Flora Simone

In Paris a woman rented a motorcycle. Not something big, but more of a bike perhaps. Not a hog; a moped maybe, only bigger. It was green with a thin white stripe horizontally spanning the metallic body. It did not reach excessively high speeds, at least not speeds that one, when not at all numb to motorcycles and the way they handle, would have to obtain in order to reach a certain degree of pleasure, but speeds that a woman who had previously only experienced her back to the safety bar (and only once for that matter) would have to obtain to enjoy it thoroughly. This woman was indeed not accustomed to the wind blowing through her hair and so she did indeed enjoy it to a tolerant-less caliber. She drove it with quite a sense of confidence and attempted, subtly, to fit quietly in with the European citizens. Her hair was dyed a light, reddish color that fit loosely with her deep, brown eyes and it flowed perfectly through the wind around her unprotected head as if a colorless photograph were taken of each strand and then thrown freely into the air and left to fall randomly and securely back to her scalp. If it were not for the roots of her naturally light hair opposing the color above it, you would not look twice before admitting that the truth lay buried in the maroon locks.
The weather was not heavy, as weather in such parts of Europe can often be, but more of a bright, underdeveloped, metallic sort of weather. A kind of weather that might be loosely described by a bad poet as “a smothered reflection of ill tempered ballet machines”. The sky was a deep blue that seemed to darken the clouds slightly as they moved slowly in front of the sun and then past it. If someone were blessed with a keen eye or a free moment, they would notice the faintness of a sliver of the moon peering down from the distance, resembling an awkwardly shaped cloud. The air was moderately crisp and refreshing and after a blistering summer, quite a relief.
As she rode, her mind raced furiously despite the relaxed expression on her face. She was in search of something. Something of a priceless and infinite capacity. Something that she valued with such importance that she would rely completely on chance and fate to find.
She had arrived in Paris that morning with dusty eyes and a cluttered mind. Her arrival was as unexpected as her departure, for the actions she took were not contingent on any sort of thought based, analytical process. It was instinct, or perhaps fear that brought her to this foreign place. Regardless of what to call it, pure emotion convinced her to proceed in taking a serious series of steps to arrive at this point. She had left in a hurry and was still cloaked with the white dress she had adorned the night before. What went through her mind, however was not anything regarding clothing but perhaps she silently wished for her dress to remain attached or at least with her for reasons that will become obvious later.
As she sped through the streets, she was somewhat blinded by her search and had not yet had a chance to collect her thoughts, for she was still running on the fuel of the emotion. She wanted something and was obviously attached so strongly to it, that she was willing to risk everything.
She was around the more uncivilized area of France at this point where the hills were becoming visible, but the sky was as big as she had ever seen. She was becoming frustrated now, because all of the details that are involved with such an extreme alteration of regular life had passed, such as the purchasing of the plane ticket and the renting of the moped, and now she was left in a huge land with an infinite amount of locations. She didn't know where to start; her mind was on overdrive and not thinking appropriately at all. She tried to calm herself by pulling over and crouching beside a small patch of unknown flowers. She picked a few and brought them to her nose before gently crushing them in her palm and letting them drop onto the others. They smelled faintly of butter and a corporation's attempt at fat-free honey. She peered off into the distance as she often did when life seemed overwhelming, as though to put herself on a different level than the one that had given her so much to think about. She tried to see herself relative to the vastness of reality that was visible through the endless hills and infinite sky. She looked up and saw the planets rotating around stars and those stars creating galaxies. Then she peered into the dirt and witnessed the deforming and reforming of millions of molecules. She tried to realize her importance compared to the importance of a spot of soil. She saw them as the same, but her mind would not let her disband the unreasonable authority that it held over all other existence. She tried to allow herself to realize what truly mattered in a life, such as health and reproduction for chrisssake but she had been taught too much already, her consciousness was warped with the influence of humanity and she remained only frustrated. She closed her eyes and forced an ear-piercing scream that traveled far across the open fields and stung her own ear with resonance. After, for a brief moment, becoming slightly paranoid that anyone might have heard her, she collapsed gracefully onto the unknown flowers and moments later, fell deeply asleep.
About five hours went by before even five people passed this vehicle on the side of the road and it was in the last thirty minutes of the final hour before any one of them cared to stop. The fourth person who went by was driving an out of date Saab with fairly expired tabs and plates. He slowed down, stopping behind the abandoned bike. At first he wondered why anyone in possession of any form of the human brain would think to leave a motorcycle among the great deal and large amount of nothing that surrounded it. He had this light grip on the situation until he stepped out of his car and noticed that there was actually an owner of the vehicle, contrary to what he had previously seen. And because the large moped was safely propped up by its kickstand and not sprawled disastrously across the road, it took him another couple of seconds to comprehend that the owner was on the ground. He walked quickly over to the woman and crouched as she had. He put his hand on her forehead so that his thumb was almost in her ear and stood up, stretched, put a cigarette in his mouth, looked crossly over his right shoulder, closed his eyes and lit the fag with one quick flick of a match.
"I should probably let her rest, who knows what kind of madness I would have on my hands if I disrupted her peace", he said aloud. This man was the type who had become considerably used to saying things aloud because he often didn't have anyone else to hear his words; he had no problem speaking his mind. He found no reason for being afraid to talk or being intimidated to voice his view of anything simply because he did it most of the time and he was alone to do it, most of the time.
This man's name was Aengus. And he sat around patiently waiting for the woman he had found on the ground to awaken. He knew that if at least she was breathing than it would be easier for him to predict the situation that might have happened to lead up to what he was seeing. He thought that, since she was alive and her transportation device was gently parked beside her, that maybe she had been riding for a good two days and simply decided to put her bike in a spot that seemed appropriate for blocking the wind, allowing her to fall asleep for a few quick hours in this pretty little bed of flowers she had found. The only thing that really confused him was the dress and the way she was positioned on the ground. It didn't seem to make sense. He was pretty much accurate about the whole thing, except not really at all.

When the woman awoke she brought her body up and rubbed her eyes. With irrational confidence in her surroundings and an exhausted but professional glare in her eyes, she looked up at Aengus and said, "Where are we?"
"You're crushing those Daffodils. Or as you would say here, "Jonquilles. I think," Aengus said with his thumbs resting on the ledge of the pockets of his blue khakis. He looked down and noticed the practically black sneakers on her feet.
"Yeah I really didn't appreciate their smell you know but umm do you live here?"
"Well that depends. Do you?
"No."
"Than I can easily say I do, miss."
"Well, I was driving for a while but I've been driving for so long I guess I got lost or something." She gave a concealed sigh to let air into her lungs and got up. With three quick and hard brushes of her hand, the dirt that was on the front of her gown leapt off and quickly became lost in the air. Can you tell me which way I would go if I were looking for like a shack or something? On a field...I guess."
Aengus laughed. "Why? Are you interested in the market? Or, is there a particular shack of which you are having trouble finding coordinates?" He said with a smile. Aengus was amused by the situation he had encountered and lit another cigarette, placing the matchbook underneath the bill of his raggedy, discolored panama style hat. He however did not want to pressure this woman into revealing any information. He thought it quite more entertaining to let her exclaim it when she felt right. Aengus knew that if this woman has already found herself lost and asleep in the middle of France on a rented motorcycle dressed in a five thousand dollar white dress asking him now where she can find a goddamn shack on a field, than he would be able to do nothing but observe the events that would follow without influencing them in any way. He would of course, in order to witness these events, have to be able to follow her or be with her or something. He decided however, not to put himself at risk of being considered some sort of stalker.
"Well I'm actually looking," she paused for a moment and peered away from Aengus at the ground, "For my Grandfather." She said this as she picked up a small rock and threw it unconsciously at Aengus' car.
"And I guess he lives in a shack?" Aengus replied.
"That’s what I've been told," she said now looking back at Aengus, "Or at least that’s what I've heard."
Aengus took a drag on his cigarette and spoke as the smoke was on its way out, "Are you staying someplace?" He had a feeling that this woman was not being as truthful as he had wanted and at this early in the relationship, he thought it a red flag, or at least a character flaw.
The woman looked up with a deeply focused gaze as she unearthed a small Daffodil and picked it slowly apart with the nails of her fingers. "No. I just flew in this morning. I haven't even ate or anything."
"Would you like a cigarette?"
"No, save it. My stomach doesn't feel as good as it could right now. You don't like have any sandwiches or anything in there do you", she said acknowledging the Saab parked behind her motorcycle.
"Yeah I have some...Chips or crackers or something," he said bending is head back to look into his car, "But why don't you just follow me to a place to eat? I'm hungry too, but I prefer meat and grain."
"How far is it? Because I guess I'm in somewhat of a hurry. But...
"I dunno a couple miles, c'mon."
Aengus threw the singed butt of his cigarette towards the soon to be departed sun and walked onto the road and opened his car door. He waited until the woman got on to her bike and put on her helmet. He then removed his hat and ducked his head, sitting roughly in his car and slamming the door to make sure it closed before trying the ignition twice after it wouldn't turn over. He thought about where to go and not too much about the strangeness of the woman as he sat, waiting for his radio to receive some sort of signal. He lost patience eventually and did a U-turn in order to proceed in the opposite direction because he knew for a fact that there was not a barn, shack or even makeshift hut until the Pyrenees.

Aengus was not French. Nor did he aspire to be or have any prolonged exposure towards the social or environmental aspects of the French. He simply kind of liked the scenery. Now, this concept of "scenery" appealed most generously to Aengus and convinced him to proceed with many, what would seem to you or me but not necessarily to him to be, particularly important, decisions. He didn't base them on anything that could be described by words or anything like that. It was more of a feeling or a sort of respect. For, when he had to trust a person for example, he would consider his feeling towards that person and sort of rely on instinct instead of their appearance or what kind of negative events had scarred their path. He would trust people that normally wouldn't be trusted but he would only see the truth in people who deserved it. The same goes for surroundings. Where he has ever lived has been based on a somewhat impulsive decision based on nothing else but whether the scenery pleased him or not. He could find himself in the position to be able to live in the most commonly desired situation and choose the exact opposite and not have that decision be based on any sort of influence one way or the other. Therefore his decision to live in France had nothing to do with the people, what sort of cities it had, the culture, how well respected he would be if he lived there, or whether or not he could afford it. If he liked it, he would have it, simply because he realized that this is the way the world works. He wasn't held back by anything, even what he didn't have.
This man, Aengus was from a nice town in Maine and after seeing all of the pieces of America that he thought necessary, moved to Eastern Canada when he was nineteen to pursue a desire to experience a different country. He traveled around the Western Hemisphere pretty much just making enough money here and there to project him somewhere that he wasn't. He was now almost thirty and for some reason or another had been brought to Southern France. He did not speak the language, nor did he care to learn. He had only had to speak to twelve people since he had arrived there two years ago and about seven of them spoke English. He would drop by the grocer here and there and use the little money he made towing cars around once in a while to buy necessities. Other than that he spent his time pretty much alone, driving around the beautiful lands of France and tending to his small garden.
These details of his life, now seemed boring and unimportant, despite how he loved every bit of it. However, he was now thinking of the woman who was following him closely on her motorcycle. Since he was rarely around people, when he was, he liked to sort of play games. He decided that it would be necessary now for him to design an intricate story to recite to the girl, convincing her of something that is completely and blatantly untrue. He would disregard all of the details about his actual life and fill in the holes with completely made up material. It would be great, but he had to think about it. He had about twenty about minutes to create a fictional history and pretend that he believed it. He decided that since the girl was from America and not extremely accustomed to France, or probably even Europe, that his trials would not be too far into the challenging department. He spoke aloud in a deep mockery style voice, "Simple name. Sven. Occupation. Retired... Chemist. Heh. Raised in... Russia!” there was a slight pause then, "Yeah, I was raised with an American family. That's crazy, I know, a Russian living with an American family... in his own country," he sort of laughed, "but to me its just regular shit." He stared now, intently forward with his brow flattened and hands firmly on the steering wheel. "I'll have to have a dark secret. Like... something about a werewolf. Or that I've always wanted to be a professional boxer. And I could show her." He was now imagining in his head the scene where he throws his fists into the air, punching invisible foes and biting his cheeks in serious mockery. What else, he thought? He thought again of a dark secret. This time in more of a serious manner. It just wouldn't be entertaining enough or worth all this effort unless it was challenging. To actually get her to believe something unbelievable. Something that forces her to stare at him with pale, shock-blazed eyes. Something that is too hard to believe because it lays on the precarious verge of utter disbelief. That would be fulfilling. He would get a definite kick out of the connivery of this rather absurd scenario. He went back to the idea of the chemist and tried to artistically stretch it. Perhaps he could have been a notable scientist. One who leaned more towards the philosophical side of the chemical spectrum and veered away from the mathematics of the science. Perhaps Sven grew up always having an instinctively driven desire to solve problems and riddles. Always thinking in a severely efficient way. As he aged, Aengus thought, Sven enhanced this mental benefit into a career. And a lifestyle. He had the patience to become submerged in the strenuous craft of exchanging variables and theorizing equations but understood that those tasks are only for explanation. Not belief. He had a very rational, accepting understanding of existence and used it to project himself to where he wanted to be.
Aengus looked at his own eyes in the rearview mirror. He flung his head to the left, getting the hair out of his eyes that the hat had had held down before and raised one eyebrow. “Velcom to ma temporary livinG qwaters.” He said in a sleazy Russian voice. “Iope you find your stay…comfortable…”
Three more backdoor roads and they took a right onto a gravel road. The road was lined on each side with bricks that looked as if their position had never been altered but seemed as though they were not cemented together. The woman following Aengus did not take the slightest bit of notice, she was directing her attention to mental issues and had her eyes focused strictly on the top of the "Q' that was in the second half of Aengus's license plate. In the distance there was a two-story house with a satellite dish on the roof. The exterior paint was a shipping, dirty blue color that only came down to about six feet above the ground. It looked as though the painter poured a giant vat of blue paint on the top of the house and simply let it run down the sides, abandoning any further work because he wasn't going to get paid. The stretch of gravel was about half of a mile, and the two vehicles soon slowed down and stopped by the front door. Aengus got out of his car while the girl was un-strapping her helmet and with a smile, motioned for her to park around the side of the house. She did so, noticed the dirty tow truck and followed him to the back door.
"I live here", Aengus said as he was trying the key in the door, "There aren't many places that serve food around. Plus I don't imagine you have much money."
"Why?"
"Why?"
"Yeah why. Why do you think I don't have any money? I mean, its not a big deal but... Do I look unclean or something?"
"Well, no. Not that. Its just...” he looked down at her wide, questioning eyes and sort of squinted and frowned. He slammed his body into the door, "That dress is not cheap", he lied and looked at her butt. The door flew open.
The two of them walked slowly into the house, their steps being amplified by the hollow floorboards.
"You can sit down in here," said Aengus as he pointed to a room behind the kitchen and walked out of site of the girl. She walked slowly into what appeared to be the living room. Or at least it seemed to have all of the familiar characteristics of a living room. Dirty couch, brown, ecliptic coffee table, bad paintings on the walls, a fireplace with an incomplete, brick laced perimeter and a medium sized rug clinging gently to the floor beneath these items. The pattern of the rug reminded this girl of a water stream descending a cliff or mountain peak. Most of the colors used were forms of red and the corners were shaded blue. She looked up and began walking towards the window. Its torn drapes were strung open and Aengus's car sat in plain view beyond the wooden deck. She put her hand on the window and felt the glass beginning to loose temperature. She knew that since the sun had just descended that she would be spending the night in this very house, something she preferred not to happen. She rolled her eyes into the back of her head and turned it to the left, "Shit." She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and let out a silent groan. This girl had nothing against the nice new friend she had met. He seemed pretty smart, she thought and it seemed like his attempts to be witty were more tolerable than most guys'. Its not as if she particularly minded him or anything, she just knew where the situation was most likely to head, or at least where it was desired to head by half of the characters involved in it. She would just have to be firm and establish ground rules as soon as possible. She would have to make sure he understood how she felt without sounding too hostile. She then thought that maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe she could just be a complete bitch and see how quick minded this guy was. She could test him and continue to reward him with nothing. The only problem was that she often felt bad about these kinds of things. Because despite her attraction to evil, she was a very strong, true, good hearted person. She decided to bring him down with one glance of the eyes. This girl had always been interested in eye contact. She believed she could see an entire person with one look into their eyes. She saw who they were. What they had experienced. She could acknowledge one's wisdom or see through their soulless retinas, allowing her to accurately judge and analyze. Her first impressions were usually proven to be correct if she indeed took the time to establish a relationship with the individual, but of course she rarely had the courage to instigate conversation beyond the common head nod or simple pass on the street. This continually proven ability of hers however gave her quite a sense of superiority, which, without proper innate, intellectual structure, almost always leads to eventual destruction. And who knows if this girl was gifted with such a backing. It was hard for the average person to rise above the level she thought herself at and decrypt her personality because she lived in a different place than any other. Her mind was so far away from the blanket of social consciousness that is thread with so many others. It is because of this distance and outward view that she can so easily peer into a person's soul. So when an individual is able to witness her interior, she is automatically attracted to that form of mental thought. She thought now that it would take one carefully placed mutual glance for him to become convinced that she was against any form of pre-marital sex. Which was, of course, a complete lie.
The girl looked down at her shoes and tried to scrape a patch of dirt off of one shoe with the bottom of the other.
“Fuck.” She said quietly, rubbing her eyes with her palms and letting her hair fall over her hands. She collapsed onto her knees running her fingers through her disheveled locks. She sighed, leaning her back against the wall below the gradually fogging window. A large breeze flew through the trees and around the house, agitating it.
Aengus returned a few minutes later. He was freshly adorned with a black t-shirt and a pair of black slippers. “I heard the wind”, he said from the shadows, “I put together some soup and I have some muffins from yesterday. You could probably eat them with salami or cheese or whatever. Are you a picky person?” The girl stared at the floor on her left then forced a grin before looking back up into Aengus’ eyes.
“Whatever you have will be fine.” She replied with clouded eyes and a sweet, distant tone. Aengus stood still as he watched her sit. She was trying not to make any more eye contact with him. He chuckled and went back into the kitchen.

Fucksters

The murmur of silence awakens. Did my delicate probing sooth the dragon? Or was an ember left to disintegrate my faults, letting the the rhythm of myth relocate its influence? A troubled scholar approaches my cavern and taps a smothered beat to signify awareness. I approach him, embarking on a journey from the shadows, one that hints at light, assumes its presence beyond a divine firmament. Dripping of the faucet of life, my body puddles above the ground, my mind surrounds it, encases it, protects it. I am aware of the bright traveler's vest, encoded with the Sun and the Moon on each breast, it begins to peal off, becoming the ground on which it lands. What is left is a furnace, a fiery liberator heating the land, surpassing the natural form, freeing the essence. My life force begins to evaporate, nimbus drenching the fire from which it gave birth. The synthesis is complete, two forms existing as one and all and timelessly nothing.

“The right button unlocks the box.”
I’ll let everyone do their own shit. Drugs and Shit. Sex and Shit. Thought and shit. But if those bitches aren’t able to do their own shit, why am I the one to suffer trying to control them? Nudging them in the right direction. Why do I have to listen to them weep? First of all they all think I’m burned out, but their so burned out that they know nothing but how to conspire. What I do is not merely conspiracy. It is structured with mounds of data. Constant analyzation. You think I’m not able to immediately identify your measly attempt at a hidden psychology? You lack of intrigue fails miserably to impress me. I wonder how these individuals are able to entertain, if any sort, a female relationship. The only resolution is that the female sect of this species is even more delusional and burned out than them. So, if there was a competition of entertainment between myself and you, overlapping an infinite time span, my secret, which can never be revealed to myself, will eventually take authority.
As he thought this, Haden noticed the fantastic wind forcing a line of sprouting bushes almost to the ground. Bending them sideways. That is what life does, he said to himself. Time. It forces you back to where you came. Even when you’re barely alive. Still learning to be alive. And when you finally learn it all, just before you do, you’re uprooted to make way for condos and shit. Not brought back. After a lifetime of being pushed into the Earth, from the side, you are finally just ripped from existence. Nothing remains but another dead rose, colorless, and quickly decomposing in the corner of a gutter somewhere. Or forgotten among the dust in someone’s basement. It is rare that any of us ever return truly to the Earth. He stared at the city.
“There is evil.”
And if you are evil, you will spend the time needed to understand. You will live as many lives as necessary, until you get it. And each one more hellish than the last. Each one forcing you back even more, even harder. With each life, the wind grows stronger and stronger, and you try harder and harder to bend yourself back. To straighten yourself, against the wind, the devil. Because you think its right. Because generations of Adams and Eves have told me that it is possible to fight. It is possible to win. That there is some ancient, holy war; a greater good that we all must deserve-and work for. There is no winning though. People don’t realize this. There is only acceptance. You must simply let the wind return you to the Earth. Allow it to happen. All we can hope for is that the rose that we all grow to be is not just left colorless in the street. But that it is preserved by a life form and respected. That the idea, even long after the physical matter, the petals and bud have deteriorated, is allowed to flourish even more exceptionally than when the rose was in bloom.
Haden felt, for a moment, desire for a student. Another mind sitting beside him, listening, absorbing. He would like for that student to also respond, but he considered that it would not always matter. There is a difference between a lack of response or verbal promotion of the topic that is fueled by a lack of understanding and one that is fueled by connection. The best relationship holds silence as a reflection, not as something that induces unneeded paranoia or nervosa. Those relationships that consider the latter never succeed. They are more like a drug addiction, or any sort of trip than a relationship. He thought again of the man he had met, Tai. It seemed that his constant conspiring smeared the possibility of him ever realizing how to live. Always trying to overthrow some invisible competition. Those types of people, Haden knew, would never learn. It seemed to be vastly encoded within the carbon molecules of their chemical structure. He remembered the Elegant Universe. But instead of strings, he thought of gradually darkening shades. Little tiny sunglasses that existed at the basic level of certain people.
“People like Tai.”
Or a gradually thickening blindfold of fabric. Starting of as silk when they grew to be two years of age and eventually evolving, as the person evolves…and grows, into tightly woven wool.
These are the people that will probably never return to the Earth.
“They rule the Earth.”
Just as he saw that it seemed impossible for them to form a spiritual connection with another. He knew that was what made friendship. Existing on the same plane. “I guess…” he said out loud, that Tai and them, who are unable to transcend planes and exist on all planes at once, who are stuck on one plane, will find many people on that plane. Many people to connect with. But most of them have dropped too many hallucinogenic chemicals into their brain to establish true, spiritual connections with any body. He went outside to piss, thinking of cats.
As he stood there, letting the outrageous wind pillow against his back, whizzing on the ocean, he came to a strange realization. This was the exact spot where he had been with Flora once. Sitting with one another. Within each other in the front seat of that old boat that vaguely resembled a car. He remembered her attitude that night. It stood out, as it always did in his mind. It was just one among the many Flora Simones that he knew. That night she was sinister. Chain smoking her Benson and Hedges but never letting you see it as a flaw. He vaguely remembered the circumstances of their rendezvous , but he remembered them being emotionally dramatic and himself being slightly angered. If not furious. And then he remembered that his anger only grew as the night went on and when she finally dropped him off at his house, the kiss he gave her was passionless. Full of self created frustration. He knew that the frustration must have been severely justified, but the stimulus did not occur that night. It was nothing she did or said, it was what had scarred their past. Flora was able to overcome their historical incongruence’s and simply appreciate the moment that they were sharing. Haden, on the other hand, remained somewhat trapped in a chaotic flux of emotion. It was hard for him to forget. For him to overcome the city block of warehouses full of visions and illusions that lined his memories. And it became harder when she asked him, “Would you like to fuck me?” To this, he had no answer. Either way would be a doorway for Flora to use into his mind. And if he said yes, he knew it wouldn’t matter. She would not fuck him. Not here. Not now. But he still held her, as he always did, as he always would. And when he peered into her eyes, he knew that there was not a more perfect shade of green ever to exist.
“I wish…” He sighed and almost said it aloud, verbalizing it to relate emphasis. To italicize. I wish she were here right now to be my student.
But she was too stubborn to ever believe his words. She never listened. She only questioned.
“Who are you?”
What kind of question is that? Haden thought about answering, but became hesitant. He knew of her game but also that he must play. He could not win because he loved her. He could not forfeit because he loved her. But could he bring himself to loose? Did loving her mean sacrificing part of himself? He was sick of these silly contests, but at the same time it was this trait for which he had fallen. But he was easily influenced, and being strong minded as Flora was, he had overcome him and now he was stuck.

This time it was time

Aristotle, the last great thinker of antiquity. Perhaps the last great thinker. He proposed, through his cosmological model, that beyond our, corruptible, consistently changing universe resided a an entity that was unchanging. An aether of existential, incorruptible material that made possible the existence of our Universe. It, in it's essence, is the provider of the chaotic material exchange which we perceive and inhabit, by being a stable, unaltered form. In other words, Aristotle is asserting that, in likewise fashion of a substance not being capable of existing in a singular form, the Universe in general, at least that portion in which we perceive, must have another portion that is inherantly it's opposite, giving it function by relationship. As does anything in existence need its counterpart to give it purpose (or in humanity's case, purpose through perception), so does existence itself need nonexistence to perpetuate. He called this being, or more conceptually, outer layer of the cosmic schema, the Unmoved Mover. This is interesting because, not only is this theory distinctly separated from the 'God Theory' -fucking richard dawkins, neo-darwinist pig scoundrel-, but it is also highly anticipatory to the much later discovery of anti-matter particles. So to review, Antiquity was a time of philosophy. This is before Jesus Christ. And before technology, and before true empirical science. Aristotle in fact, was the pioneer of empirical science and therefore, after him there was only a diffusion of great thought. So, in computing all of this we find that science is moving closer and closer to realizing, through the empirical process, that the world is built up around the philosophy that is presented to us through its mysticism.. That all of the components of the Great Conversation are all leading up to one point. Religion, Philosophy, Art, Science, any human pursuit that involves extracting empirical data from perceived reality, you will find, is all extracting the same reality and is therefore, at it's most basic form, only re-describing the same thing in different ways. Go Godzillaas!

So they were out in the middle of this damn field landscape, abbreviated, infinite piece of environment with rolling hills and whatnot. Totally in the middle of the nowhere of a continent on some hunk of rock's mysterious portrayal of a living planet. This concept was vividly apparent to these people as the earth stretched out for miles. They could see the curvature of it all, folding over itself and holding nothing to it's surface. It was the solace of the land, nothing to be held down. Things seemed to be not at the brink of shooting off into space, but more just intent on slicing through gravity to the point of spacial temperament. Contentment achieved by matter with just sitting, as the rock does, in space. Perhaps it was the lack of living creatures in the vicinity or the barely recognizable plant life. Things seemed to not be driven by the forces that we have defined but by other forces undefinable, unregistered, alien. This place was a good reference point for the rest of the planet. Not just the rock though. Everything. The planet itself is alive with mysterious essence. It breathes with a steady flow, a different flow than the countless planets surrounding it. Not just a molten ball of magma, encased in a rock layer. Not just a combination of gasses. Gaia is alive with the interactions of particles, yes the same as any space of the universe, but this particular space is spawning a vastly alternative form of blind, mindless, motioned arrangements. Gaia is alive with the interactions of beings. Not just things. Rocks hitting other things and supernovas decaying with super-plasmic agility are the result of a facet of pre-arranged forces at work. The forces that are existing, determining all creation, always. Gaia has introduced to us here at the High Chamber of Physical Determinacy an alternative set of forces. The forces that act upon a new breed of things. These things, beings, are not alive with the ferociously chaotic combustion of heat, they feed from it. They are not alive with the constant orbital pattern held together by a gravitation force, but they live from it. The bodies, suits, vessels, trunks, whatever, are indeed working and maintaining their proportional need in the universe of the traditional natural forces, but are also a direct connection to another realm. They are fulfilling their alchemic quotas but there is something existing that is not matter or energy. Perhaps it uses these a-priori prototypes for their own means, just as the planet Earth has been used to support Gaia. It was all visualized in this land that Max, Panther, Sybil and Freed, had found themselves in. For some reason one could not escape the unity of knowledge and understanding, realization and belief. This was the land of the forgotten, yet it supplied the main thrusters for the craft of human development and strict mental evolution.
At speeds beyond sixty five miles per hour, the air felt smooth and generously delivered. As the Pacific Ocean would have felt to Magellan after vigorously maneuvering through the tiny, ferocious spot below South America. Each member was drifting, lost. The confusion had somehow been overshadowed. The intangibility of it all had been deafened by the rational concept that Max would not tell them what was realy going on. He had revealed information to them gradually and at specific points. His words were very well crafted and thoroughly considered in order to obtain the reality that he wanted. He had to make sure that these people were in exactly the right place in their minds. In some ways, he had managed to make them believe that they just didn't actually need to know. And that it as all ju!!!!g whether they understand it or not. Whether they would understand it or not.
They were lost in the form that was necessary. They were lost in their heads, each one possessing full capabilities for structural temperament. For some reason a chamber, or prison had been opened, was opening. Around them were phantoms of the innocent, locked away for eternity. Left to the infinite decay, going insane in the process and here they remained. Max picked them up, captured those magnificent tones, heard the tones of the forgotten. It was this force that was driving him on. The music cursed him, yet he remained engorged by the complex rhythms. He strove to obtain them for his own. He strove to produce them, but they were unearthly. The swiftest of deliveries, the most precise stigmata of jungle force constantly enveloping his brain, pushing him harder into the earth. This celestial music, fueled and enchanted by the divinity of the cosmos-projected through the human filter, seemed to grow as Max grew. It blossomed with each stage of his life and continually left him at least one step behind. Never could he fully capture it or comprehend it. But he certainly gave up on forgetting about it and thinking that it wasn't real. That would be destined to be a quick phase in his life anyway, a fruitless act of convincing himself, but Max knew, he knew what it was and 'coming to grips' with it, accepting it would take his entire life. He had no choice, he was spiritually empowered and required to take this path. The Hero's journey. It was overwhelming, and the sooner he gave himself to the flow, the better off he would be.
Something had led him to this place, this barren nothingness. It seemed incapable of accommodating life, it seemed lifeless. It seemed dead. But something could be felt that was unearthly. Not the kind of place that was simply composed of the elements. The elements in this place had been shifted, altered, manipulated. They could all feel that. This land was in possession of an essence that proved to be evil. The visionary landscape that was unfolding revealed that marvelously. The sky, although dark, was tinted a singing maroon now and seemed to have passed through a vast variety of colors since Sol had moved on. As if the true nature of the sky was illuminated when the sun lay to rest. As if the sun itself, the giver of life and sight, was blinding the eye to the reality of the cosmos. Light, at this point was permitting a bombastic illusion. Deceiving us. The sky rose from the vast land as if it were on fire. Boiling and regurgitating itself. The strange clouds enfolding at rapid speeds created a strict dialogue for the atmosphere. It told countless a yarn.
The enormous flame illuminated the immediate landscape surrounding them, and provided a sort of protection. Max had learned about the few who inhabited, or remained above, the ground. He had learned, from which type of information transfer is unnecessary information; about their attitudes and militia instinct. They were programmed to take things out. Remove them from the land. They were barely human and lived in the endless fields of nothingness until they died and sank into the soil, left to decompose. As everything did here when remaining in one position for too long. These beings, ingrained with a fine code, were fulfilling their destiny. They paid homage to the organism, programmed by the tentacles of a forgotten security protocol. They shot only at night, with high powered sniper rifles in possession of an ungodly range. They were the perfect military machines, they operated their weapons flawlessly and never missed their target. They were linked into a membrane of circuitry that enabled a sole purpose and a sole duty, a sole function. There was an aspect of this membrane however that enabled a maneuvering through it. An avoidance of it was possible. Traditionally this form of 'life' would shoot everything that traveled the twisted highways. They linked into the thoughts of the travelers, sensed their agendas. Their attempts and motives. And based on a protocol system on the complex web of information in the membrane, a shot was fired in a specific direction or not at all. These beings were cosmically intertwined in with the environment, and this allowed for no mistakes. No faults. The only thing guaranteed was that this android life, life that has been discarded, warped and is now a simple vessel for a higher power would hit it's target. Anyways, this flame, this signal, beacon deal acted as a superb defense strategy. For some reason, Max's flame, now a silver, iridescent color, created a cozy radius of safety for the passengers within it. The jeep was custom built, specifically for this land.

The General

Several thousand miles away and weeks earlier, sinking deeply in his office chair, General Arthur Sillivin sat dabbling in the flurry of paperwork that lay on his desk. It was not actually the paperwork that was of interest to him, that was procured by the officers below him and meant practically nothing in this situation. The endless stacks of articles and documents proved as measly evidence for the case at hand in comparison to the little book in The General's hands. He was not relaxed and was managing a definite hatred of his current posture, but was held there by something. He wrote relatively calmly in the book, bound with rusty streamers laced through a thick binding, with a ball-point pen. His hand flew over the page effortlessly, reacting to the pen as if it were not there, making a strict comparison to his face which was relentless with frustration and annoyance. He made elaborate gestures now, as his thoughts became more abundant and intense. Neuronic passage ways opening up and enabling his brain to saturate itself with information. Valuable information worthy of being physically rellayed.
The writing on the page was that of a skilled calligrapher, an enchanting manuscript of artistic reference. The pages before it flowed with the same beautiful delivery. Each letter appearing identical to itself in the different contexts in which it was used but remaining skillfully entangled in the letters preceding it and following it. Skillful at the level of excellence while maintaining the human impurity that makes it beautiful. This manuscript was but the notebook of Dweezle McCoy and it was this artifact that occupied the general's mind and had been for the last six days. Eating away at him with confusion and a severe sense of being lost. After he took his hand away from the page, (or should I say that the hand sort of took itself away from the page) he shook his head furiously along with his pulsating appendage. he felt as though he was thrust abruptly out of a dream . The pain cursed through him and it was mostly an personal elaboration due to the fact that he had felt nothing for a good six minutes, starting after about two minutes into the task. This was one of the things that proved so frustrating to The General. The time lapse as well. He came out of the whole ordeal with a vague and fragmented conception of his surroundings and a hard to grasp memory of what had just happened. He had done this four times before and he remembered the writing via the muscle spasm, burning physical pain, and the intangible frustration of being stuck, with no solution - something that The General was predisposed to identifying and fearing due to his military training and innate problem solving tactics. These effects bothered him and his analytical mind was only able to categorize and inductively infer the concept of The Artifact because that was his mission. Perhaps a mind without the control and efficient functioning statistics that The General was in possession of would simple disregard the whole ordeal, if one was put through the 'ringer' so to speak. But The General was able to pick up on the hyptnotic effects and they presented themselves to him as a vague misunderstanding instead of a planted memory. As if something was sure not the fuck right. But we are way to far ahead of ourselves, all we are interested in is what The General is agonizing over, what is making him furious. Not even the bizarre mental state that he found himself in after picking up the notebook and writing in it compared to the one thing that The General felt like pressing the Armageddon button over. The text that came out of his hand, leaving him with no cognitive connection that it was indeed he who wrote it. This mysterious text was in LATIN. As you can see this upset The General considerably and put him in a bit of an edgy mood.

Dweezle

Dweezle sat on the park bench at Baker Square, across from Filini's. His thoughts had been racing all day and he was in field mode. He was Hyped up, retrieving data from the Stream. What surrounded him, the sounds mostly, resembled something in minor, something deep into it with five flats or something. Certainly not seven for that would be closer to something more familiar. And easier to distinguish, easier to play. Like 5/4 time, its easy to get a hold of once you get into it, but 13/8 is sequentially open to fault, mistake. Its deeper into the whole scheme of it. Dweezle ushered his mind through this realization and switched on his shades. Lighting a cigarette he pulled out a manuscript notebook and began scribing into it, ledger lines enabled. At first it was patient, cautious. He delicately placed his pen down and drew a staff, running his hand above the paper, imagining, feeling out the notebook as a whole, recognizing the full potential of the emptiness that lay before him. He focused his mind on the outer source. Building a channel from the infinite cosmos into the specificity of the world that lay before him, a world that passed through him, as did this channel, this stream of information. It used him as the Conductor, flowing from everything through Dweezle McCoy into nothingness. A blank manuscript behind the curtains of the Euclidean realm. Everything began to quietly phase out of existance. Being reduced to nothing but a simple hum, eventually dissapating. The Conductor set the stage, quieted the audience. The world was now empty, the people, the sounds it was all patriotic towards the darkness. Dweezle emerged in this darkness unable to use his eyes and quite invisible, as it all had come to be. He had endangered his life by coming here but he knew this place well. It was where he thrived, were he existed, his chamber of creation. He had no fear. Fear could not be processed within him. It had been disabled. As for the other people, buildings, streets, trees, garbage cans, lights, elevators, monitors, the sunset, parking meters, it was all stuck in it's own blind vision of time, unable to reroute, trapped within its velocity. At the mercy of the fear of what they are not. Dweezle had become the messenger for all things, embracing them all as what they are, abandoning the human paradigm that laces our perspective, coating it with limitation. Dweezle could remain here, in the completion of time, for eternity, but as soon as he had placed his mind into this dark realm, this vast amount of emptiness, this blank page, the majestic conduction began. At first nothing. Then suddenly, a twinkle. Something very small that is portrayed as being in the distance. Slowly shapes will form . At first they are flashes, glimpses of something familiar. The sound is that which is important, each flash accopmpanies a tone, echoing off of one another, spastically placed at varying distances. This continued with patient timing, Dweezle lowers the wand. The tones, now having established some presence within this world, begin to magnificently compliment one another. At first it is a simple, single toned progression, the shapes attached still resembling something not quite distinguishable, not quite real. Long curves and billows of light circulate around, reflecting and iridescent. Shimmering and forming new shapes, creating a steady flow of light, constantly morphing and turning into itself. Again and again, each moment one of inertia, and yet each moment the Conductor would force it all out of it's equilibrium, probing, massaging. Dweezle again lowered the wand and let his creation be. It pulsated for an instant before he continued.
At this point there will not yet be human specific objects. In other words nothing recognizable will be happening. The world is a place of specific, delicately balanced material that happens to occupy a space in our cerebral allowance. We accept things as either real, or not real. We either fear them, or we do not; accept or refute. The ironic factor at play in this whole game is that for everything we know, there is the true meaning of it that we do not and will not understand; or be able to rationalize in a tangible way. It is only in the final phases of this tonal process that human reality is formed. Only in the top layer, the thin, outer crust of it all, are we allowed any perspective. Dweezle is building this reality that we know from everything it ever was and is. It is all here, as a scene in a movie, a musical score. The infinite moment, spread out, making distance it's bitch, a zero mechanism at the mercy of the moment. It was all being reproduced from the nothing that lay behind it.

He creates light.
He forms matter.
He identifies shape
distinguishing form.
He builds perspective and in the end
He creates himself.