Chapter 26
Pasqual bolted upright from a dead sleep; it was deathly hot without light of any kind; his dream state sweat mingled with dread from an unanswered question. In his sleep echo, a solitary Apache boy stood facing the mountainous image of the great Lakota War Chief - Crazy Horse; the Apache man-child could not describe what Crazy Horse was pointing at, or where the question came from, but he could feel the destination beckon like the longing of an ancestor who wanted nothing more than to be embraced once again.
Pasqual lay still on his pallet for many moments collecting the will to face another day. Thần Ngon’s all consuming image receded from this morning ritual more and more daily, not from any loss of conviction about her excellence or their too-tangible-to-be-denied connection; nor from any diminished affection or altered focus by Pasqual, but for a growing consideration of her complex dimensions and his own fear that the pathology of his Western upbringing was inherently destructive to her wellbeing.
After he’d overcome his astonishment of the apparent ease with which she peered into deep recesses of his being, revealing features and dimensions of his soul he’d never confided or knowingly revealed to anyone; not even Angela, he set about normalizing communication between them, but by then it was too late. His admiration for the depth of her perception and sensitivity was entirely transparent to her and she had taken her seat at the helm of his moral compass.
He could deny her nothing; but she was still girlish in her vanities and made sport of his scars and light of his fears - not from cruelty, but because she was lockdown-bored and still in search of vindication for her own defeats, large and small. She had yet to recognize the brilliance of her white hot light, reeling still from the dearth of mirroring by whomever it was who’d been too dull to reflect her beacon.
The cloistered cocoon Duyên Dáng Homestay was at once the life-saver which animated her innocent preternatural charm, yet remained the harness that saddled her with the emotional poise of a prepubescent Lolita possessed of supple frame and libido of a late 30’s divorcee with no concept of autonomy or individuation. So she did what every liberated woman does, frolic to her heart’s content.
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Pasqual’s destiny had been weaponized and drafted into service of the emerging Abundunation - he was a pike of purpose, a trigger finger pointed at the heart of a dying empire in the process of dragging the mummified carcass of its 3,000 year old oligarchy into a sinkhole future; the desiccated corpuscles of its remains were all that was left for the remnants of the species to feast on. South East Asia was in sporadic lockdown, and though the reversal to ‘Joy’ on Marksburgh’s Contagion instrument panel quelled much avoidable wretchedness, the die had been cast and the procession toward extinction stretched taught the human DNA strand out to its unforeseeably finite future.
Pioneering psychiatrist C.G. Jung said this when asked about the continuation of the human species:
Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")
As a single man with a unique perspective of the roiling chaos washing civilization back into the sea, Pasqual felt urgency commingle with the calm of death. Armed by the certainty of purpose, he was compelled to excavate those currents and sources of Upeksha within to aid those who inevitably seek fertile ground to root and rise through the seasons of impermanence and prepare signposts to guide the clusters of humans transporting the archetypal human consciousness sure to follow on cavalcades of misery.
Pasqual could almost hear the voice of Mordecaise cackling “what a crock of esoteric existential horse shit! - follow, what the fuck to where? ·”
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Mordecaise was right to mock Pasqual’s mawkish thinking, even if it was through an imperfect telepathic link. Though 2 of the demon dog Cerberus’s heads were severed and the ‘Black Hand’ shot-caller of the HNWIs - Lisbeth Phelps, dead to the world; the cruel monolithic mechanism of oppression carefully crafted over 3 millenniums+ of human servitude was now a rudderless ship; a motherless child; a suppurating open wound exuding putrescence and necrotizing every living thing in its path.
The global atmosphere was no longer capable of cleansing the volume of toxins rising daily in the air; whatever filters mama Gaia was hatching to benefit the depleted flora and fauna were tortured and sparse. The human species had learned much about stewardship in the past 20 years, but after the increasing demand for resources required to sustain livable temperatures in every region of the planet, little remained for the niceties of regenerative ecology.
Charlatans and soothsayers lived a precarious existence of feast or famine as the population died and tribal etiquette reigned - when evermore fungible weather patterns played along, a charismatic could live easily on the gratitude of whatever pocket of people s/he’d wandered, however, with starvation a constant for every competing adaptive theory, forgiveness became the razor’s edge for those mystics trading in futures.
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The opening night for the ‘The Half-Naked Seance’ raised more than funds for Cirque du Lune’s quixotic trek to Kathmandu; fundamental assumptions Western Civilization had made about the reality of existence were overturned that night. Harry Houdini had staked his earthly legacy on debunking the metaphysics of all things relating to the spirit world. Yet when Dumbo the elephant reappeared out of the aether to carry the naked Medium, Leslei from the tent, it wasn’t a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ about which the audience was in awe, it was an intense curiosity by which they were now possessed. Nor was it the audience that had been transformed by the event, Leslei rode the neck of the behemoth from the ring, her thighs clenching from an orgasm before she knew herself to be aroused; later she came to believe her climax was the result of his conscious twitching of his 7th cervical vertebrae by the rakish pachyderm, rather than any mystic euphoria.
On the other side of the planet Pasqual was collating strategic decisions about his future against tactical demands when his phone began pulsing with Edith Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien,” he couldn’t remember answering a phone more happily for years. “Little darlin’ CONGRATULATIONS!!! - a stunning performance. I am SO glad you called; How do you feel?”
There was a pause almost as though the mass of an entire planet was spinning into the conversation between these two old friends half a planet apart, “I should say drained, 52 year-old elephant tamer me; but feeling more like a broken little girl than a woman that tamed the crowd. I called you Pasqual because what you saw wasn’t the performance I had prepared; it wasn’t a performance of any kind at all; it was spooky as fuck, and I don’t know what to make of it. I’m frightened.”
Pasqual had known Leslei since their raucous early 30’s and had never known her to be afraid: concerned - yes, cautious - yes; hyper-vigilant even, but never afraid; he’d once watched her claw the eyebrows off a reckless biker in Amboy, then kick his Pan Head over while his friends laughed. “What can I do?” is all he could think to ask.
“Hearing your voice means a lot; speaking my fear out loud is more helpful than I’d have thought possible. We took mushrooms together the first night we met at that concert in Red Rock. After you got back together with Angela, we talked about that lost weekend in different terms - Maria Sabina terms - we memorized that quote of hers about another world:”
There is a world beyond ours, a world that is far away and nearby, invisible and seen.
And there is where God lives, where the dead live, a world where everything has already happened and everything is known.
“Where I was tonight is beyond that world of light; tonight I was in the world of darkness. I am afraid to ever be remembered by that world; I am afraid to even share my fear with you. What can I do Pasqual? I feel like my soul is gone?” There was a longer pause full of information. Pasqual, continued to listen carefully trying not to fill in the silence with his own anxiety, but to make room for Leslei to experience whatever she was facing while they were together - a world apart.
“What about Archdai Tryump? He’d made such a splash when you’d arrived in Monaco? Was he anywhere near the tent tonight?” ‘How do you normalize the paranormal?’ Pasqual thought to himself.
“Funny you ask about him; you heard me talk about his pig-snort, that hiccup giggle that passes for laughter in his circle? I’d have sworn that same hideous sound had been dubbed into the gong and drum vibe we created for an otherworldly effect. Weird huh?”
“Could it be Silic-E stretching his empathic comprehension of us bio-units?”
“I thought about that, but Lammele had coordinated with Mordecaise and Carina prior to the show, and though it was confused, even possibly offended, Silic-E agreed to remain entirely neutral during the event; however, I got some images from Angela, it had assembled some phenomenal views - picture Ansel Adams does Hieronymus Bosch - they may even be encrypted onto the group drive by now.”
Whatever murk that had tormented Leslei was receding into the background; but Pasqual was schooled enough in trauma to know Leslei’s chatter could also be anything but peace in her heart.
She continued the post-traumatic debriefing with an old friend. “In the next shows, I’d like more than visual impressions from Silic-E; try to arrange with Mordecaise and Carina for it to point us toward a constructive understanding about the realm in which we are intruding. Our kind has unleashed enough thoughtless dynamic onto this planet without adding a spiritual scrum to the mix . ..” equal parts of silence formed words and ideas for their conversation.
Pasqual had forgotten how companionable Leslei could be, not just the pleasant sound of her voice; but a visceral warmth. “We’ve been, .. I’ve been going on about my fears, and you’ve said nothing about your journey in Vietnam. Is there anything I should know, or any way I can return your kindness. There is not another person on the planet I’d have been safer with right now; thank you friend for picking up.”
“I appreciate your asking; there’s nothing I have to get off my chest. Clearly, the universe was right to put me here for more than our project. It occurs to me that along with whatever forces Silic-E can guide us to, let’s try to honor the Schmuck brothers; if we’re going to seek guidance, I say buy local. What do you think?
“I think I miss you; I think if I do not sleep soon, which I can now, I won’t be worth a shit at tonight’s performance. I think the next week and a half is going to be, as is said in french, très intéressant; I think we should all meet at the ‘Croc’ soon; I think I love you. Good Night;” with that, Leslei was gone and Pasqual was comforted in a way that deepened his misery.
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‘Carbuncle’ is what rose with his consciousness, as Lammele lay waking. He loved the life that Guildern had fashioned in Montevideo. Music, good food and camaraderie for those left after 20 years of decimation and despair. It seemed to Lammele that what his friend had accomplished was leadership of the highest order. Worldwide, many approaches to managing resources had developed during the ‘end days’ - communes, militarized and pacific; penal colonies: large and small; for-profit and preservation of power by elites praying for ammunition or a new wave of infections rendering populations docile.
“Good morning friend. How’d you sleep?” Coffee at the Croc was nearly as good as the 1st glass of tinto Rojo in the afternoon, while the day’s character was always flavored by who served the ubiquitous Mate’s, black gold usurper; this morning it was Doctora ‘Guevara’.
“Funny you ask that Dr. Roja; I woke up thinking about carbuncles, and the 1st person I meet is a doctor; does synchronicity rule the universe, or what?”
She peered into Lammele’s wizened eyes gently as only someone who’s witnessed great suffering can; she placed a bowl of dark coffee in front of him and remarked, “you know I’m not a psychiatrist, right?” She asked this question with a professional curiosity, for mental health in the time of rampant death was very much a triage skill, but Lammele’s friend was so deft he couldn’t tell if he was being therapized or debriefed.
“Yes of course Roja, it is a peculiar image to hold in one’s mind when swimming for consciousness. Have you seen the images of Leslei’s seance? Silic-E uploaded them to the group’s drive? I don’t know whether I should have been scrutinizing them before sleep, but they are mesmerizing. Could that have caused my scabrous image? Oops, you’re not a psychiatrist.” Dr. Guevara loved visiting with the regal raconteur, she was never sure when he was yanking her chain, or if he was trying to seduce her.
“How does your dream feel to you?” Roja waited, Lammele was an unaccustomed interrogatee.
“It wasn’t so much a dream with multiple events and persons; the feeling was of a tender purulent festering abscess lacking pain.” Lammele was peering into his coffee as though examining the wound with his mind’s eye, his lips slightly curled pressing his nostrils back as if from a rank odor.
“What do you remember about the images from the seance?” Dr. Guevara was doodling on a serviette, but watching Lammele’s cupped palms, nestling the coffee bowl like it was scalding hot instead of tepid - anomalous tics roiling his normally placid visage.
“That’s what’s weird; what struck me most wasn’t witnessing the first documented communication with other dimensions, but the look of rapture on Leslei’s face as she rode out of the tent. What do you suppose that means Doc?”
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Carina got off the phone with Angela reminding herself she no longer needed ceremony to communicate with Silic-E’s ubiquitous presence; it had probably processed the conversation and was likely taking initiative to the best of its ability. Carina’s wholistic training had not been scientific per se, though her curiosity about the universe was unbounded. Yet what Angela was suggesting bordered on the irresponsible: Frederich Nietzsche - “Go over to your friend, but do not go up to him. Respect the enemy that is within your friend.” Enlisting one barely understood consciousness to report on an unknown dimension did not feel respectful. The only analog for Carina was the invasion of the modern world into Marina Sabina’s unseen world ‘faraway and close;’ the devastation wrought by well meaning hipster doofuses to the quiet life of her village included the gratuitous destruction of her home and the senseless death of her son - neither of which intentional, merely outcomes of celebrity.
The forces which Carina was being asked to spy on were comparable to Sabina’s world in scale as a thermonuclear device would be to a firecracker.
“Guildern, it may not be wise to use a public seance for launching inquiries into deep space wormholes with potentially Mobius-like irregularities. Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I need a drink, but there’s something about using Silic-E as an emissary for communicating with the paranormal that’s like asking a she wolf in heat to guard a henhouse.
I realize we’re down to the short strokes as a species and have to shit or get off the pot, but what if we work smarter and not harder; let’s delve deeper - think universal, buy local.” Pasqual had just woken from a dream about Crazy Horse - the carving in South Dakota. In the dream it was all about where Crazy Horse was pointing; the sculptor’s message was an answer found in why the carved image would outlast the human species. “We’d be better off answering unanswered questions about our world before we set store in the wisdom of worlds we have no vocabulary for.”
“Mordecaise, this is Lammele. I’ve been listening in, and I agree with you. What do you propose? We based the idea of enlisting the aid of those in concert with Harry Houdini - because we oughten be proud of our ignorance.”
“Yes we understand; neither Carina nor I have compunctions about asking for help, but our thinking is that whatever help we secure from another dimension ought to be predicated on successful efforts we’ve made to save ourselves - on this score, we ain’t doing so good.”
“Nor so bad - a month ago we were ruled by a cabal of evil and the psyche of the planet was in thrall to a soulless algorithm in service of consumer addiction · today, 3/4 of that cabal is dead and the algorithm, though still soulless is now switched to its polar opposite state of joyous contentment until the technology can be safely decoupled from the human archetype. I’m not criticizing your vigilance, am advocating you give yourself some of the kindness you struggle to provide others.”
There was a long pause filled with love affecting all in earshot. For too long the narrative of the planet had been how fucked up things are, and when the reality of a neutral universe that is neither benign nor malignant intrudes itself logically on people’s perception, it’s a lot like the naughty child in the classroom who gets a substitute teacher for a day - a substitute who enjoys that child’s renegade ways and as the song said, “love reigns supreme.”
“Can we do what needs to be done remotely?” Lammele was leader of ‘the group’ because of his questions, not because of any authority, other than an insatiable curiosity. By this point in the conversation, Silic-E had brought the disparate parts of the group online and Lammele’s question voiced what each had been asking themselves for sometime.
As ever, Angela framed the issue succinctly; “are we stronger together or more efficient sheltering in place? How many generations do we buy our species from the joy of sangha?”
Pasqual through habit and respect followed; “My dream of Crazy Horse took place here in Vietnam, but it was about ‘The States;’ as our time telescopes toward its end, significance for motion and movement of every molecule, animate and inanimate is magnified. The ancestors describe how the depiction of Crazy Horse pointing is symbolic for the sacred burial grounds of the plains indians - I choose to believe the discussion was inclusive representing all, indians and wasichu alike.
That, true to human nature, is not what played out, and the memorial became another self aggrandizing gesture of unmoored egos terrified of dissolution and taking the ‘meatiest part of the bone’ - while Crazy Horse himself guaranteed honor for his corporeal remains by concealing their final resting place. Is there meaning for our group in these lessons?”
Lammele wondered how far their question would take them, or which direction their curiosity would point.
Roja Chimed in, “our human pustulance is what propagates much decay in this world, we understand it’s nature as greed, hatred and delusion; yet as a doctor, I have not discovered an antidote for those toxins; adding insult to injury, there may be no cure for love either.”
Lammale was always fascinated by the turn of human curiosity. “I had a dream the other night; it was challenging to wake up from a deep sleep carrying the image of a suppurating carbuncle. I shared this with a friend who asked, ‘how do you feel about it?’; I felt dirty, without suffering. The decay inside of me was vivid and rising to a climax. I felt vulnerable, for no spiritual practice I’m aware of could purify my tissues - my responsibility was to heal, and the best way to accomplish that would be by not infecting others. Does that make any sense?” Lammele was not given to rhetorical questions, and waited for a reply . ..
Guildern relished opportunities to swim in the deep pools of Lammele’s thinking. “Yes it does make sense; maybe too much? I don’t know. The 1st time I flew, was the 1st time I had to orient my focus spherically rather than radially - disconcerting; however no more so than orienting for the extinction of one’s species. There are no parameters, because we’ve never been here before. If Bob Dylan’s ‘moving finger is moving on’ I’d feel better wondering where to, than knowing; if that makes any sense?”
Lammele was awed by the brevity with which his troops prosecuted their objective.
Carina seeded the discussion’s terrain, “spherical requires a center we do not possess, and our binary states of life and death defy all logic, still we search. It may be that just as Lammele’s story led him to a rubric of personal responsibility, there is no guiding light except that which we illuminate for ourselves by communing with our interiors. Experts across the planet are sending me tracts on what the painting in the temescal means; yet Silic-E tells me it means that night I made a friend and everything else is a description of that event. However 3 months into our conversation, I still don’t know what ‘it’ means when it uses the word friend, much less the symbol logic of a painting with menstruation pigment that opened a portal into another dimension. I’m open to ideas, anybody?”
“I was there, and I was high but not so high I couldn’t see how much I don’t know. You’d think that trance event would yoke me to Dionysius Wisdom forever - now I don’t drink, go figure. Leslei crossed the threshold - spirits exists; reality has many heads · we’re all gonna die. The struggle remains the same - what kind of spirits are we, what kind of spirits do we leave behind? I only hope Carina takes me with her, ‘cause I really like her spirit.”
“I’m pulling for ya’ Mordecaise. Percentages and recent events tell me I’d better get good with whatever’s coming down the pike. Riding an elephant across the South of France, I’ve come to believe control is a myth unless it can be found within. Even with an elephant between my legs, what I point my finger at isn’t half so telling as why, and for answers to that question no one can answer but myself. If I was you guys when deciding whether to enlist armies from the great beyond I’d try to find out how many of your soldiers have managed to wage peace within, before you go enlarging the battlefield into other dimensions. Please, point out the errors in my thinking; it’s the only way I’ve ever learned.
I gotta go now; the 2nd night opens in less than an hour, and I still haven’t figured out what I’m not gonna wear. Let me know what you decide, so I can know what questions to ask the spooks.”
(˚ ㄥ _˚) I
jts 29/9/2024
http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com
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prohibited from AI sampling in any form
reprinted with permission; all rights reserved
∞
