of them; the words that is. They always come out mangled as if someone’s been at them with a chainsaw. Soar? No, they don’t soar. The words don’t even get off the ground. What are words but squiggles on a screen - musical notes – the slant of copperplate – the inflections of desire. What is the most hackneyed combination of words in the whole world? ‘I - love – you’ – overused and over abused. What does that stupid phrase mean anyway? ‘I – love - you’. Who invented it? It sounds like something someone who doesn’t have anything to say, would say. Perhaps that is its appeal?


‘Love is being in love with the idea of somebody being in love with you’


Love is selfish. Love is narcissism. Think about it. But don’t think too much.

I know this is going to sound a little crude so I hope you’ll forgive me. It is something I was thinking about the other day. A little test: if you want to know whether you ‘really’ love someone. And I mean love them for who they are and not as a device for sex, than ask yourself how you feel about them after you’ve had a wank. If your desire for them takes a nose dive than you only want them for sex! Good huh? Sick huh?

Here’s another question: What is the purpose of love? Why do we ache and suffer for this crazy little thing called love? – What is it’s (as the French so nicely put it) Raison d’être? (Reason for being). Everything has a utility function. The utility function of feelings of romantic love is quite simply procreation. I.e. babies. Let me rephrase it:

I am in madly in love with you because my brain releases certain chemical compounds when I see and think about you. These chemicals released by my brain strengthen certain neural ‘connections’ – thus leading to feelings of being helplessly, hopelessly, head over heels, madly in love with you. My brain releases these chemicals because it has been programmed to do so. I have inherited this programmed ability from the genes of my ancestors. My ancestors passed on this ability to their descendants when they had children. The ancestors that had children and thus who passed on those genes for feeling romantic love were those who ‘fell in love’ themselves.

In short: thank God my ancestors fell in love…and had children. Love is good because humans who fall in love have children. All my ancestors going back millions of years fell in love and had children. Not a single one of them said: ‘Nah, I don’t think I’ll bother’. Some people might flinch at my scientific determinism; the reducing of love down to its base principles – thus taking away from its emotional beauty. Don’t get me wrong. Love is beautiful and wonderful – probably the seminal experience of the human condition and I am not trying to degrade it here. All I’m saying is that looking at love from a different angle helps one to see it differently – giving it a new twist. Also, I may ‘know’ that the raison d’être for love is to ‘encourage’ humans to have children but that doesn’t mean that I am not affected by it. Though I can see through the screen of its trickery, though I can say ‘Oh love! I know what you're up to. You don't fool me!’, ultimately my brain is human and love affects me in exactly the same way as it affects you or anybody else.

There was something else I was thinking about the other day. It’s an interesting thought and I’d like to share it with you. The world is populated with 8 billion people. 4 billion of these are male or female. Excluding those who are too young or too old, that means that there is a vast reservoir of people with whom you could ‘potentially’ fall in love with. Yet, when you fall in love you believe that this ‘one’ person is the only person for you. That you some how managed to chance upon them and are lucky to have them! What I am getting at is the 'exclusivity' of love. Human don’t fall in love with two or three people at once – it’s usually one - one out of billions. What is the probability that you would bump and fall in love with the ‘one’ out of a pool of billions? The reasons we fall in love with that ‘one’ is not because they are the ‘one’ but because they live near us, work with us, are a friend of friends or family, that we accidentally bump into them in the supermarket. The reasons for our infatuation are more prosaic than we'd like to admit. Obviously there are compatibility criteria, but even within those compatibility criteria, there are still a hell of a lot of potential people you could fall in love with.

And yet when you fall in love you think that this is the only person for you and you’ll never find anybody else! This thought always fills me with wonder. This irrational coup de foudre. Another way to put it is to say that within the limits of compatibility, who you fall in love with is more or less out of your control! Yet ask any couple and they'll say that they were ‘destined to be’, that it was ‘written in the stars’ or that it couldn't have been any other way. The laws of probability say otherwise. The human brain is just not very good at seeing the inter connectivity of the world and how these invisible forces conspire in our lives.

In my daily life there are a whole bunch of people I could potentially fall in love with. People who are rushing by me all the time; on London’s bustling trains, buses, on the streets, in the market, serving me in the shop, in the bookshop. In a parallel universe I may fall in love with one of them. In another parallel universe with another and in yet another universe I might get knocked over by a bus…well who knows. We are slaves to forces beyond our comprehension. Like pawns in a celestial chess game we scuttle along the three dimensions of a multi-dimensional universe. Cause and affect. Love and love-lost. Paradise and paradise-lost – if we really understood these things perhaps we’d be masters of the universe? Cool huh?

I know what you're thinking. Am I master of the universe?
(wink) course I am.


I Hate Valentines Day (an exercise in alliterative distress - apologies for it's general crappyness as I've had to rush it!)

I hate valentines’ day
Cos it really sucks
These blokes with cards
Never seen so many mugs

Dairy and Milk chocolates
For their ‘other’ halves
Hope they get fat
and a kick up the ass

Am I jealous?
No, why would I be?
Hey, my life is cool man
I have Nintendo Wii!

Though I'll still wander
Like a crafty little fox
A peak tomorrow morn
Into my letter box

You never know I might
Have admirers of sorts
In Cuba, Guatemala or Burma
Gotta be in some bodies thoughts

Though I doubt very much
Doubt very much I do
The only card I’m getting
Is from Timbuktu

Oh, what’s this I found?
Some chocolates on my bed!
Wow! Let’s take a closer look
Ugh! Its rat droppings instead!

That’s just my luck you see
Please don’t feel sorry - for me
Valentine day’s not for everybody
Especially not for me

Maybe god will feel sorry
And bless my little heart
Send an angel down from heaven
With a cheap Valentines card

Though it’s not how cheap
Nor how expensive
What really counts is;
That there is at least something!

That somebody has thought of you
And you amongst billions
Am I really that special?
A grain of sand out of a trillion!

Wow! What a feeling that is
Someone thinks you’re special
And doesn’t think you belong
In a mental hospital

If I had you for a day
On Valentines Day I would;
Not buy you a present
Like I know I should:

But instead:

I'd cuddle you for two minutes
Instead of one
And listen to you non-stop
Even if you drove me nuts

Offer you two slices of pizza
Instead of the one
And let you watch TV
Yeah, watch whatever you want!

I’d cuddle you with arms
And cuddle you with legs
And just when you're thinking 'Thank God it's over'
I’d cuddle you in bed

Can you do that?
I wonder if you can
Cuddle someone forever
I don’t know; maybe I’m mad

I wonder how many cuddles
I have in me to give
Millions and squillions I bet
You watch this Valentines;
I’ll be cuddling myself to bed.

****

The Wretch of Me

Oh inspiration! Where art thou hidden? I beseech you to flee hither and set free my woes - and my toes; so I may dance. I wish to smell the kindling flames. But where are you damn inspiration? Under the bed I see you not, nor in my pockets - though my pockets are burdened with despair and my mind clogged with suds and sops. I wish to bury my head in my hands; these soft, un-calloused hands of mine – but it’s no use. My lofty ideas have depleted me and I am spent and hungry. It’s all emptiness - as far as I can see. But you inspiration! Where the devil are you man? For I need you to sit at the tip of my pen, this pen, this lance of my anguish. Yes this lance! - This lance that assuages my boils - these rotten, horrid and puss filled boils that ail me much. It is the writers’ lot to live in despair! We, beings; though I doubt we are deserving of such a lofty title as ‘being’ for there is no ‘being’ within us; like shadows we wander life’s back-alley ways collecting the spent out shells of people’s lives.

The nights! Oh the nights I’ve spent staring. Staring at this bare sheet of paper! I say: Write! Write! Damn pen of mine write if you are a friend to me. But nothing! It won’t listen. It tells me: ‘How can I write my lord without the guiding hand of inspiration?’
‘The devil take you!’ I ferment…it’s all a mystery to me. Like fickle seasons: there are days when ideas come cheaply - flowing from fevered head to conduit; my pen, whose ink won’t flow fast enough. And there are days when all is dry like a thrifty tight-fisted Jew or the plains of Ethiop.

But why does one write? Because one feels? No rubbish! It is catharsis! Catharsis! It’s all a dismal business anyway. What is its design? Ha! There is no design. It is conceit; though dressed in fine garbs of eloquence and lofty phrases. It is deceit! - the flogging of one’s heart in public. There is pain and pleasure too in this flogging business if you’ll only believe me. Oh yes! We writers are merchants of self-pity. It is our lucre – our currency. We pity ourselves but deep down we glory in the grandeur of our humiliation. I should be executed and left to rot. Rotting is too good for me. Feed me to the Zoroastrian vultures; let my sinews drive their muscles, let my flesh power their wings, I wish to soar…

****

In the beginning there was nothing...

‘…in the beginning there was nothing.
And then there was…something!’

‘How does that sound?’
‘Not very good’
‘Why not?’
‘Because’
‘Yeah-eh?’
‘Can I finish?’
‘Yeah, go on’
‘Because it’s just’ (sighs - gives up)
‘It’s just what?’
‘Because it’s just’ (sighs - gives up)
‘Are you gonna do that all the time?’
‘Do wot?’
‘THAT!’
‘OK, calm down. It’s just...let me explain shall I?’
‘That is what I’m waiting for’
‘It’s just…shit’
‘Shit?’
‘Yes, it’s just shit!’
‘That’s all? Just…shit?’
‘Yes’
‘All you have to say about the beginning of my book is that it’s shit?’
‘Erm, well yeah’
‘Why?’
‘Why wot?’
‘Why do you think it is SHIT!?’
‘Well, it’s not really a beginning is it?’
‘What do you mean ‘not really’? It says: ‘in the beginning’ – how can that not be a beginning?’
‘No, No, you got me all wrong. I meant it’s not a beginning. It’s not a suitable beginning’
‘Why is it not a suitable beginning?’
‘Well, we already know that don’t we?
‘Know what?’
‘Know that in the beginning there was nothing’
‘So what’s wrong with that?’
‘Well, it’s just stating the obvious right?’
‘The obvious?’
‘Yes’
‘No It’s not. Lot’s of people don’t know that!’
‘Yes they do!’
‘No they don’t!’
‘Yes they d…look why don’t we just ask that guy?’
‘Wot, the Rastafarian heading this way?’
‘Yes’
‘OK’
‘Hey there, excuse me sir can we ask you a question please?’
Man stares but doesn’t say a word
‘Erm…I don’t think he understand English’
‘Ask him?’
‘D-o y-o-u understand E-n-g-l-i-s-h?’
Man stares and doesn’t say a word
They look at each other
‘Maybe he’s high on drugs?’
‘Why do you say that? Cos he's black and a Rastafarian? That’s just racist!’
‘No, because he’s not saying anything!’
‘OK, Just tell him to go away’
‘Sorry sir. You can go! Bye! Bye!’
Man stares but doesn’t say a word
‘Shit, how do we get rid of him?’
‘Maybe we should shooo him away’
‘Shooo! Shooo! Shooo!’
Man keeps staring and doesn’t say a word
‘Man, he doesn’t understand a thing’
‘Maybe he’s deaf?’
‘You think so?
‘Yeah, I mean look at the way his just staring at us. Definitely deaf’
‘Sir! Are you deaf?’
‘That’s not gonna work is it?’
‘Why not?’
‘He's deaf!’
‘Do you know any sign language then?’
‘Why the fuck would I know any sign language?’
‘I don’t know. Just asked man! Jeez!’
Man keeps staring.
‘Shall we just walk off?’
‘Yeah come on’
They walk off
‘Hey, there’s another guy coming. He looks intelligent. Let’s ask him’
They approach the intelligent looking man
‘Excuse me sir, can we ask you a question please?’
The man looks at them not saying a word
‘Oh, For fucks sake! You’re not another deaf-druggie are you?’
‘Who me? No! Of course not. I’m no deaf-druggie. Ask me what?’
‘OK, what do you think of the following lines?’
They show him the lines
Man reads the lines out aloud:

‘…in the beginning there was nothing.
And then there was…something!’

‘What do I think of these lines?’
‘Yeah’
‘Well to be honest I think they’re stupid!’
‘Really, er why?’
‘Well they don’t make any sense do they?!’
‘See! I told you so’
‘Shush! Let him finish’
‘Why don’t they make any sense sir?’
‘How can you get something out of nothing? That's just stupid. Just ask any three year old!’
‘So you don’t think this is a good beginning for a book?’
‘For a book?’
‘Yeah’
‘Oh. Well, why didn’t you tell me that this is for a book!? No, this is a perfect beginning for a book!’
Man walks of

‘See I told you so’

'I still think it's shit'
'Oh shut up! So, in the beginning there was nothing...and then there was...something! - Mmm, I like it. It sounds rather deep, don't you think?'
'Yeah it's deep alright. Deep in shit'
'Oh shut up! 'And then there was...something' - Mmm, now I've just gotta think of what comes next'
'I know, death'
'Death? Why death?
'To spare us from what's gonna come next!'
'Oh fuck off!'

****

Reading 'Faust' in India

THE FIRST TIME I MET HER was in the ‘foreigners only’ ticket office in the train station in Varanasi. We were in a queue, we were sitting down, and I was reading ‘Faust’ by Goethe. I remember the moment clearly. It was the scene where the Devil, in the guise of Mephisto, is about to make a wager with God to prove that he can tempt the man Faust unto sin:

Mephisto:
What would you wager? Will you challenge me
To win him from you? Give me your permission
To lead him down my path to his perdition?

God:
While he’s on earth, while he is still alive
Then you may tempt him – that is my condition
For man will err as long as he can strive

How I was struck by this base and sordid wager – such a dirty business it was! To think they could so lightly place bets on the faith of a Man’s soul - so little their opinion of us. It all seemed so naughty and shamefaced! (I believe that Goethe is having fun here. He was after all a member of Spinoza’s pantheist school of thought)

Anyway, what happens next in the play once the wager has been made, is that we get our first scene on earth, in Faust’s study. But before that there is a little soliloquy from the devil:

Mephisto:
I like to drop in on him if I can
Just to keep things between us on the level
It’s really decent of the Grand Old Man
To be so civil to the very devil

I love these lines. I love them for their sheer bravado and how they encapsulate what it means to be a Devil. He describes the almighty as the ‘Grand Old Man’. These lines are dripping with disdain and contempt. Such audacity! I remember thinking what a fine creature the Devil is. Far more interesting in the flesh than the moody-goody-two-shoes that is his polar opposite. But it is precisely because of his faults that he is so intriguing eh? And like a contemporary bad guy he gets all the best lines too. Take John Milton’s epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’ for example. Here the Devil has the best line in all English poetry: ‘Better to reign in hell, than serve in Heaven’.

And how true! So there I was thinking these very thoughts, when that girl (the one alluded to in the beginning), interrupted me in my thoughts, by asking me what I was reading.
‘Faust’ I said.
‘Ah, OK’ she nodded.
Then I told her how much I admired the Devil and she baulked and looked at me askance (perhaps she thought I was going to go for her jugular)
‘He’s so more interesting! The Devil is’ and then I read her some lines to prove my point. She was receptive. But not convinced. So I went back to reading Faust. A few moments later she asked me a whole bunch of questions about where I was from, where I was staying and how long I planned to stay etc (the usual travellers liturgy). That’s when I noticed her properly. She wanted to talk and I had no choice but to oblige. She was from one of the former USSR States; Azerbaijan, she was blond, slim, with glazed eyes that betrayed her feelings. She was wearing light blue jeans and was pretty.
‘I’m from London. I’m staying at the Paradise Guest House near the Ghat and I’ll be staying for another two more days’ was my succinct reply. Though she was no doubt pretty this was no excuse for me to drag myself away from Faust. I’d had plenty of such generic encounters on my travels and they always covered the same bases. So I dived back into my reading:

Faust:
I’ll know what makes the world revolve
Its inner mysteries resolve
No more in empty words I’ll deal
Creations wellsprings I’ll reveal

I recall being enraptured here. The lines echoed a burning desire in my heart, a promise. It was a glorious thought - a wonderful idyll. Noble even: to dedicate one’s life to seeking knowledge and understanding. I remember closing the page between my thumb (so I wouldn’t loose the page) and whilst holding those lines in my mind, casting a gaze across the station concourse. Allowing my eyes to wander freely without hindrance upon eddies of swirling humanity. The people were in knotted clumps and surrounded the information boards and ticket booths. The whole scene was lit by slanting rays from outside that stirred the dust motes above their heads. I saw them whole. A feeling of happiness swelled from deep inside my heart and took over me. My whole body loosened, my troubles vanished, and I relaxed. Suddenly I found myself willing to embrace all. I felt like reaching out. To everyone and all! To the whole world! I was overcome by a feeling of cosmic empathy. She must have been watching me because she suddenly said:

‘Can I come with you?’
I snapped out of my reverie.
‘What?’ I said almost annoyed
‘Your hotel’ and then she added ‘Please’
I looked at her. How could I refuse?
‘OK, when we’re finished we’ll go together. OK?’

She was adrift on her own and had been for a while and was lonely and she found my company strangely comforting (a lone traveller reading ‘Faust’ and talking about how much he likes the devil is always an intriguing proposition!). Later we sat in the back of the rickshaw with her big rucksack on her lap. She was unfazed by the squalor. If anything she enjoyed the chaos swirling about her and the attention she got when we walked along the Ghats that evening. We had a meal together in a place called ‘The German Bakery’ – more a restaurant than a bakery and they served good pizzas and pastas and a fine selection of tea’s and coffee. The bread I recall was fresh and the fruit jam delicious.

Invigorated, we strolled through the muddling bazaar, along cobbled lanes smelling of steaming cow-pat, pass a yoga club, a herbal dispensary and a fishmongers – the catch of the day displayed in all its stinking glory. We peered into alleys, took wrong turns, stepped into people’s homes and stuck our noses into the cubby-holes that were the shop fronts - all to a monotonous background drawl that followed us everywhere like the plague:

‘Meester! Meester! Come! Come! Please come! Only looking no buying. Come! Come!’

There was something visceral about walking down ancient well-trodden ways with solemn pilgrims by your side; dodging the imperious cows that mulched along the path, their mouths frothy with foamy spittle, and the skidding children chasing you for alms. It was a rawness of life, without pretence, devoid of fakery, an honesty that makes honest people out of you and makes you want to chop your heart into little pieces and hand them out as tokens of gratitude. And here I quote Faust:

From narrow hovel and dismal room
Out of the shadow of roofs and gables
Out of the church’s pious gloom
Out from the squash of the streets they swarm

All streaming out into the light
Into the open countryside
How eagerly they take their flight
See, on the river far and wide

You could see the ‘swarms’ from where we were - ‘streaming out’ near the ‘river far and wide’. The ‘river’ of course being the Ganges. It was a beguiling sight set in an enchanted evening. The sky was a deep-blue pricked with stars that squinted and strained. The people were sombre and reverential and you felt safe amongst them. There was a sprightly breeze that rustled the leaves and twisted the flags and decorations, and somewhere in the distance, wafting on the air, bobbed the sonorous chants of ‘Ohm Ohm’. We let the evening roll ahead of us and allowed ourselves the pleasure of surrendering to its caprices and vices. Carried along by the crowds and our thoughts we ended up spending all of it, the evening that is, together.

I still remember that line from Faust:

And when she smiles
At me, what bliss,
To feel her hand-
And ah, this kiss!

****

5th February - Birthday boy

My mother groaned! My father wept
Into the dangerous world I leapt
Helpless, naked, piping loud
Like a fiend hid in a cloud

What is this! What is that!
What is this thing we’re looking at?
Small, sickly, I should have died
Not for me the breath of life

The breath it came my eyes opened
Lungs roared; the hospital awoken'd
She cradled me my mother did
In soft blankets there I hid

With great feats I scuttled away
Through the ward and on my way
Down the stairs and pass the doors
This little thing; on all fours

No one noticed; no one cared
All busy; in their own little way
I jumped the bus and took a ride
In the ‘baby seat', if that’s all right?

Slid the barriers; took a train
Hid with cargo in an aeroplane
Landed somewhere called Hawaii
Then missed mummy and started to cry

The police were not, not amused
‘Miracle Baby’ splashed over the news
So there you have it; my first air-miles
Crawling, crawling; is not my style

Run I will; forever and more
Find I will; life, universe, everything
And more.


Yes, it’s that time of year again when one celebrates another milestone; another heave-ho; another mighty push, another bumbling crawl towards that distant marker that says…what does it say? My eyes are not what they used to be. Ah, yes it says ‘The End’. And unlike other types of ‘The End’ there’s no part II or sequel to this one. Is this a morbid topic for a day of celebration, for after all it is my birthday today? Yes it is a morbid topic but then I like sex and morbidity. What am I doing on my birthday? Yes, that’s it, you got it: necrophilia (sex with dead bodies) – but I digress.

So here I am, today, at this moment, in time, ready to make that crawl, that push, towards that marker. Shall we? Are you gonna help me? Good. OK, here we go: ready-steady-puuuush! Craaawl! Uggh! This is tiring Puuush! Craaawl! That’s better. Yes, the marker does now seem closer. Thank you for helping me.

Birthdays are supposed to be a day of celebration. But, forgive my ignorance for I am not au fait in human thought, why should we be celebrating a process which results in our teeth falling out, winter fuel payment vouchers from the Govt, and crushes on young nurses? Now, if I was Benjamin Button (as in the protagonist in David Fincher’s new movie), who is born an old man and with the years progressively gets younger, then I can see a cause for celebration – for life will get younger and therefore better…or am I wrong?

What if life gets better with age? What if with getting older one begins to start taking things in one’s stride and stops worrying about petty things and begins to savour, like a boiled sweet in one’s mouth, life…slowly – gradually – sucking out the taste – and not biting and devouring in one whole? What am I talking about? Fuck knows.

No, actually fuck does know. What if as you got older you could sit back and enjoy life through ‘Special Vision Spectacles' (SVSs). SVSs don’t actually exist, I’ve just made them up to illustrate my point (so don’t start asking for them at the opticians). SVSs are invisible spectacles through which you see life. But, unlike normal spectacles, these change as you journey through life. In the beginning they are foggy and you don’t see much, but as you get older, they become clearer. As you live more, see more, read more, learn more, they get clearer and clearer, until you reach an age when they are as clear as they’ll ever be for you and you’ll be seeing more clearly than ever before. For some people, their SVSs get foggier with age (they actually see less!), but these people are usually an exception to the rule.

I think the apogee of my life will be when I reach a point when I’ll be seeing through SVSs that’ll be as clear as they’ll ever be for me. But, did you know that you can actually increase the ‘perspicacity’ or ‘clearness’ of your SVSs? Oh yes by doing things. Things like what? Things like keeping an open mind, not letting yourself be ruled by capricious emotions, travelling, reading, watching cartoons, but most importantly, by just taking some time out in your day, for yourself. This morning I spent 30 min's watching blackbirds and a fox in my garden. Because of the unseasonal snow they were struggling to find food, and were sniffing away, pecking through the snow looking for grubs. The fox was so desperate that it had wandered into my garden (something it would not normally do). Has anybody thought about what effect the unseasonal snow and cold has had on the wildlife in London? We’re so worried about traffic problems and getting to work that we forget there are others too. That’s what I mean when I talk about the SVSs. There is seeing and then there is really seeing.

So, on that note it is time to say goodbye to you and goodbye to me and goodbye to this rather odd and personal entry. It almost feels like a confession: a one-to-one. So what will I be doing today? I will be spending my birthday money. Yes, everything I receive today I will spend today (why? Because I want to) and then in the evening (if I have any money left over from my birthday money) I will link up with some mates at the Horse and Hound Public Ale House in Islington, for some drinking and making merry in splendid convivial surrounds. Come and join…if you dare.

The continuing adventures of Superfly 3D Sonic

Part XII : Curse of the ancient skull

The window in the living room was being gently patted by raindrops - tiptap-tiptap-tiptap. Outside, the wind was lashing in fearsome howls and churning up clumps of rubbish that scuttled along the kerbs and fought with the pedestrians and clogged the drains. But inside it was nice and warm. One might even deign that amidst the ancient relics of the flat it was rather cosy. The two figures sat in conversation. Superfly was on the sofa and the Vagabond lay on the floor with legs stretched and his back to the radiator. Empty cups of chai lay by their sides. The topic of conversation was on the nature of ignorance. The Vagabond was in the middle of an academic monologue and Superfly was finding it hard to concentrate. In fact he was being bored out of his skull:

“...The true definition of an educated person is one who knows the extent of his ignorance. Or in the form of an earth maxim: ‘wise is he who knows what he does not know’” the vagabond was saying

Superfly scooped out a smudge of his earwax and examined it on the tip of his forefinger.

The Vagabond prattled on:

“I don’t regard myself as someone who knows much; in fact I am given to feel acute psychological fear over my ignorance. I try to alleviate this by reading feverishly; skimming through literature in crazed fits; attempting to soak up the deep juicy bits of books and leaving the skin on the floor. I find that most books don’t resemble an orange but rather a pomegranate – when you finish what flesh are you left with in the end? What do you remember? Not much”

Superfly was still busy examining his earwax. It was of a different colour and consistency to usual. Normally it was pea-green, but a year spent on earth, had rendered it with a yellowish countenance.

“Mmm…” he said looking at it. He put his finger in his mouth and sucked it. “Mmm, proteins" he said satisfactorily. “My earwax is full of proteins”

The Vagabond continued to prattle on:

“…but, what I find beguiling (and perhaps symptomatic of some sort of mental illness) is when I meet people who are not bothered about their ignorance. I have often wondered why this is, because it is clear that some of these people that I have met have never read a book in their lives! Good heavens! Nor have they ever sat down and thought deeply about anything. They seem to have swallowed what other people have already chewed. I’m not sure about you but I like to do my chewing myself”

Superfly was getting extremely bored now. It was too early in the day for heavy thinking, and there being no beer to drink, made it doubly difficult to concentrate on the Vagabonds monologue. It was during his student days in Andromeda that Superfly had discovered that beer had a beguiling effect on him: it helped him concentrate and focus. Usually, beer depresses concentration but Superfly found it stimulating. Thus he started attending lectures in a state of quasi-drunkenness. To his lecturers’ surprise (and to the chagrin of the other hard working students) this had no adverse affect on his grades. This was mainly because Superfly had a prodigious memory. Everything he read stuck. Stuck like stick-on-notes. His brain was covered in stick on notes of weird facts and figures. These roamed inside his head like dead skeletons and could, in times of stress, reveal themselves to the outside world in fits of verbal premature ejaculation. In fact when Superfly panicked he had the habit of suddenly blurting out some obscure fact or piece of knowledge to whoever was listening. This could be embarrassing. It was like an involuntary reflex.

This had an interesting affect when it came to girls though. Early on Superfly had figured out that the quickest path to a girls’ knickers lay not through her brain but through her heart - girls, being fickle creatures, don’t usually go for nerds. So he went out of his way to shun nerd-em. Oh yes, he skipped lessons, hung out with loafers, wore a leather jacket, and dressed like a degenerate rock-star. He even endeavoured to get into trouble to showcase his ‘dangerous guy to know’ image. This didn’t affect his grades because during exams he could summon at will the 'knowledgeable nerdy' side of his brain. These abilities and his wayward nature caught the attention of the ladies, who perhaps out of some compunction to civilize this brute, went out with him. During these dates he made it a policy to avoid ‘heavy’ academic conversation. There was always the risk that his ‘knowledgeable nerdy’ side might creep into view by way of some idle remark, so he said little during the date and spoke only when being spoken to. It was a spectacular success! His laconic muteness and insouciance, was mistook by the girls for maturity, strength and thoughtfulness.

But like most charades you can only keep them up for so long. After a while his dates were left empty and drained. The girls were convinced there was something ‘missing’ and they knew not what. It was during one particular date when the girl in question showed clear signs of leaving him, that he panicked, and the ‘knowledgeable nerdy’ side of his brain rove into view and he, quite spontaneously, began blurting out some random facts about tapeworms. Most embarrassing. This panicked him even further so that what followed next was a little poetry. Even more embarassing. It was a decadent little passage of rhyming stanzas; in couplet. I won’t repeat it here for sake of sanity.

The poem had a startling effect. The girl was mesmerised. She found the poem funny and it had a quirky rhyming pattern that snagged in the mind (like a song that won't go away). She looked at him good and hard in a thoughtful way. In the end the poetry won. The relationship was revitalised and the girl was more then happy to have his children and marry him. Wow! He soon discovered that he could summon these wonderfully fetid lines of poetry at will. It was so easy like plucking feathers from an invisible chicken that no one else could see. The girls loved this seeming dichotomy in his character and he exploited it by bedding as many of them as he could. The poetry flowed from his tongue and mingled in the sheets between the cries and moans.

The sex was good but the clingy-feely stuff stifled him. So, that's why he got the job at the Lonely Galaxy Guide. It would enable him to travel thus satisfying his brain which craved knowledge and facts, and he would no doubt meet lots of exotic female specimens thus satisfying his more lascivious dimensions. The arrangement was a path to happiness and contentment.


At this particular moment in time Superfly was not feeling happy or content. He was stranded on a dull-as-dishwater planet called earth, and he was bored, and he needed a girl and he hadn’t had sex for months - well not since that girl in Lahore anyway. Suddenly he started feeling frisky.

“You got any porn?” Superfly asked

The Vagabond was in the middle of a lengthy treatise on the benefits of compulsory sterilisation of lower class plebeian scum, and the request for porn took him rather by surprise. No, he did not have any porn, but he did have a Sir David Attenborough wildlife documentary on copulating Bonobo monkeys - if that would suffice?

“Monkeys?” repeated Superfly
“Yes, Monkeys. Not very different from humans”
“OK”

So the two savants sat watching a wildlife documentary on shagging Bonobo monkeys. It featured an alpha male with large red testicles, who presided over his harem of females with the air of a sexual conqueror. But it didn’t have the intended affect on Superfly.

“No I need something more hard-core” he said “And something less educational and something featuring humanoids; preferably blonde's and that male voice in the background is annoying”
“That’s the presenter’s voice”

It was as he was contemplating jerking-off to one of the books lying around the flat titled ‘The fascinating sex lives of river sponges’ that he remembered the crates.

“Hey man, what’s in these wooden crates? You said you were going to tell me?”

“Ah yes, the crates” The Vagabond had totally forgotten about the crates and he was only too happy to talk about them. It was a long story so he went in the kitchen to make some tea. Returning now with two steaming cups he commenced the telling of his strange little tale:

“It’s rather a fabulous tale you know. A glorious find! I’ll tell you the story from the beginning shall I?’

The Vagabond didn’t wait for an answer:

“Six months ago I got an email from a friend of mine; Trey Reedkin, a geologist friend doing some field work on the Island of Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits, near Java in Indonesia. Actually, at the time I was languishing in Nong Khai in northern Thailand. Great place you should visit. Anyway, I was in my hotel room, hot day, fan whirring, no air-con, sweating like a pig, the sludgy-muddy Mekong outside my window torturing me with its boredom, and I was thinking that I really need to get out of this shit hole. I received the email that evening and as it happens it was kind of fortunate because I was thinking of where to go next. I’d had enough of Thailand, the food and the women. Actually, I have a hard copy of the email here. Let me get it out and show it to you”

The vagabond ferreted out a copy of the email and gave it to Superfly to read:

Email

From: TReedkin74@yahoo.com
To: duluxdreams@hotmail.com

Date 07-03-2008

Hey V,

Where are you? Rang your mum she said you were in Thailand. What the fuck you doing in Thailand? Tasting pussy or something! Listen up dude. Something’s definitely coming down here in the Sunda Straits man and it ain’t my diarrhea. As you know I’m doing research for my PhD on ‘Island Colonization Dynamics’. Yeah, tell me about it - sounds fascinating don’t it? :-). Let me tell you a little about it: when new life takes over a previously barren island you can predict mathematically how it’s going to happen. You can predict who’s going to come in first: first it’s the lower plants like mosses and ferns, then grasses, then plants that reproduce asexually, then flowering plants that reproduce sexually and then trees. On the animal side first you get little insects, then spiders and than the larger stuff like lizards and snakes and wild pigs. Anyway, I hired a boat to take me to the island of Krakatoa from the Javanese port of Bantam.

You heard of Krakatoa right? It’s a large volcanic island, 50 miles off the Java mainland, sitting in the Sunda Strait. Krakatoa blew itself to kingdom come in 1883 in a cataclysmic volcanic eruption – the likes of which the world has never seen. Huge 150ft tsunamis followed, killed hundreds and thousands, explosion heard all over the world, dust clouds, magic sunsets for years, floating pumice – the works. A pyrotechnic extravaganza like a U2 concert. Anyway the island is amazing! Beyond my wildest expectations. It was totally demolished in the eruption of 1883 – all life on the Island gone! Bang! Extinction! The volcanic island has only recently risen from the waves, 20 years ago. It’s now swarming with life! In only twenty years! Lizards, snakes, 50ft trees, grasses, tortoises, beetles and even some fishermen who live on the island with their families and some chickens. The nearest landmass we know is 50 miles away. So the question is: where the fuck did the life come from? How did it get here? That’s my PhD! I’ve already ruled out spontaneous generation as unlikely – or impossible (!!) unless you believe Plato. This island is perfect for my project. A veritable living laboratory. This baby is my ticket to the Nobel!

Anyway, listen up that’s not what this email is about. I was chatting to the local fishermen here about the islands flora and fauna etc. One of the fishermen, perhaps seeing an opportunity to make some ready money (ching! ching!), mentioned a cave on mainland Java, south side, about 55 miles from Krakatoa. He said it contained spirits and listen to this, human bones(!). I asked him if he was sure about the bones and he said he was 100% certain. He said I could ask anyone here they’d tell me the same thing. Apparently the locals believe the bones belong to their long dead ancestors and the spirits still haunt the caves. So, you know I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff right? So I told the fisher man to take me there because, you know, I wanna check out these bones. So we haggled over price; agreed a fare (I still reckon he ripped me off – bastard). We rode in one of those motorised diesel engine canoes; left at daybreak early in the morning, sun rising from the waters in the west, the oblique rays caressing the surface, beautiful man! Calm as a cucumber. Until that is we rode out of the main Island cluster into the open water of the strait, and then the waters turned choppy. High waves battered the side of the canoe and water began seeping in over the top threatening to flood the damn boat, so we had to remove the bilge continuously with buckets.

No we didn’t sink. You wouldn’t be reading this if we had! Anyway, we got to the shore alive (sigh of relief!). The caves were about 200 ft up in the limestone cliffs. So we had to climb up there. A bit steep but easy going at first but the last bit was a fucker – had to use a rope to get to the cave entrance itself because it’s on an overhang. I figured this was good news as it meant the cave would be relatively undisturbed. The cave entrance was narrow and was basically a hole. I had a flash light so went in first – banged my head on the entrance! Ouch! When I got in I realised I could stand up without hitting my head on the roof - the cave was high enough to stand and pretty spacious. There was the distinct smell of bat droppings and animal urine lurking about. I hate bats. Went in farther until the fisherman pointed out something sticking out of the cave floor. Went closer. It was a fucking (excuse my French) jaw! Human jaw jutting out of the rock…teeth still intact. Smiling at me! Scooped away the soft soil around it and found that the skull was mainly intact (tested the soil and it’s alkaline so would have protected the bones). I figured that the cave was pretty well protected from scavenging hyenas and treasure hunters because it was so high up – hence the intact skull. Man, I’m no palaeontologist but I knew we had a major find. It looked semi- human and it was old. Very old. Hundreds and thousands of years old. But there was something unmistakeably not-human about it too. It gave me the shivers. Was definitely ancient. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is what we found next to it…


Outside the wind continued bellowing and the rain continued beating against the window pane. Tip-tap-tip-tap-tip-tap. Inside the two figures were lost in the unfolding drama of Java, and besides them, the wooden crates containing an ancient relic, continued to moan and creak. It was almost as if the crates were 'confiding' with the tempest lurking outside.

(To be continued)