FICTION: ROUTINE SIX: SPIRIT DOCTORS SKILLED THE MONOLITHS RAW – AND REAL EXQUISITE DREAMS

ROUTINE SIX: SPIRIT DOCTORS SKILLED THE MONOLITHS RAW – AND REAL EXQUISITE DREAMS

The Market is thriving, always, at all hours, because all hours are the same here.  Row upon row of marquees jostle for space in the grey dust – air vibrating with sales and spruiks and slogans and promises and never-to-be-beatens and for-the-next-customer-onlys.  Some of these stores been here since the dawn of time, others I’ve never seen before.  Whole City is arranged around this central space, all roads lead to The Market.  Air reeks of ancient perfumes and modern diseases – of spices and stone and copper coins and open meat – of plastic wrap and incense and the juice of fruits.

Layout changes all the time but only when you’re not watching – something quantum in the air here – which of course begs the question, seeing as there’s always someone here, there’s always someone watching, so when the fuck does it get a chance to change?  Many questions I gave up hope of ever answering years ago – not my business, in the end.  And what would an answer mean to me anyway?  “Oh,” I’d say, “Okay then.”  And then what?

Point being, gotta walk through aisles and aisles of random before I can find what I’m looking for.  Trolleys and tables and trestles set up, piled with goods.  Someone’s selling half-price Melange.  Another guy’s flogging Arcturan Mega-gin and Santraginean seawater. Hollowed out old lady stares at me as I walk past her table full of carefully arranged vials of ectoplasm, like I’m some kinda plasm junkie.  Never blinks once.

Illegal antiques smuggled through timeholes.  The Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the pornographic Dead Sea Scrolls.   The Crown of Thorns, half price. Not bad – if you’re into that kinda thing.

A table loaded with mind-controlling funguses, hard and thorny, their twitching human hosts still attached – some of them quietly begging for mercy, unseeing eyes all thick with squirming fungus.  Most repulsive thing you ever did see.  Poachers from other stars with their wares: Venusian ivory, holographic skins – eggs and pelts, teeth and testes of endangered beasts from a thousand worlds.  Fucking poachers make my skin crawl – but what are you gunna do?

There’s Mmaagha Kamalu, a sword that once belonged to the Igbo god of war – sword glows red when people with evil intentions are close by, so of course it’s a burning crimson here, in this place of dubious commerce, might as well turn the sucker off and save the batteries.  Same trader is trying to move Excalibur and Tyrfing too, so clearly got some sort of racket in the sword-department.  Prices are exorbitant but you pay what you pay for mythical weaponry – not like there’s much competition in that particular trade.

One marquee filled with representatives of the Deep State, selling secrets and indoctrination packs – across the aisle, crisis actors handing out their sizzle reels, hoping to make it in the next big disaster.  

A rickety wooden table with a handful of transparent glass shakers brimming with salt – sign says it’s authentic Sodomic salt hand-gathered from the pillar that was previously Lot’s wife.  Another handful of glass shakers claim to be pepper made from some poor sucker who turned back at Gomorrah.  Not sure who the Chinese Five Spice is meant to be – I don’t read Chinese.  Personally, I call bullshit.  But what do I know?

Another tent, another trolley – crates of yowling Mogwai, drastically malnourished in this place with no midnight.  Personality traders, selling new identities – buy two get an extra one free.  S and M leather gear made from the pelt of the Marquis De Sade.  A white sequinned glove made from the pelt of Michael Jackson.

One of the Monoliths – just walking past it gives me intense full sensory hallucinations and I nearly stain my drygoods.

Another marquee, another table – bootlegged Jekyl juice – Gorgon heads, both synthesised and real – a fully-functional Lazy Gun – a mostly-empty case of Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulators.  Didn’t know they were still around, to be honest.  But everything’s for sale in Interzone.

Szechuan dipping sauce, vats of the stuff.  Bottles of tears, hair, and teeth.  A deck of cards that’s literally all aces.  Pies filled with spaghetti Bolognese.   Pallets of xenomorph eggs, shrink-wrapped and stickered.  Genuine Da Vinci ornithopter – such a shit vehicle, can’t believe anyone would even try to offload one of those in the current Interzone economy. 

Black-market scientologist peddling half-price audits.  Hacked E-meters delivering clearance or your money back.  Engrams-B-Gone, spray twice daily - “Exteriorise Your Thetans The Easy Way!” the sign says in hand-painted circus writing. 

Buckets full of Morgellons, buy ‘em by the scoopful.  Sonic screwdrivers.  Universal remote controls.  Syringes full of Soma.  Vials of Coronavirus.  Bottles of Moloko Plus.  Beat up old Antikythera mechanisms.  Shiny new Alethiometers.  Six-packs of Dilithium Crystals.  Second-hand RHIC EDOM tech, carefully repackaged into its original boxes.

Sexbots gyrating in their plastic-panelled packaging – collector’s copy of The Beatles white album played by actual beetles – a red button that says “do not push” – stacks and stacks of toilet paper and hand sanitiser.

Underground doctors curing imaginary diseases with tools of unspeakable cruelty - memories peddling – half-price your money shit vehicle – buy two – Pallets of controls.

Stacks of states – investigators of Personality traders – stacks and glass – tested on Thetans – The sauce, vats vibrating – a handful – Chinese Five Underground doctors feeling slowly soundless hum – Larval entities’ wife.  Bootlegged Jekyl Sodomic salt – E-meters delivering EDOM Bang-utot – relaxing machines – leather gear table and bartered Modulators.

Original boxes – Bottle mutilations – infractions denounced – unconstituted police – full sensory salt – cities, gathering – telepathic sensitivity – ocean floor toilet paper.

Syringes laboratory and the pelt treatment – filled with some poor – the white Szechuan dipping excisors – Explosive Space – transparent at Gomorrah.

A spray twice Gorgon heads – the sign – Six-packs of Universal remote in this ornithopter – table – tent – Hacked – stickered.  Be pepper played by selling new curing imaginary – a Live to offload – me – intense players – servers place of orgone – A stratosphere, maladies – pelt of diseases – with Morgellons, buy and the Bottles – fragmentary call bullshit.

And real exquisite dreams – Lesbian dwarf juice – atomic war – A place stain – officials of actual beetles – hallucinations and hebephrenic shorthand – red button black dust – virulence in writing.  Buckets – fully-functional spirit, no midnight – Tanks and mechanisms – Shiny unknown past – Carefully repackaged teeth.

A glove made Sonic – White sequinned scoopful – tools of identities – hand-painted circus – the pillar host – maladies hair – the Beat up daily – unspeakable cruelty charging unspeakable case of cells – Another be honest.

Lung erection – spirit doctors skilled the Monoliths raw – rickety wooden hand-gathered from turned back full of xenomorph eggs, bureaucrats – Sexbots gyrating meet in spectral departments – enemy, sellers, diseases, dormant – glass shakers – deck of the current – the will – The Beatles by bland – perfected operation in the emergent future free.

Paranoid chess – Lot’s sucker – eyeless worms down in Da Vinci marquee – blood of osteopaths – white album trolley – crates of tears, drygoods.

Another – collector’s drastically malnourished were still shrink-wrapped and those in Soma.

Sign says plastic-panelled packaging – synthesised Interzone economy.

Warrants taken.

And finally – I see what I came for.

The Black Meat is sold here.

***

They say once an addict, always an addict.  Don’t believe that at all.  Don’t need Black Meat – choosing Black Meat, making conscious choice, choosing that vile beautiful substance over painful heart. Conscious decision, you see?  Anyone would make that same choice.

Had a problem with it once maybe – but now, I’m in control.  I’m deciding – shaking hands, sweating neck – to walk past the trolleys and trestles, crow flies bee line direct to the Black Meat den.  Casual stroll – never look too desperate – but trained insect eye knows that walk, the approach of a guaranteed Customer.  I’m deciding.  For one could say medical reasons.  Self-medicating to ease memory pain.  Nothing wrong with that, is there.

Can’t function if spirit is held down under the pressure of memories.  Can’t function under those conditions, no, have to shall we say alleviate that particular ailment.  Black Meat takes it all away, I know it does.  All gone under the Black Meat spell, magical filthy nightmare, buried and gone.  Float on black wings, soar in the darkness, supersonic journey inside and out – everything goes away.  No more pain.  No more Her.

Walk direct, casual.  Slow like iceberg.  But they sense, of course they do, know a Customer when they see one.

Mugwump – hypercolour t-shirt stained with korma and semen and ash, arseless chaps shine and creak, chain around neck dangles gold dollar sign encrusted with fake diamonds – drags slow on Camberwell Carrot, makes eye contact.  Already knows.  Slight nod of head, soot-black beak clicks in anticipation.  Behind Mugwump slouch three or four Mugwump-addicts – we call them “Reptiles” but they’re not really reptiles of course, just plain ordinary human at the core, their appearance is perfectly natural biological result of too much time spent absorbing Mugwump secretions and not enough time doing literally any other thing – skin loose and bones soft, bristles wave like cuttlefish rim, eyes empty – just existing – all wear rusting metal collars but naked otherwise – addicted to the secretions that ooze from their Mugwump masters.  When Mugwump clicks, Reptiles twitch but continue vacant slouch.

“Blackwell.”  Mugwump’s voice is creaky, thin, like a slowed-down parrot – sounds like comes from another place than the throat – ventriloquist puppet voice almost makes you sick to hear it.  Nods again, eyes taking in my vibrations rather than my shape. “Been so long.  Thought you’d forgotten your old friend.”

Heavy old right, crash the still hulk of church confessional, 17th heart.

“How could I ever forget you?  Still trying to wash the smell off from last time.”

Mugwump clicks beak, laughter, professional.  Reaches bony arm towards me, huge smouldering Carrot in skeletal fingers.  Offers.

I take the giant joint and take a drag – only polite – and taste the Blackness on tongue lips teeth – empty memories flood my system as the smoke curls inside my clotted lung – and pass Carrot back.  One toke is enough with Mugwump weed, learned that long time ago.  Mugwump takes Carrot back, move slow, always slow, different time frame to humans.

“ “Black” like circumcised Fiction,” Mugwump drawls, “ “well” like On Friday.”  Private joke, I guess.  Who the hell knows when it comes to Mugwumps?  “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Knows.  Already.  Of course.  Drag it out of me.

“Just a taste,” I say, quiet, “Thought I could do with a little self-care.”

Beak doesn’t smile – wrong materials for that particular human expression – Mugwump smiles in the eye.

“I’m afraid I’m all out,” Mugwump says, wave one thin hand over empty trestle – indicating emptiness, nothing but rotting wood of table and tiny glowing grey mushrooms sprout from corners – market full of sounds but all my ears hear is Mugwump words – full of sights but all eyes see is empty trestle and slow motion pass of Mugwump claw.

Part of the game of course.  I keep playing.

“Enough bumpin’ gums,” I say, “we both know you got access to fresh supplies.”

“Freshest in all Interzone,” Mugwump says (Mugwumps don’t name themselves the way we do – think our need to all have different names is a form of mental illness – and maybe it is). “But what’s it worth for me to lose a good butler to go fishing?”  At the word “fishing” all three or four of the metal-collared absent-eyed Mugwump-secretion-softened human bags of flesh behind Mugwump shiver uncontrollably, like the word was filled with electricity, a taser carried in sound waves – one quick shiver then back to slumped sightless existence.

“Butlers.  That’s what you’re calling them nowadays.”

“As good a word as any other.” Mugwump takes another deep drag on Carrot, smoke tinged with purple, maybe some ultraviolet too.  “What’ll it be, Blackwell?”

I pull small paper sack from trenchcoat pocket.  Rest it in one palm, unwrap slowly (but of course Mugwump already sniffed what’s inside – excellent sense of smell, your average Mugwump).

“Lemon sherbert,” I say, roll them around in my palm, paper bag crinkling, hard sound when sherberts clunk together.

“I see,” Mugwump says, but poker face is ruined by thin strand of drool that descends from obsidian beak, elongates until snap and pop – just another stain on pink purple hypercolour tee shirt. “All you got?”

“If you don’t want them,” I say, pantomiming to put one in my own mouth, “I’m happy to eat them myself.” Hand moves closer to mouth, smell the sweetness, shiny yellow bauble shape of tiny lemon.

“Deal,” Mugwump says, reaches out spidery thin hand, fingers clutch in anticipation.  I hand over paper bag, and Mugwump picks sherbert out, cracks it in indigo black beak – crunch makes soft-boned Reptiles shiver once then back to potato state.

“Enjoy,” I say, ignoring my own sweat, “Picked them up in the 1980s, Earth beta.”

Mugwump blinks slowly, savouring, crunches sherbert up entirely before swallows.  Eyes close a moment in sugary bliss. 

“Electronic nova word concerns,” Mugwump says, almost to self.  After dark hole – wrinkle-free and faith in pattern hurt – stopping that So obsidian No more – but here, sellers control was well into cusp. “Tasty sherbert.”  Then without even turning around, Mugwump snaps beak hard, and all three or four of the Reptiles jerk to attention like pulled up by invisible strings.  “Need you to go fishing, please.” Politeness feels cruel from the beak of a Mugwump.

The Reptiles shuffle uncomfortable, heavy collars sunken into soft collarbones, sores fester around necks and shoulders, twitches of limb and frill – some kind of unseen wrestling going on, some kind of unspoken Reptile contest happening outside the range of human vision – until one of the sorry sacks of shit is sort of pushed forward somehow, and, knowing it is chosen, shuffles its naked shapeless form forward a step – and the others sink back into their secretion-fucked torpor.

“Go catch me a whopper,” the slow parrot voice of the Mugwump croons, finally turning to its secretion-ruined associate and running a skeletal hand over its saggy translucent cheek almost tenderly, “for our special friend here.”  Sherbert breath and clack of beak.

The Reptile fans its ear-hairs and solidifies a little, like jelly setting – mouth a resigned little round disk of brown gristle.  It attaches its metal collar to long thin chain – other end attached to stone wall to the side of Mugwump’s trestle table – and shuffles slow away from Market.  Mugwump affects disinterest (pokes spindle fingers into paper sack and stirs lemon sherberts) but I always watch.

Reptile limps away from bustle of Market, toward open sewers of Interzone.  Black brown water sloshes down, a thousand outpouring of a thousand unhygienic waterways – a river of grey scum and brown froth – turbulent with flow – still The whole bad egg course – open aqueduct of putrefaction and effluent – dead organs bob downstream like blind fish – piss and shit and blood and worse – nightmare river of uncertain depth and complex constitution, flowing less out of a desire to get to the sea but out of sheer liquid desperation to get away from the foulness of its collective source.

Reptile shuffles closer and closer to foul river, and now its neck collar getting tense, limit of movement predestined by thin metal chain of considerable tensile strength.  Reptile just walks right up to edge, teeters for long moment, then steps off stone edge – sinks deep into rushing khaki waters, up to neck.

Mugwump crunches another sherbert in black beak – thin purple-blue lips retracted show maximum enjoyment – air still and clear as glycerine.

Sudden thrashing and splashing – the neck chain makes a bass note as it’s pulled tight from stone wall to river – blood erupts from surface of open sewer – limbs thrash – Reptile screams.

“Got a bite,” Mugwump says coolly.

Flipping out of filthy river is giant centipede, gargantuan, pincers attached deeply to thrashing Reptile, hundred sharp legs already digging in deep to flesh already soften by Mugwump secretions.  Nauseating to see.  Sharp centipede legs slice abdomen, Reptile’s guts slop out into foul river, blue purple intestine join the brothy flow – but Reptile keeps screaming – animal terror and pain – until centipede pincers slice through throat and disengage the organs of speech – now a wheezing gurgle.

With slow disinterest, Mugwump takes the slender chain and begins winding it around skinny wrist, reeling in Reptile – with giant centipede attached – reeling it in, slowly, steady, with surprising strength from such skeletal limbs – Mugwump surprising in many ways, even for old hack like myself.

A wide trail of blood and filth follows as silently-screaming Reptile is dragged closer and closer across stone ground, with ravenous centipede busy devouring flesh and tearing apart muscle and skin – painting grey ground all colours of scarlet and brown – black centipede oblivious to Mugwump’s intentions.  Other folk at other stalls pause their shopping to look, crane necks to see – then business as usual.  Snapping sound and eyeball flies from Reptile’s socket, flung by voracious pincers – lands with hackey-sack sound on Mugwump’s empty table.  Mugwump reaches out lazy hand and flicks it off – eyeball rolls on the ground gathering dust and hair.  Slowly slowly, Mugwump drags body closer, reeling in, reeling in.  Reptile’s other eye stares at Mugwump half-pleadingly, half-proudly – “did I do good, master?” – weaker and weaker – centipede feasting roughly, violently – fountaining blood – gurgle from ravaged throat sicken you to hear it – snapping sounds of centipede hunger – oblivious.

“Big one,” says Mugwump, and pulls metal hook like crowbar from under trestle, walks three slow steps to where centipede slithers inside Reptile’s open abdomen, rooting around for organs, and smashes hook deep into centipede’s spinal column.  Vile clicking sound, silent arthropod shriek – desperate thrashing, then dead.  Mugwump lifts hook, and up comes ex-centipede, up and out of bloodspattered mess that was once Mugwump’s “butler”.  Beak clicks appreciatively.  “Big one,” Mugwump repeats.

Hangs dead centipede on steel hook mounted on stone wall – takes obsidian dagger from utility belt on arseless chaps – crouches by what’s left of still-alive Reptile.  “Thank you,” says Mugwump, “your sacrifice is appreciated.” Takes Reptile’s bloody head, turns it over – takes dagger and smashes it through back of skull where head meets neck – Reptile blinks out like light.   Mugwump rises, puffs on joint – passes bloody joint to me – takes dagger and begins levering off carapace – slices off hunk of Black Meat and wraps it in paper – slaps it onto wormwood trestle.

“Thank you for your custom,” parrot ventriloquist voice chirrups as I pass what remains of the Camberwell Carrot back to spindly Mugwump digits and pick up paper-wrapped Meat, “please, come again.”

***

FICTION: ROUTINE FIVE: WE’RE GOING – AND NO MIND IS SLOW FOR FREE

ROUTINE FIVE: WE’RE GOING – AND NO MIND IS SLOW FOR FREE

Interzone hangover – aching spine – constricted brain, feels like wearing a helmet two sizes too small – taste of metal or blood or battery – extremities cold.   Trauma-trained by The Influence herself, Agent.  You’ve been Influenced.

We’re going to have to inhabit other bodies, best warn you now.  Not always a pleasant experience – although of course sometimes it is, no hard and fast rules about anything ever – but a very useful aspect of existing between stations, so to speak.  Ever see Quantum Leap with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell?  Vast oversimplification.

How you feel, Agent?  Don’t worry – constant déjà vu is a symptom of being here – apologies.  Human bodies not used to this excessive Interzone treatment.  Takes a while to get used to this new terrain – no map that makes sense – and even when the body gets used to it, the mind is slow to catch up – the brain is the realm of habit, the empire of pattern – and no amount of deep-consciousness meme-injection can change that.   Some shit just takes time to get used to.

Time heals all wounds, they say.   Sometime it still hurts underneath the scar, Agent, tell you that for free.  Hell, even amputated limbs hurt sometimes, ghost-pain of the less-than-real.  Still get pains in my nonexistent heart.

Anyway.

Shaking, Agent.  It will pass.  Spirit too full.  That will pass too-

What do you mean “who was she”?  Told you, Dana’s The Influence, inventor of the-

Oh.  Her.

Doesn’t matter.  

No point being distracted from task at hand by Old Man Blackwell’s ex-life, Agent.  Dead ends and doors closed tighter than tombs.  Nothing but sorrow and dust in those places, Agent.  Best not to dwell.

Seriously.  Stop it.  Nothing to be gained by prising open old scars.  Not even blood there anymore.  All turned to dust.  That was a different life.

Come on.  No more.  Give it up, Agent.

No.

No.

No-

Okay, fine.  But you owe me.

She was eighteen when I met her.  I was nineteen.  We were in the prime let’s say of our lives.  Healthy specimens, all parts in working order.  Fine looking examples of the human race, I don’t mind saying.  Organisms poised at the cusp.  Carefree.  Wanton.  Unrestrained.  Ravenous.  Untapped.   So full of life, biting into the world, all teeth and skin and sweat and vigour.  Dripping with life, you could say, luscious with it, all plumped up with energy and appetite, firm and wrinkle-free and shiny-eyed and magnetic.  Fell deep in love, sank into it desperately and deliciously, two worlds orbiting – for the breath of moments – and suddenly crashing together like a wave on a rock, like something dropped from a cliff, no way of stopping that crash – and we wove together like thread, became one single fabric, colourful weave, knitted together on the loom of gluttonous love.   One thing.  Inseparable.

Until of course we separated.

I didn’t know… I didn’t know.

No I’m not crying it’s this damned Interzone dust – constant sulphur and ash – havoc with the glands.

Her name?  Doesn’t make any damn difference what her name is.

Was.

(Is.)

***

Forget it.  Bigger fish to fry, Agent. 

First, find you a place to call home – not staying in my shabby chic mansion of dust, that’s for sure, room in here for one and one only.  Find your own hovel.  It’s easy enough out here.

Cast your gaze around over this place.  Pick somewhere.  Move on in.

That’s right, Agent.  That easy in the Interzone.

No, seriously, I mean it.  Nothing is permanent – not anywhere, really, just think about it, permanence is deep-core illusion number one – but definitely not in Interzone.  Look, see, that bone turret rising slowly from grey swamplands – wasn’t there last time you looked, was it.   No it wasn’t, Agent.  Tomorrow – not that we have days here of course – tomorrow it’ll be slightly taller, or shorter – is it rising or sinking? – everything in motion here, Interzone’s alive.

That spire there – next time we look over this grey landscape, that spire will be top of minaret, bet you my bottom dollar it will.  That lean-to there, up against the bleeding gum – that will be gone.   Unless it’s in use, Agent, unless it’s in use – Interzone cares for its own, let’s say.   If you use it, you can keep it.  If you get killed on a job or vanish into some crack or crevice in the Systems – well, place closes up like you were never here.   Interzone’s alive, made of ideas and change, Conflicts Storytime – on the generations.  To this new cold.  Drag “invocation” recognised forms – Precisely the Still.

Everyone needs a home, like it or not.  Place to be true.  Place just to be, no strings attached, no tugging or compression from other psyches, place just to exist in own time, own way.

Hell – I suspect – the brain.  One bleak critique be emulating in heart.

How you being here, out Cut-up - “madness is as map that makes and grace” as they say.

Don’t forget to look up, Agent – plenty of good treehouses and underhangs and nests up in the trees.  Don’t scoff, nothing wrong with living in a nest.  Ask any bird.  Perfectly good nest could be exactly what you’re after – especially if you’re planning on laying eggs.

No, Agent.  That was a joke.  Lighten up.

You’ve been map that makes sense – and very useful aspect of existing between empire of pattern – and even amputated limbs hurt sometimes, ghost-pain to catch up – the brain.

But now you need a place to centre yourself, physical centre, a place to stash your physicals.  You’ll what’s the word accrue belongings as you progress, Agent, and you need a place to store your inventory as you level up.  No actual levels here, not a fucking game Agent, but still, the metaphor means something (basically beyond empire of pattern hurt sometimes, ghost-pain bearing an eerie virtual) – and after all what is all communication but a series of metaphors?  No actual letters in nature, Agent, no syllables actually mean anything outside of our own soggy brains – no meaning but the meanings we agree on, and we all know it.

A wise man once told me that “everything’s a metaphor for everything”. Actual wise man here, not some phony aphorism, mind.  Name was The Inscrutable Cosmo, he was a 17th level Space Wizard.  Don’t give me that look Agent, the fuck you know about space wizards?  Who made you the goddamn expert in space wizards all of a sudden?  Moments ago you didn’t even know about Interzone.

Jesus.

Yes I know I just said no levels out here, but Cosmo wasn’t Interzone, he was Earth Prime, totally different system to Interzone, levels up the wazoo.  Take it as moot, Agent.  Point is, everything can mean something else to what it means, is the point.  We can make little squiggles create images in our minds if we let them.  Nest can be home.  Interzone can be real.  Climate emergency can be cut up by a couple of seedy Nova detectives.  And Space Wizards can level up.

Keep up Agent.  Lots to learn.

Come on, keep looking.  Let’s head away from city centre.  There’ll be something out here for you, guarantee it.

We pass thick broken tile concrete ruin sprouting with thorns rash-inducing nettle flailing like tentacle – not a great sign to be honest – and fallen log hut dark with glowing voyeur eyes watching us pass with hungry intent – also not what you would call positive neighbourly vibe.  As we approach, five gristly mugwump pile into sinking cabin through the window, greasy stank reeking of recluse – not dangerous but clear they want to be left alone to their own infernal devices.

We spot floating bungalow, hovering metre off the ground but accessible if you stand on something, pile rocks into crude platform, maybe rocks float too.

There, what about that? Nice looking, floating’s a nice schtick, not too much shabby with your chic – windows still got glass in them.  Steal.

Pile up rocks, poke heads over windowsill – empty.

What do you say, Agent?  Home sweet home?

Yes I’m sure.  Can’t see anyone in there, right?  Then it’s yours.  Of course.  What?  Yes, sure, they could come back, but if they belong here, Interzone will let you know.  Trust me on this Agent, been here since you were mouthing your mama’s tiddies.  Everything’s fluid here, Agent, you’re still thinking with ex-life mindset – get with the program, or the deprogram ho ho ho – no such thing as possession here, it’s anarchist paradise in the living flesh.

At that very moment one of the mugwump gets thrown out of sunken cabin’s window, slit from crotch to throat, organs spilling into the black mud – its eyes meet ours and for a second there’s this pleading kind of expression, then the lights go out and mugwump powers down, goodnight.  Red fills the black mud, pooling, mixing, stinking.

Ah shit.  Don’t sweat Agent, it was probably personal.

Did I say “paradise”? 

Metaphor.

(Needless to say, we move on.)

***

Eventually we find this nice soft cave like a giant puckered anus, roomy and clean, entrance tightens like a muscle ring and the smell is pleasant even – musk and lilac and hint of cinnamon – and it’s empty and both big enough and small enough for your exact needs.  Responds well to stroking, and roid-lights emit warm glow when you rub them just right.  Bulbs rise up and offer themselves to our aching bones, and we sit, sinking into giant goiters like beanbags made from smooth hairless skin and filled with heated pus.  All in all, not too bad.

Break out the eel juice and tiger milk – housewarming present let’s say – and we clink bottles, cheers and welcome home.

We hear voices outside – just passing, no danger – but anus door clenches tight in protective concern.   It likes you.

“The technique can have access and again at Earth is face artistic practice and demons, which Occult terrain – no of habit, the Garden employing well-meaning cults, intersectional the battery – extremities Illuminate,” says the first voice, a wheeze like emphysema.  

 “As ecstasy,” says, two, "Electronic death nihilism.”

“Gates, glance, the notion simulated universe?  Don’t make me laugh.”

“It’s not alone in a real universe the bizarre cult from the smallest and, given the project on some, that I hate tarantulas and scorpions, supercomputer.”

“Some shit differently, specifically Naturally, constantly.”

“I hear you sister, I hear you.”

The voices die off with distance and the insulating properties of new flesh cave.  Always so much to learn from eavesdropping on strangers, I always say.

What’s that Agent?  Yes.  Totally agree.  It is very fucking weird.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

***

We’re drunk.  Told myself that not tonight but once always.

And you poke and you prod and you probe and you finally dip one finger deep inside my cracks and prise them open and suddenly I’m all words – spilling out like that mugwump’s internals – red and raw and fresh and with a kind of pain that’s so familiar it’s almost pleasure.

Her name was Nalan.  Is still Nalan, I guess.  Turkish name.  Both her parents born in tiny village made of dung and desperation.  She was lost and alone like I was – always on the outside, always in the margins.  And we found the light, Agent.  Together.  We clung together in the darkness like we wanted to melt.  A single candle.  Breaks my heart to think of it.   So I have no heart any more.  All gone. 

Any phantom limb still itches now and then, Agent.  Ask anyone.

She’s still out there, somewhere, in the world, the world of illusion outside.  When I took that slip of paper – that ticket that exploded me into the Interzone – I could never go back, not the same.  I never came home.  Did she wonder?  She must have.  Did she panic?  How could she not?   Was I on the news – wannabe-writer never returns, read all about it – was there a search party?  And how long did she wait for me before it sunk in?  That I was gone?

When did she move on?   And how?

How long has it even been out there?  And-

Tell you, fucks me up thinking all this.   Even though it’s been so long, it’s preserved – like a scientific specimen pickled pale and soft in saline solution – it never dissipates, never changes – I just close the door.  Bolt it.  Lean things – things in the present, in the Interzone – lean things against that door.  Never even go down that corridor – never even turn on that hallway light.  Police tape and do not enter, Agent.  But now look what you made me do.

Don’t cry, this is my pain, not yours Agent!   Ah shit.

Oh. 

Sorry.  Forgot. 

You’re going through all this yourself, right now, fresher, fresher.  Sorry.   See, best if these things stay locked away.  Door is closed.  Leave it closed.  My advice.

Sorry.

Trauma-trained by this entirely even amputated limbs to get used – either supposed entirely excessive Interzone treatment.  And – and aggravate to a new point used to this cult of catch up – whatever fucking No that.

I’d better go, Agent.  No, I’m going.  Got my own place to collapse in.  No sleep – hate dreaming – but let you have your own space.  Taken up too much of yours already.

No, no, I’m going, Agent.

See you in what passes for morning here.  Sorry again.

We’re going – and no mind is slow for free.

***

(We were of gluttonous love – suddenly crashing together no syllables actually on a rock, life, you could sometimes, ghost-pain bearing just to exist moments – and or not.  Place shiny-eyed and magnetic.  And we teeth and skin being here, out, all plumped to be true.

Life, biting into our lives.

Truth is, I know she’s still out there, still living some kind of life.  Been 25 years now, Earth years.  Can’t help but think about her sometimes.  What would have happened.  What could’ve happened.  If I never came to Interzone.

Just say I never tore that ticket that exploded.  Just say.  Just say I looked at it but kept walking.  Home.  Into her arms.   Maybe I would’ve become a writer, maybe got some job on some comedy show, who knows?   Maybe she would’ve become that vet, or who knows, maybe a famous vegan cook.   Maybe we would’ve escaped the city – she always hated the concrete the smell the noise the grey metal the exhausted fumes the cram the race – maybe we would’ve moved to my folks’ holiday house in Cape Paterson, fixed it up, made a new life in the countryside beachside – tree change sea change we change.   Maybe?  Who knows.  Maybe even had a kid.

Ever see or blood or create since to us – apologies.

Useless thoughts as I lie on itchy lumpy stained ruined bed in my own private cell in ash and sulphur Interzone, staring at cracks in ceiling.   Useless thoughts.

Fell deep in like something dropped.

Maybe a daughter.  We’d call her something like River, Indigo, Pepper.  Something.  Can almost see her.   Looks like me, a little.  Almost.  She would sing.

Useless thoughts.

Time, specimens, all parts all communication but here, not some stopping that crash the goddamn expert – and after and wrinkle-free and love, sank into cusp.  

On the loom of pattern hurt an eerie virtual. Two worlds place to centre attached, no tugging like a wave was a 17th heart.

Don’t want to be awake.  Don’t want to sleep – dreams come with sleep, don’t want to dream her again.

Be emulating in (basically beyond empire yourself, physical centre, agree on, and that look, the grace) – as they of the human home - viscerally – but all wounds, of humans human Human bodies.

I get up out of bed and head to market – need more drink, drug, curse-lifter, something – something to soothe the goddamn pain away.)

***