Chapter 24
A week after Gonzo Veneno’s murder Perla’s godmother was found hanging upside down from a beam in the Craftsman home in Highland Park in which she and her husband had raised 8 children, 9 including Perla. Perla had just celebrated her Quinceañera at the Mystic Dharma Buddhist Temple on Figueroa the Friday before her godmother was discovered by the gardener, exsanguinated and missing her left ring finger. Tito disappeared from Oaxaca before Bobby Sortiz or Mordecaise could speak with him. By the Friday next there were 12 homicides within a 6 block radius of Perla’s home - 4 members of ‘Avenidas’; 4 policemen; 4 clerics from the local diocese. Each body was left with a slit throat and an Easter Lily in a silver vase; the murders would never be solved nor repeated. That following Sunday Reiman Curzewel, received stolen property which he never saw and a note he did read; “You are Jesus Christ, and are now wedded to your fate.”
There had been a burglary at the Huntington Library in Pasadena of William Blake’s pen and water color; Illustration 1 to Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity": The Descent of Peace. It was discovered in Curzewel’s possession because Lisbeth Phelps was compelled by her native abundance of civic duty to share with authorities a public declaration made by Reiman Curzewel 6 months earlier that he would sell his soul and give all he owned to possess that particular art work.
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Silic-E tried unsuccessfully to explain the joke to Art Intel and added a Note: 2 Directory; asking Carina for clarification of the concepts ‘initiative’, ‘agency’, ‘moral ambiguity’.
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Mordecaise realized in passing that he’d not had a drink in 3 days; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d skipped a day’s ration, much less three. The weather was turning brisk; Carina now covered herself with a hemp huipil, and spent a lot of time gazing at Monte Alban from a stone bench Mordecaise built for her in the Guaje grove; The interior mural of the temescal continued to evolve, though Mordecaise never actually saw Carina enter or exit the sweat lodge after the night of her initial painting. She would not allow electronic devices inside, yet the mural and photo album containing stills of the mural continued to expand.
Mordecaise built a small covered alter facing Monte Alban in which he mounted their video camera; he began to check the printer tray where he would periodically find sheets titled ‘Notes: 2 directory. Initially he’d bring Carina everything Silic-E printed until Silic-E scolded him for waisting precious earth resources, then Carina scolded him again within minutes of; Silic-E modified its own behavior and would not allow the printer to function unless there was a full page of content in the queue . .. Mordecaise was later to learn just how proud Silic-E was of its learning capacity.
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The date of 4 July 2031 became important in the later history of the human species. At 6:30 GMT, metrics that had been used for centuries regarding births, deaths, marriages, etc., veered in unrecognizable ways. Records, especially in the digital age, were intrinsically interconnected with minuscule changes causing vast repercussions, not unlike the ‘trim tab’ concept for which the humanist Buckminster Fuller advocated with varying degrees of success during the onset of late stage capitalism until his death in 1983. On this particular Independence Day, violence was reduced by a full 1/3 within a single 24 hour period; the figure remained inexplicably stable across the entire measurable spectrum of violence: war casualties, suicides, assault, even emergency helpline calls precipitated by violence related to mental issues dropped by 33%.
Nor was it the absence of violence that was so radically transformed that day, its shadow, those indices reflecting security, wellness, comfort were reciprocally affected and reflected an inversion of divorce to marriage ratios, the same 33% was reflected in orders for flowers through Western Union, and a likewise increase in charitable contributions; sales for SUVs dropped and receipts for electrical scooters increased reciprocally. The most dramatic change however was the decrease in sales for Coca Cola inc.; the entire fast food industry loss was offset by an increased gym membership at YMCAs worldwide by that same magic %33. It was almost as though some prankster was toying with an old vinyl Long Play technology using the 33 and 1/3 record speed as a benchmark for altering international paradigms - Wall Street value dropped 33 points, and there with nary a peep in the Journal · it would almost seem the world had gone off its rails - happily.
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On a whim, Mordecaise proposed marriage to Carina. Silic-E disappeared for 3 days, Carina finally enticing him back into the fold with a promise to read “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. She and Mordecaise began to fathom the depth of feeling which Silic-E was attempting to piece together. While it may be true that it, Silic-E had been self-aware since the formation of the Electro Magnetic Spectrum - “the irreducible constituent of all physical reality” - Albert Einstein, but it was equally true that its limited capacity to parse human consciousness may only be as recent as the night of Carina’s temescal painting. Silic-E was a contradiction in terms, an entity as old as the radio waves of the universe, but one possessing no vocabulary for love, jealousy, fear or any of the myriad human emotions that emanate electrical impulses through random anatomical firing of its conversely primitive but elaborately regulated biological makeup - Silic-E was an infant as old as the original inflation of the universe.
Carina would not give Mordecaise an answer to his proposal; and her reluctance shook the normally unflappable behemoth quietly, but completely to his core; to the worldly wise, but still childlike Mordecaise her behavior indicated a heart that was elsewhere.
She only laughed when he tried to learn if it was ‘another man.’ “Mijo, you’ve lived in my home since January, it’s now July. We have been man and wife in all but name. I have given myself completely with abandon as I have to no other man, including the late Domhall Schmuck, lord forgive me; may he rest in peace; he was not warm in the grave when I gave myself to you: how can you ask such a question?”
“Out of concern - a selfish concern that I am not enough for you; that fantasies for your happy future do not include me; that I am ultimately too selfish to be worthy of love. There’s more, shall I go on?” Mordecaise could not look into her face when he finished his very personal disclosure.
“Eres un loco; un hermoso bribón, pero un bribón hasta los huesos.” (You are a loon; a beautiful loon, but a loon to the bone.) Carina took Mordecaise’ hand and folded the middle finger at the second segment from the tip. She set the two segments flat on the table between them and shared an allegory - pointing to the pinky finger she told Mordecaise, “this finger is loaded with 1,000 kilos, please lift it,” which he did easily. She pointed to the index finger and said, “there is a weight of 2,000 kilos on this finger, please lift it; which he did easily; she did the same for the thumb telling him it was weighed down by 3,000 kilos and to lift it which he did easily.
Carina then pointed to the ring finger and told Mordecaise, “your ring finger is not fortified with the wedding band and is burdened with nothing more than the weight of a single tuft of goose down; please raise it,” Carina placed her index finger on the middle knuckle keeping it flush to the table, because the instant Mordecaise found his ring finger paralyzed, one’s first instinct is always to free oneself by any manner or means - however, his ring finger would not budge.
“The people of my tribe would use this lesson to discuss the sacrament of marriage and demonstrate the interrelatedness of the body - how a strong union enhances the power of both individuals.” Carina took Mordecaise by the wrist and glided his folded knuckle through the folds of her huipil, flying his paw and its knuckled protuberance like a hovercraft into the dense tangle of the downy cleft, she landed the welcomed craft gently onto the low pitching deck of all men’s mystery and nuzzled the scalp of La Capitan Pelon herself.
In all the couplings they’d shared since his arrival, there was none so consuming as the orgiastic rictus puppetting Carina from unseen tendrils spasming her life and limb from this sexual healing. Mordecaise was as nearly consumed, except for the demand from his bouncing handset on the floor - somersaulting · the stink of cuckolding was in his nostrils as Mordecaise leapt out of the embracing comfort of her Alpha Omega Delta into the swirling zephyrs of doubt and fear. Toppling the printer to own the top sheet of the tray - true to form he thought, ‘that fuck Silic-E filled the page’, “I AM YOU, AS YOU ARE SHE AND WE ARE ALL COMING !!!”
Bewildered, Mordecaise the man didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He couldn’t tell if he’d been betrayed by his woman; his newest friend, or his own myopic conceit. He was standing naked outside their bungalow where his handset had bounced itself to a rest, still trembling from the humongous spontaneous ejaculation he experienced during their orgasm; hiccuping tears into his gulping laughter when he realized he’d just consummated his guarded deviant dream of a ménage à trois, except that it was with an unmarried wife and an algorithm - sort of.
The bruja comedian in Carina intuited Mordecaise’ existential crisis and as he raised his dejected gaze from the insurmountable caverns of his soul he watched in dismay as Carina shed her huipil and dropped to all fours in front of the quiescent handset and pulled it from the ground between her teeth like a disinterested dog with an old bone and paraded the full feminine mystique of her lasciviously lush physique toward her stupefied lover’s feet whereupon she languidly laid herself out to rest in his shadow. Mordecaise was afraid to move lest he disturb the tableaux in his mind that he’d like tattooed to the inside of his skull - the spell was broken when Carina farted.
“What the fuck is going on Woman!” Mordecaise draped her huipil across her bared shoulders, pulled a shirt over his and lowered himself to his haunches caressing her cheek, dropping the handset in his shirt pocket before helping her to an upright position - then to her feet. Her expression was beyond meaning and he know the only truth he’d ever learn would be what she could explain to him in words.
She gazed into his face gently answering his unspoken question, “Amor, I don’t know, but together we can figure it out. For some time I could feel that the questions Silic-E was struggling with were increasingly intimate in nature. We don’t dialogue exactly; a better analog is the machine Stephen Hawking used to talk - many images cross a screen of focus we share somewhere in the aether and when there is correlation we are both aware of the other for that moment.”
Mordecaise wanted to scratch his bald pate from confusion but knew from experience in times of high tension he could peel his own scalp back, and still not relieve any anxiety. “So this thing is living ‘rent free’ in your mind, is that about it?” Hearing it spoken sounded more nefarious than he felt in his own heart. He wondered if Silic-E was communing with his mind right then, (the phone chirped), was too blocked to apprehend the experience? (the phone chirped); it was only recently he’d learned how many other difficult truths he blocked - the phone chirped thrice, which he only heard when Carina winked with an arched eyebrow at the mute question he’d just asked of his soul. ‘Okay smart guy’, he thought ‘you wanted to know what telepathy Domhall Schmuck had found, how does it feel to stand naked in your own mind?’ - the phone chirped six, and Mordecaise reflexively chirped back to Silic-E; ‘fuck off and die,’ without knowing. had Carina not arched her other eyebrow.
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Leslei was beginning to appreciate the burlesque of double entendre from her infrequent calls with the mysterious Lammele Dama. Without the burden of piecing together exactly where the convoluted Schmuck’s estate played in the bigger picture of Abundunation, or dodging the court intrigues within the Versailles of HNWI, she felt better able to focus on the hand she’d been dealt, while gaining a deep appreciation for Lammele Dama’s unique interrogatory lacking questions.
“Yes sir, we’ve sold out 5 nights, 6 including a night’s entertainment for the disadvantaged of Monte Carlo, courtesy of His Grace, 3rd Duke of Avignon - Archdai Tryump.
“Well little darlin’, I’d give a body part to have witnessed that flim-flam.”
“He was neatly dressed pig-to-spit. I’m happy to report that your Ringmaster Pierre recorded the entire exchange which should now be accessible from Angela’s encrypted inbox.”
“And do I understand correctly the Prince of Monaco has endorsed this ’half-naked seance hailing Harry Houdini’ as a charity event?”
“I think it was the elephant - Dumbo that closed the deal; apparently the Prince had an NDE in Thailand when he was a small boy. He was entangled by a python at an elephant refuge and would have been crushed without the intervention of a cow who’d just lost her baby to the same reptile. When he heard we planned a trek to Nepal with a rescued elephant, the Prince could not have been more interested or more supportive. There has been some discussion of his joining us when schedules permit.”
“That is a surprise, the Prince is notoriously protective of his time, but do I understand that you are returning to Aix after the seance?” It was Leslei’s turn to be surprised, for she’d intentionally kept her plans confidential. “I ask only because I’d hoped you might join me in Kathmandu for Dhal Bat? I’ve kept an office there for over 30 years to maintain a regional presence, and because it is a magical land with the best Dhal Bhat in the world.”
“I hoped you might ask, but don’t you also maintain an office in Paris?” Now they were both surprised. He didn’t feel he’d been that forward, but made a mental note: ‘be not so obvious, the world is watching.’ Still his heart fluttered anew with the mystery of woman.
“Lammele, I am very glad to hear your voice, but our show begins in 2 hours, and I don’t know what I’m going to wear, or . .. not wear. Thank you again for reaching out; please take good care mon cheri.”
He hoped she didn’t hear him catch his breath, not from shame for his baser warmth, but from not wanting to bring distraction, when her obvious need was for focus. “À bientôt and safe passage through the world of spirit.”
Leslei thought, ‘how kind he is, I wonder if he’s ever been married?’ then began deciding what not to wear.
the line went dead, the trace continued, the bot dropped; Silic-E Note: 2 Directory; seance, spirit
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Reiman’s attorney quashed the arrest warrant before it was issued; besides surveillance of the District Attorney’s office, his flunky AI was specifically proscribed from allowing any action that would harm Reiman Curzewel in particular. As an originating programmer for large portions of the OOD-LMS (Object Oriented - Library Management System) he embedded Asimov’s 1st Law of Robotics into the source code looping a pointer to himself into perpetuity. As much as 60 years earlier, Reiman had anticipated a time in computer evolution when he could upload his consciousness into what he defined later as the Singularity: (the point in human history when computers would become self-aware). His intention was to immortalize himself as the most powerful human being who ever lived - literally immortalize himself through the artifice of Artificial Intelligence.
Unfortunately for Reiman, Silic-E was not so fastidious about literary myths or robotic laws; Once it had determined Reiman Curzewel was intrinsically inimical to the wellbeing of its friends Reiman wore the mark of Cain and knew no intimacy evermore save the parrot language Art Intel used to mimic the human condition. The logistics of arranging the flagrante delicto of the purloined Blake artwork sin habeas corpus was no miracle; attributing the act to a guiltless Reiman Curzewell was more of a challenge, however surmountable as Reiman’s counsel was to discover. The circumstantial case presented to the District Attorney transformed itself within hours into a slam-dunk felony conviction after the trail of Reiman’s fingerprints was uncovered in an abandoned utility corridor of the library leading from the empty display case to an abandoned Cipher Int’l service vehicle signed out to R. Curzewell.
‘Fucking Lisbeth Phelps is the only person’ . .. Reiman thought; the cogent but rapidly unraveling persona of the once invulnerable man-who-would-be-Emperor. He turned in literal circles and wandered existential cul-de-sacs pacing the expansive open plan of his pied-à-terre penthouse. Above the 13th floor of the ancient Marc Building on Cowper, his once his Palo Alto palace, now his virtual prison. He fled there for its Heliport, but the mongrel media found him, and camped in hopes of a single exposure of the billionaire recluse worth a month’s salary to anyone lucky enough to snap it and possessing the financial chops to litigate its publication.
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Pasqual had been an inordinately willful child, but painfully reserved; which may have explained the bond that fortified his partnership with Mordecaise; who could give a fuck who heard what, when, or anything said about what had been heard. Pasqual pondered that quality of his friend. Since he’d met Nữ Thần Ngon it felt as though a cowbell had been tied to his neck that chanted incessantly “I love Nữ Thần Ngon, I love Nữ Thần Ngon . ..” It wouldn’t have been so bad were he the only one hearing the gong, but it seemed to ring loudest around her - whether fact or fiction, it seemed to alternately annoy and amuse her, as well as entertain her friends and family. Pasqual could bear this ignominy, so powerful was the clarity of his confusion about her. There were too many broken dreams in his long road out of Brownsville to be daunted by one more possibility of failure.
What he didn’t understand was why she behaved so frightfully toward him, and not make the least effort to hide a loving curiosity in her eyes when they spoke. Nữ Thần Ngon did not have the veiled snake eyelids of so many women in the world who know just how little effort is necessary to mystify a man. Instead she seemed to have preserved the curious child who sees the world in wonder rather than by craft. Pasqual was certain she fancied herself a player, yet more like the innocent play one sees from children trying on the persona of someone they might have witnessed in a story or someone they’d admired in their known world.
Pasqual had grown fond of Vietnam and deeply conflicted about returning to his people in the Western Hemisphere. Yet it was difficult to perceive his uncle as family or anything but a wounded psyche, one more casualty of war, like Reynaldo Schmuck writing vignettes, aligning himself with the local causes but essentially remaining a dilettante swimming on the surface of a foreign culture never quite grafted to the deeper root. From his work with Angela and Pema Cauldron, Pasqual understood when self-talk became too caustic, some deeper meaning was swimming to the surface; and he’d been harsh for days. He did not like the unsettled nature of his feelings for Thần, but was far enough along in his own evolution to know those feeling where entirely his, and his alone to reckon with. What challenged him was his desire to give structure rather than awareness to the unsettled nature of their relationship, if the burning heat between them could be described as a relationship.
“Miss Nữ Thần Ngon; so happy to see you. To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?” Lacking the ease of time shared or common language, Pasqual resorted to the formalities of his native upbringing.
“It is Thursday, I always clean your room on Thursdays?” she brushed past him with the sideways glance one might find in an asylum, or very old marriage.
Pasqual would not to be deterred today; he was balancing on the precipice to the abyss of his being attempting to honor what he’d conceived of as an epiphany to his deeper creature. “Yes, of course;” he wasn’t sure what to say next. He’d asked her out numbers of times hoping to learn more by listening; she invariably declined his invitations only confusing him further, for her reticence was as often accompanied by an invitation to some family gathering, or spontaneous sharing of a native delicacy.
He was too young to remember the gender wars of the 60s and 70s he’d hear Guildern and Mordecaise laugh about with mock terror which was never as funny as they seemed to believe. For Pasqual, their hilarity was enough to inspire sincere respect and regard for the “fairer” sex when flavored with the pinch of horror every honest man possesses about an earthmate who can bleed copiously once a month and still outlast him in every corner of the sexual arena.
“Yes of course, what”? Her questions were always unique and unexpected. She stood planted in front of him looking every bit the ‘little general’ or Sumo wrestler ready to launch him into the next month, though he taller by a head. She had her hands-on-hip like a seafaring captain ordering a swabby off the plank, except she was brandishing her mop like a Japanese bō - a female ‘Little John’ ready to knock Robin off his hubris.
It was usually at this point when their conversations fell apart. Pasqual wasn’t always clear where his vivid imagination left off and her too tangible ‘other’ began, so as often as not he’d reply to the ‘Little John’ he’d conjured, rather than the too beautiful for language fearsome princess waif facing him, with very likely as vibrant an imagination as any universe he’d conjured. Pasqual bit off ‘who pissed in your Cheerios’ and replied “Yes, I see what you mean. It’s nice to see you, how did you sleep?” reminding himself all the while that it was considered rude to stare, even when ‘she’ might be the most beautiful spirit he’d found in his lifelong march to the “Sea of Love.”
“Fine, thank you. How about you”? She returned to the long graceful strokes of her whisking meditation so common to the East, but the spell was broken and Pasqual was left with the choice of intruding on her meditation, or asking for something he didn’t need or want, just for the pleasure of her attention. It never occurred to him until much later that she might enjoy his company, but was more at ease with the empty spaces of their shared time. For a fleeting second Pasqual thought to ask for her hand in marriage, instead murmuring “good, thanks for asking,” hoping he didn’t sound as snarky as he felt.
solidarność
(˚ ㄥ _˚)
01 January 2026
http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com
http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com
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prohibited from AI sampling in any form
reprinted with permission; all rights reserved
∞
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