The Mystical Wheelings & Dealings of Earl Gray Fisher

The Mystical Wheelings & Dealings of Earl Gray Fisher by

Joshua Byrd

Introductions No fancy beginnings, gimmicky bastards! I'm sick to death of all that.

"It shits me to tears." It really does, though I would never actually say that particular phrase that somehow made its way up here, up to this level of thought. All these books out there with their clever opening lines, and first paragraphs that are so-called-intelligently designed to draw the reader in and have them continue the book. I'm not into that. It's just not my bag, you know?

This, what I'm writing will not be one of the greats. It will be no Moby-Dick, no David Copperfield, not even a Great Gatsby. I'm not even too sure what it WILL be in fact. Maybe a warning, a cautionary tale like that Confessions film with that guy. I think that was a book first. Great film.

I'm no writer really, and wouldn't want to be one anyway given the choice. Oh sure I've somehow it seems fallen into a position in modern existence whereby I can live quite comfortably on some silly little words that I wrote a during some sombre moments in the past.

Makes things a bit easier sometimes, or it used to.

Who's that at the door? I'm not getting it. I'll pretend I'm not at home. I've been doing that quite a bit lately. Most likely just another creditor or something. Vultures! All of them!

Oh, I was going to tell you a story wasn't I? That's right. Well sit back, relax. Go get a stiff drink or two and a cigarette, or something stronger. Never let them tell you what not to do when reading to yourself.

Enjoy!

A Description of the City They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn. There! There's your first Zimmerman reference for those keeping count. And it was a dark dawn sure enough, dark enough for all intents and purposes anyway, and though the hour before it was quite a bit darker, I can't quite say that it was for certain the darkest our. It's all a matter of opinion anyway, and doesn't matter much to me either way you look at it really.

There was plenty of light in the city anyhow, loads and loads of it.

The sun wasn't needed much, in fact it was quite bothersome to a lot of residents of the city. The sunshine it seemed would bore the daylights out of them most of the time. The people of the city liked the darkness. Their eyes were accustomed to it and their activities were of a nocturnal nature. That's not to say that there were a few who didn't mind a sunny day every so often.

So the city in which we lay our scene is quite a big one, though the residents wouldn't know a big city from a small city really most of them due to the fact that the city is so isolated, surrounded by a deep dark forest.

The biggest towers were in the middle and that's where all the rich people lived.

Notes, Ideas, and Speculations This section is not necessary to read, unless you are really bored, or you have nothing better to do. Please feel free to skip to the next chapter. I won't hold it against you, really.

First idea was a rise and fall story of a man growing up in a city. He would hit the dizzying heights and then decline. He would, somewhere along the line come into possession of a magical guitar.

The exact properties and powers of this guitar would be determined

at a later date, but there was some speculation that it was, or could turn invisible. I'm not sure how this would impact the realism of the story however.

There was another idea, or a few to be precise, devised in discussion with friends. A record, a mystical record could certainly come up within the story somewhere, a record so mystical that all who listen to it are struck with a sense of awe so great that it overtakes their very being and soul. Something like that anyway.

The city, it was envisioned, though it would be rather technologically advanced, in terms of its residency of many many foreign entities (I'm talking cars and phones and other gadgets here), would be isolated and surrounded by an arguably endless forest.

Our main character who's name at present escapes me, mostly due to the fact that his name has not been decided upon yet, though it would most likely, almost definitely be comprised of some of the names that have been floating around in my head, those names that I've somehow managed to pick up along the way; names like Harrison, Bartlett, Gutenberg, would at some point sell his soul to the devil, at a crossroads of course, in order that he may gain some extraordinary talent. This, I've heard is something that is done on quite frequent occasions and accounts for the rather large number of pretty talented people hanging around in this city.

He will also have a cat. This cat will be a talking cat. This cat, though he can indeed talk, will not be able to talk to the main character.

What I mean by that is that he will not be able to hear the cat speak, though everyone else around can.

One last thing that should have been included back when I was mentioning the mystical record is of course the New Emitex, a record cleaning product that seems almost impossible to acquire these days. After a scratch makes its way onto our hero's record, he embarks upon an extraordinary journey, a quest if you will, for this New Emitex record cleaner, the only substance that will repair his scratched record that has been unlistenable.

Chapter I - Dealings at the Crossroads Hi there, hello. How's things going? Welcome to my book. My first book. So excited to be writing this you know, cause really I'm not that much of a writer at all really, but I got the calling, just the other day actually. And you know, when you get that call, when you hear that phone ring and it's some lady basically offering you a three book deal, you don't decline that do you? It's always something I knew I'd want to do someday anyway, so here it is in all it's glory. This first chapter that you will have the pleasure of reading is going to be about this far out wicked place in Farmstead and this one time when I was there and it was like a pretty sweet adventure, worthy of telling regardless, maybe. Well, to tell you the truth, the first chapter, like any book doesn't really do much for the book on whole. What I mean is that there's a lot of explaining and stuff that has to be done in order to transport you to another time and place and all that rubbish. But don't worry, I'll try to throw in a bear chase or something along the way, just so you don't get too bored.

Oh, yeah, and I should probably tell you that my memory is not all that crash hot these days, so the bits that I forget I'll most likely just make up what happens the best I can though the haze, but you'll pretty much get the idea anyway. Oh, and I almost forgot to introduce myself. Call me Ishmael. Haha, got ya, just kidding. Call me Fisher, that's just Fisher. I'll go find my real full name a bit later. I've got it written down on a piece of paper in a drawer somewhere.

Everyone just calls me Fisher anyway, so my full name is really not that important, and of little consequence, hardly any, virtually none, but I'll put it out later just so you know.

So it all started one fine day in spring. It never rains in this miserable town anyway, so it's pretty much always fine. I'd just moved in to this really sweet house down by Farmer's Park with all these rooms and everything where you could explore all around for hours and hours and never get bored or anything, but I hardly did that too much.

Instead I used to like sitting out on the front porch and enjoy this special tea that some kind of witch lady gave me once, warts and all.

It's real nice and calms you down heaps, and makes everything feel kind of unreal and stuff; really nice stuff. I forget what she called it. I

think it was something like jagger Root Tea or something like that. I'll call it that anyway I think, just because I like the name.

Anyway, so I was sitting out on the porch sipping on my Jagger Root Tea, just enjoying the morning, watching all the people walking by and stuff. Falcon was in his room. We called him Falcon for some reason. Oh yea, that's right, his real name was something like Daniel Faulkner or something crazy like that, so eventually, using the ultimate power of language evolution, it pretty much got shortened to just Faulkner and then somehow changed to Falcon. Besides he kind of looked like a Falcon sometimes, using when you were squinting or if he was perched upon some kind of mountain cliff or something similar. But yea, he was always in his room, smoking or whatever.

Well come to think of it, he was smoking all the time anyway in and out of his room, and really, he wasn't in his room all that much, just probably more than me, because I'm never in my room because it's always too scary, and I get lost in there a lot of the time.

I like Falcon's room, it's all decked out with all kinds of rock n roll memorabilia, like golden idols beaming down from heaven or something, awaiting worship. So Falcon was in his room listening to something by The Rolling Stones. It was like they were actually in his room, playing in there. He's got some kind of fancy new music station blaster system that reproduces each Rolling Stone in 3D sound pretty much. It's really trippy. Anyway, I was sitting out there on the front porch and was starting to get a little bit bored, so I thought I'd go and bug Falcon for a little while.

I remembered just the other day that this record, this strange record had somehow come into my possession. Oh that's right. I was out for a stroll one Sunday night, just up and down Brunswick street, and I stopped at the crossroads, the intersection where those four button things that you press to go across the road. Is there a name for them?

I don't think there is. Anyway, so I was standing there just chilling out to the sound that the four beepy things were making, sometimes going in unison and sometimes going out of time. It was a beautiful thing I tell you, but that's a story for another time, and maybe another book. I'll have to get the number of that lady.

So while I was standing there, up jumps this giant goat type dude

with like big hoofs and horns and everything, and I looked at him for a second and said "hey, dude, what are you supposed to be then?

What look are you going for, bleedin' Lucifer or something?", but he didn't really answer me, and just stood there looking at me in a kind of strange way. If I didn't know any better I would have thought that he was coming on to me. I don't want to brag, but I was looking kind of fine at the time, in all my trendiest gear and everything, and oh you should have seen my hair!

I noticed that in his hand was this vinyl record, and the cover wall all like the Beatles White Album, except that it was all black and embossed on the front was this writing, but I couldn't make it out because it was in some kind of foreign language or something. He was still looking at me all strangely and everything, like he was in some kind of a trance or something. I wanted to find out about that record so I tried clicking my fingers at him. Eventually I had to slap him in the face with a big trout that I'd caught down by the Brisbane river the day before. I'd had it nice and fresh in my purple cordaroy jacket, ready to cook up whenever I felt like having trout for dinner.

The trout's name was Westy, little Johnny Westy he said, and I had become quite fond of him over the few hours since I'd caught him down by the river. I think we'd developed quite a kinship. He was different to the other trout I'd known. Anyway, what I guess I'm trying to say is that I was sorry that I had to use Westy to slap this devil dude out of his trance, but it seemed, at the time, the only thing left to do. Westy didn't seem to mind all that much. He was a pretty chilled out fish, and so I put him back in my pocket and I said I was sorry and everything.

It seemed to work though, cause good old Luci snapped out of it at once.

"Hey man! What did you slap me in the face with a trout for man?" said Luci and it was only then that I noticed that he had been listening to music the whole time. He ripped out the little red earphones from his big old ears and shook his head and blinked a couple of times and looked at me.

"Well, it was the only thing to do Luci. You were in some kind of

weird goat trance," I told him bluntly, "and I wanted to ask you about that record you got there in your hand". He looked down at the record and then pulled out his portable record player and ejected it out of there and put the big black plastic disc back in its case and thrust it forward at me.

"Hey man! You want to buy it?

"Yeah, sure. Oh lemme guess, it'll cost me my soul?"

"Naa man, $27.50. Bargain! You've never heard anything like this" And so quick as a jiffy I got out my cash. I'd just been paid the other day, and the deal was done. I started to walk away, as I wanted to listen to it immediately on Falcon's tip top record player, but then I turned back to ask what the band was called, and all I saw was a big, black puff of smoke.

"Whoa, that was weird." I said to Westy, opening my pocket to speak to him. I think he was still in too much of a daze though to answer me because he just kind of sat there, though he did flap his tail around a bit at me.

Anyway, so I headed back to our place on the corner so I could straight away listen to this new record that I'd acquired, but somehow I must have got distracted along the way and forgotten all about it because I only just remembered when I was sitting out on the porch drinking that nice pot of Jagger Root Tea a couple of days later.

I think it was actually little Westy who reminded me about it. He'd been bugging me for a little while about getting some food for him to eat. He particularly had acquired a shine for these little chocolate coated saltanas that I'd been eating, and he'd been screaming out for them for a little while now. Wow I've said "little" quite a bit in this paragraph. I just realised that. Awesome! So Westy popped up out of my jacket pocket screeching out in his little fishy voice, "Yo Fisher, what ever happened to that record you got the other day from that big goat dude?"

And that's when it struck me. I'd forgotten all about that and the thing was there in my back pocket the whole time. I don't know how

I'd forgotten that really because the thing was like a twelve inch and was hanging out all over the place. I quicky jumped up, knocking my jagger root tea all over the floor and leaving this multi-coloured, flourescent swirl emminating all over the floor as I raced in to Falcon's room to show him the record.

I burst in through his door. I never really remember to knock all that often, and it's usually something of immense importance like it was this time. He was in his underwear in the middle of his room. His room seems to change sizes every so often, depending on what mood he's in from what I can gather. It was quite small in this particular moment in history, and he was in a position that reminded me of those mystical shamans in deep meditation or something.

He still had the Rolling Stones blasting. It sounded like pure brilliance on his system, one of their really early tracks, before they were even a band really, a remix perhaps, before they'd even learnt how to play their instruments properly. That can sometimes ruin the music, the real soul and feeling of the music. It was wonderful, but I wasn't thinking about that, and more of this new record that I'd bought the other day so quick as a flash I run over to the player and yank up the needle with a giant screeeech. Falcon immediately snaps out of his tripple stage deep meditation and turns around to yell something at me.

"Oi, what the hell do you think you're doing? I was getting in deep with that."

"Aw, sorry man, many apologies," said I "but wait till you listen to this." And then I went through the whole story about how I got the record, about the crossroads and about Westy and Luci and everything, and he seemed to get at least a little bit interested.

"Alright Fisher, throw it on for a sec." And so I did. The intro came on. It was a build up, but even then it was a shining light of brilliance.

I could tell, and I was really getting into it, the groove and everything, and then I started to feel like I was actually the record needle, vibrating away to the music as the floor started to move underneath me. It was heaven, for a moment, then.

Pop, and repeat, pop and repeat, the same loopy loop over again, jumping, jumping over the first line, the first lyric that came in about twenty-seven seconds into the first song and we could go no further on our journey, and the words that came out resounded over and over again. "Seek out, New Emitex, seek out, New Emitex, seek out, New Emitex, seek out". It was one hell of a bummer. Falcon had the idea that we could just push the cue button and push the needle forward a bit, but I knew that was too easy, and it just went back like some mystical power was controlling the needle and it went back to that one repeated line like magic.

I sat in wonder at what it meant, this New Emitex, what was it, and why was it asking me to find it? Falcon didn't really seem to bothered. He just pushed stop and handed the record back to me to put back in its case and sent me on my way, back out to the porch, but my jagger root tea was all over the ground and so I just sat down in the middle of the puddle, the swirling colours expanding in concentric shapes that were not quite circles. The porch was getting bigger to accomodate for the expanding tea. I soon zoned out with that one repeating line in my head. I went to ask Westy about it, but it looked like he was asleep at the time, so I just sat there and thought about various things for a whlie, letting my mind wander, and soon forgot all about it, mostly.

The people outside continued walking past the house and not noticing, not so much as a glance. I wondered where they were all going.

Well, that's pretty much it for the first chapter. I told you it wouldn't be much. Sorry I didn't get to throw in that bear chase, but rest assured, it's coming up later in the book. Wow, there's so much to fit in. It's certainly a strange place down here by the park, by the river, with lots of mystical adventures to be had, but for now it looks like a gigantic alien mothership is descending over the park like some kind of massive glow in the dark frisbee. I'll have to go check this out.

We'll get back to the story perhaps in the next chapter, or who knows, we might take you in a totally and utterly different direction altogether.

The road is unwritten/unridden.

Chapter II - The Strange Happening Where This Giant Plant-like Thing Rips up the House and Tosses it Around a Bit Second chapter already. Didn't take long now did it? Now just sitting here on the front steps, the daily burn and draw, taking in the scenery. Far right in the distance there are those gigantic towers that make up the skyline now. One day they just shot straight up out of the ground and took over the skies. Does my head in sometimes thinking about how they did that, but really I'm not that much of a thinker. I'm more of a ponderer I'd say. There's a pond down in the park, all dark and dirty, filled with all kinds of pond scum and the likes. I go down there sometimes, try to fish a little, but the fish in there are the super-intelligent kind, from hundreds of years of evolution. They know exactly what to do with a hook when they find one. They're the real thinkers.

Sometimes when I throw my line in, I'll find that one of them just slowly takes my line and wraps it around a giant chunk of wood, then they pull on the line thrice, three times that is, and wait until I'm certain I've got one hooked and then I yank and yank my guts out and end up snapping the line in two, while they sit there in their little swimming circles, chuckling away to themselves, sipping on their iced seaweed daiquiris and discussing notes on Captain Ahab and their hero who thwarted that monomaniacal maniac.

Other times they will write you a note, cleverly unhook the bait straight off the hook and then attach their little condescending notes to the line. Not on the hook most of the time mind you. It's mostly tied up using some kind of double hitch half-knot or something like that anyway. I'm not too good with knots. The note will always be along the lines of: Ingenious fish-catching device you have devised there old chap.

Most a pity however that it seems that the fish community, Is today unable to aid you in your little games, As we have prior engagements to meet our friend,

Billy the Six, the six armed octopus in his garden For high tea this afternoon.

You are of course more than welcome to join us monkey boy, Should you be so inclined. We do hope you won't mind Getting your toes wet just a little.

Sincerely yours, Huckleberry Finn Quite a hilarious show of wit and sarcasm. Sometimes I go down there for that alone.

I am not however here to tell you about the pond and the fish in the pond tonight though. I'll leave that ditty for another, more appropriate time. Tonight we also leave our strange tale of the record from Luci and the quest for New Emitex. Rest assured we won't leave you hanging for too long on that one either. But for now our story will descend into a darker time, a night much like tonight, around the same time, the moon had fallen asleep behind one of the towers to the right skyline to dream about unthinkable things, cheese and wet dreams, just like tonight, and I was asleep. Actually that part is different, because I'm not quite asleep right now, though for all intents and purposes, I may as well be.

To get on with it anyway, I was asleep, and so was Falcon I assumed in the other room. I was having this weird dream about working as a checkout chick in a normal supermarket and there were all these people just buying groceries and I just kept scanning all these groceries though the checkouts and putting them in plastic bags, over and over again; real trippy stuff. But yea, so I was asleep, dreaming, until I hear like this strange creeping sound, the sound that those creeper plants make while they're growing up your wall. You know?

That low rumble, almost inaudible, but this time it was clear as day, and there was no mistaking it.

I climbed up from out of my bed. I was in the depths that night, sunken at least six feet under. It took me a little while to wade through all the extra pillows that had somehow fallen on top of me. I

pretended like a was one of those cute little blind molerats that they're always showing on those nature documentaries, burrowing my way though, until I was finally free. I was still blind however, having somehow misplaced the light switch. In my pocket I'd put a lighter. I knew I had a lighter. Westy the trout was keeping it safe for me.

Westy had a terribly well developed habit for the pipe, so he used it far more often than I ever did anyway. Still, you never know when you might be in need of a lighter I always say. Like just say you're out at a bar some night and some really cute bird asks if you've got a light, then there's no need to feel like a twat, digging around in your pocket, pretending like you've lost it. You just say, "Hey Westy, you got that lighter I spotted you before? It sure is dark in here isn't it?"

"Oh hi hi there Mr Fisher, sure thing, I've got it right here. And yes, it is quite dark in here now that you mention it. What's going on then?"

"I think I heard something outside."

"Outside the house, there's always something outside the house."

"No Westy, inside, out in the lounge or something, like a low rumbling, you know like a creeper vine climbing up the side of your house."

"Oh, yes of course!"

So I got the lighter anyway and lit it up. One of those new models where it can light up the whole entire room. A LIGHTer brand lighter. The jet flame extending about seven inches from the tip.

Whatever, I'm getting off track here. Just kick me or something when I start to linger too long on a subject. It's a tendency I have sometimes, especially when I'm really tired like I am now. This is the good part anyway, so don't quit on me just yet.

Behind the door I knew there was something, but I didn't know what it was, so naturally I opened the door. I'm not one to just sit behind a door while I know there's something interesting behind it. It was still all dark behind the door when I opened it, but what hit me first was the smell, real jungle, or more closely, like a deep tropical rainforest

delight. I reached around for the light switch and was hit by a flurry of green light, but coming slow, almost trickling down at a plodding pace from high up above and behind the green canopy. After about a minute or two, it had fully engulfed me and the room and I could see that the whole room was a gigantic overgrown mass of growing and decaying plant matter.

Far out it was good. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before, and I almost wondered if I was still dreaming, but no, this was too real, not like my dreams.

When my eyes became accustomed to the light I started to notice all the little details presenting themselves to me, the tiny flowers that were springing up right before my eyes, quickly budding, blooming, and then turning to tiny helicopter seeds that took off with their tiny piston engines in search of a new land. There were hundreds of them, thousands probably, and perhaps even a hundred thousand or more.

I could hear their miniature rotors heaving and hoeing though the air, lifting them to dizzying heights around my nose. I almost breathed one in, but merely sneezed a bit, the force of which toppled me over, and I fell with an almost inaudible thump down to the moist ground below.

It was all mossy and wet, slippery and soft, so nice to sit on. I saw, glowing on the ground, the incandescence of a few neon mushrooms.

"Rare delicacies these are!" thought I, carefully harvesting the few brilliant specimens. "They'd go great with a spot of jagger root tea."

The kitchen was relatively unchanged, and I boiled Mr Kettle just like I always do, and poured his hot juices into the cup for a perfect jagger root and neon mushroom tea. Blowing the steam away to cool it down I returned to the rainforest within, only to find that I wasn't alone.

There, perched upon the sill of the open window was a little green man. No, not an alien or anything like that. He was more like a goblin or something, but he had all this grass and leaves and moss growing all over him and twigs and bits of branches sticking out everywhere from his body. He was really ugly looking, and could certainly have done with a haircut. That grassy, unkempt mane certainly couldn't

have been doing him any favours with the ladies, if you know what I mean.

"So who are you supposed to be then hey? The Green Goblin?" I asked him in a casual tone -- the tea was starting to kick in around that time I think.

"My name is Bartholomew Pumpernickel. I am part of the Spirit of the Forest."

"Part of the Spirit of the Forest? Which part, the bleedin' left pinky toe?"

"We are a collective conscience of myriad individual beings" "You're a what?" Yep, it was beginning to kick in.

"Never mind puny mortal. I am simply here because I used to live on this very spot and I was just driving past with my friends and wondered if I might be able to get a photo with the house. Here, here's my camera. Watch it though, it's an old style film camera, so you have to wind it and look through the viewfinder." He gave me the camera with the utmost of care and relaying a few more thousand instructions on how to use it properly.

"Oh right, I thought maybe you were going to have a go at us for destroying like the natural habitat or something. I would have told you that, you know, it wasn't us, it was whoever lived here before we moved in, but hey, that was you wasn't it?"

Young Bart isisted that I take a shot from outside the house, that he had a little trick that he wanted to catch on camera so that he could show all his other forest spirit buddies. I was still only in my jocks and socks, but I figured that it was the middle of the night, no one would be around, and I'd only be outside for a few minutes anyway.

So I get outside and begin to go through the instructions on how to work this great big old wooden camera, when I notice the house begin to shake there in front of me, and start to lift up from its struts.

Something was growing from under the house, and growing fast, and

before I could do anything at all, the giant fig tree from below had lifted the house clear off the ground about ten metres in the air and had it swinging around quite violently from side to side.

It was then that I saw Bart hanging from the front porch screaming something down to me. "Take it! Take it! Take it now before it's too late!"

But before I could finish winding the film, taking off the lens cover and lens hood, set the shutter speed and focus, I noticed the little green man come hurtling down towards me. It was Bartholomew of course, behind him, a dazed and confused Falcon, wondering what in all hell was going on.

Interlude of the Wandering Wilderbeast of Wunderlust One moonlit night, out in the wilderness of inner suburbia there once wandered a wilderbeast of wanderlust. His name was Walter, as we found out one whimsical night in September, when we were wearily walked in to him while watersliding upon a wonderful windy day.

Chapter III - A Serious, Yet Mildly Hilarious Investigation Into A Change in Storyline and its Feasibility in the Overall Structure of Reality Last night I found myself in particular haze of stupor, so it seemed all that came out was a string of words attempting to begin themselves with the letter "w". That is interesting enough, and these previous few chapters, telling you about various little stories are interesting enough, but I'm not entirely sure such stories are going to cut it when it comes down to it.

What I'll need to introduce of course is a certain element of narrative that goes beyond the chapter separation and continues on indefinitely. Though it's not been fun telling you all of my little stories, and who knows I may come back to them at a later date.

There's a shifting tide and I feel it in the air. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just the smell of indian curries wafting over from next-door.

What I would really like to tell you about, really, really, more than anything right now is in fact slightly further into the future than I have previously led you to believe. It was the time when, almost on a whim, I decided to leave this place and the strange events that came with it, the semi-urban living that so many others had come to accept as their life, the peculiar events that kept popping up and hinting that there just might be something else out there, something just hidden from view.

I'd been thinking about all this kind of stuff a lot actually, sitting in our house and out on the porch, it's many rooms, always changing, always revealing something new. It was fun, and I could have stayed there indefinitely, had I been a different person, but then just one day, like it was the most natural thing in the world, while sitting there sipping my third jagger root tea of the day, I came to a conclusion. It could have been the weather though. I seem to get strange thoughts

when the weather is acting peculiar.

I knew it wasn't really the life for me, this workaday world, and sitting there all comfortable and dry while the rain came pattering down.

You hear about all these other lives, mostly from friends telling about stories and things, or from the movies or books or the newspaper or the television or from wherever. That's the main reason for all this story telling is sending out a beacon that this is actually what someone is doing, this is a possibility, and I'd heard quite a few possibilities in my day let me tell you that much right now.

So in my head like, there were all these stories bumping around and making love to each other and producing lots of little baby stories. A lot of them got together and formed little cooperative groups and stuff. It was marvellous they way they did that. Who would have thought?

Anyway so I won't go all into the whole process in depth or anything, but will just say that the idea of change had gotten a foothold in my mind and it wasn't letting go. Oh, don't think that I didn't try to talk myself out of it, because I did, for sure I did. And in those few hours before Falcon came home and I made it official, I was debating wildly, like I was live to a hundred million viewers across the nation.

So I was just cooking up another pot of jagger root tea when Falcon came home from his day job, something I'd long ago given up on, finding casual work here and there or just waiting to see what fortunes come my way.

"Hey" he said. He usually says that when he comes home in that very non-intrusive way he has, non-imposing like he doesn't even really live here, but is just staying in guest room. I guess in a way, we'll all like guests here on this planet, paying the rent until we all eventually move out.

"Hellooooo!" I replied, in this silly way that I have sometimes, usually to remove the formal boringness of those casual greetings. "How was work?" You have to sometimes go with the formalities, just to get them out of the way.

"Oh, it was grand, simply grand. Gosh darn, I love working there."

He was sarcastically being sarcastic, taking it to a whole new level.

"Yep, today we got to explore the extreme reaches of human consciousness, and unlock the secrets of the universe. Brillant job! By golly! Brilliant job!"

He trudged over to the fridge and opened it. The light inside sputtered and blew out. It didn't matter much. There wasn't much to see, besides a week old slice of extra tasty cheese that had begun sprouting a massive civilization of mould, in fact if you looked closely, you could see them just getting though another ice age. I won't go into the story of a miniature civilization actually forming in our fridge, which did actually happen once, but only because it has already been well documented in many other places a hundred times over, and a hundred times better than I can be bothered to.

Falcon picked up the slice of cheese anyway. He liked the mould on there, said it gave the cheeze character. I cringed at the thought. It altogether affirmed my plans to escape, to exodus from this life, and I told him of my plans to leave, and stumbled though my shakey reasons for wanting to do so.

He thought I was insane of course, though I'm pretty sure that assumption was already well planted and flourishing in his head long before that moment. He didn't seem to care all that much anyway. I began to get the suspicioun that he didn't think I was serious about it, and that I would never, and perhaps could never go though with something like that even if I really had my heart set upon it.

I thought about all the strange happenings since moving to this strange land. Some tales you will have heard, and some you will have not. One thing for certain is that I wanted to explore the world, explore the universe, explore the inner workings of the mind, and explore the unknown that I'd become certain was out there just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes I think what I really wanted was an adventure, a real adventure like the kind you read in all those books as a kid. I had a feeling that half of those were just made up anyway, like that Journey to the Center of the Earth or War of the Worlds, but who knows.

I thought about asking Westy about the whole subject, but he was asleep. I don't think he really minded either way. He was asleep in his fishy little way where he curls up in a little ball. I closed my jacket pocket, spilling only a bit of water that hovered over the ground due to the extraordinary amount of oil that we had on the kitchen floor, spilled in various mishaps over the past few months.

We stood in silence, sipping slowly on our jagger root tea, feeling it's influence upon our general demeaner. A million things were going on in my head however, and I can't begin to imagine what was going on in Falcon's head. Perhaps nothing, but more than certainly something. That's a strange statement "more than certainly" isn't it.

They teach you that probability ends at 1, but what I want to know is what happens when the probability of something exceeds certainty.

I'm thinking that that concept doesn't even exist in the real world, like the concept of a perfect circle, though far be those concepts to pure or perfect or complex for the real world. It's more like those concepts are far too simple to exist in this strange land when our brains are wired to understand so differently. Well some people's at least.

The afternoon was winding down. There was a lot of preparation that needed to be done, or was there? Maybe I could just drop everything and walk out. That's pretty much what happened in the end.

It's a tale for the next chapter anyhow, where we'll try to take this thing in the proper direction, steer the ship, sail the boat, turn the rudder. I can't wait.

Chapter IV - Misdecisions and Indecision and Incisions of Mind What was I thinking?

I realised I couldn't leave just yet and embark upon my mystical quest to discover the secrets of the universe and all that junk, as I was waiting for a package to arrive in the mail. Seems I was just tricking you into a false sense that this novel was actually going to go somewhere interesting and will be worthwhile your reading it, but as it happens, that will certainly never be, so just get that out of your head right now you silly little individual you.

Anyway, so it was the next day and the idea that I was going to fly the coop was just getting further and further away. It began to seem just like some whimsical dream that would only become a reality if it wasn't for these binding chains, these mortal restraints, holding me in place. No matter how I tried, I just could not break free.

After a while it got a bit frustrating, so I had to yell out to Falcon to "Get me the hell out of these restraints you fucker!" (sometimes I like to imitate Falcon's friend Floyd) and "How did I even get into these chains in the first place?". No one came. Falcon must have been out or something, but I managed to get free regardless after a while and went to the kitchen for a pot of jagger root.

And so I sat in the main living room, sipping tea, and waiting for the Global Express man to come with my package. The walls of the house were covered floor to ceiling with all kinds of posters and patterns, aging psychedelia made new. Groovy! There was enough up there to keep anyone amused for hours, and I sat and explored all the patterns as they came to life before me. There was a dragon taking form to the right, and I began to wonder how exactly I would know it was a dragon had I no idea what a dragon was to begin with.

Would it still look like a dragon, or would it look like something else, or would it be anything at all?

How did I even find out what a dragon was? Oh I remember, it would be that time I went riding on one. That was fun wasn't it?

It was a little while before I realised that the dragon was talking to me, though indirectly, or maybe it was directly. Yes, it was actually directly now that I think of it. I can't remember all the details though just now, but I remember this dragon telling me a lot of things. But whatever, that's a matter for another story.

In fact, this is the worst chapter ever. It's even worse than last chapter. Maybe, for your sake and mine, let's just pretend they never even really happened. It was all a dream. Let's just say that.

Good night.

Chapter V And at that precise moment, the young Earl Gray Fisher became engulfed in a strange kind of interdimentional vortex, which seemed to very much hinder his ability to write the rest of his story. His story, which in fact he had no real business writing in the first place, is a tale that must be told, a tale that must be told with the utmost care and conviction. Unfortunately for Fisher, these traits seem mysteriously lacking from his prose, and so I have been asked by the His Excellency, The Great Red Dragon Lord of the Revolution.

Wait, wait, wait! Just a second there. It's Fisher here and you're not taking over just yet. I've still got some fight in me after all, and look this vortex has not killed me but imbued be with special magical powers. Now run along you old bastard before I zap you to smitherines!

Chapter VI - The Golden Man at the Entrance to the Velvet Underground Lair Whoa, that was a bit weird wasn't it? Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. In fact I'm just about to tell you all about this magic guitar that I've been wanting to tell you about for the whole book, but just haven't gotten around to it yet do to me rambling on about all this other stuff, and then this whole inner turmoil thing that has been going on for the past few days.

Whatever, this is the story. It's all about this really fantastic guitar that came into my possession somehow a little while ago, quite some time perhaps. I'm not the best with dates. It was said that this guitar was forged in the deep jungles of South Africa, or at least the wood was grown there, and it was crafted by a mystical shaman from an ancient tribe that has remained untainted by the west for centuries. No one

even knows if this tribe even still exists, but it is rumoured that they may very well have mastered the ancient art of invisibility.

Of course, where this shaman first learnt how to craft a guitar is beyond me really. Maybe he summoned the spirit of Jimi Hendrix or something I suppose and Jimi showed them all his own brand of magic.

Whatever the story was, it was a world class guitar.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was a bit of a musician myself in my time. Oh yes! Actually that is how Falcon and I first came to live together in that strange house by the river, to pursue that fair maiden of fame and fortune. Oh how she teased and later taunted with her siren song. We came into that house with big dreams, huge dreams, massive dreams that seemed to be bursting out of our heads. We almost had to hold our heads up with our hands that's how big they were getting.

So this guitar right, I guess you're wondering if it was magical and everything, then what was so magical about it. Well I'll tell you, there were many magical properties of that guitar, the least being that it was completely invisible to all except the person playing it. It also seemed to be able to change in shape, style and structure depending upon the person playing it. For the most part, it seemed to change to whichever guitar that person most wanted to play, but sometimes it would just change and take on some weird shape and design that there would be no explanation for.

I've heard many stories of all its other different powers, but if I were to go though all of them, we'd be here all night, so I guess I'll just get on with it.

Well, it was a dark night in December, Friday night and the shops were still open for late night shopping in the city. I was just wandering around like I do sometimes, looking at things, clothes and stuff mostly, but also other things. There were always so many people in the city. It was just dazzling to watch the people go by mostly. So I was slowly making my way down Queereye street when out of the corner of my eye I noticed something out of the ordinary, something

that I hadn't seen there before, and I must have gone past this place a thousand times at least. Perhaps it was new, although I swore that it wasn't there a second ago.

There down this little side alley was a giant statue, gold it seemed, just standing there, almost like one of those performers that you always see on the street who stand motionless all day for money. What a job.

Anyway, it was just about the shiniest thing I'd seen around this dingy and run down old town, it almost seemed out of place, in fact it did seem out of place, very out of place and I just had to go over there and see what was up with it. Usually I can't resist things like that.

Anything out of the ordinary and I have to check it out.

So I strolled down the little side street and approached the gold statue with caution. It was about one and a half times my height and it was polished to a high gloss. I stood there in front of it for quite a long time, what seemed like about half an hour or something, but something strange was distorting time for me then, like its gaze was piercing into my very soul and essence, and it probably was. That happens to me quite frequently actually, when things pierce right into my soul and essence. At times it can become quite frustrating.

But anyway, after this half-hour gaze left me in a trance-like haze, I suddenly snapped straight out of it when with a giant "boo!" the statue came to life right in front of me. Now usually I'm not that much of a jumpy person, but this time I must have jumped literally ten feet in the air because I actually hit my head on the roof. I've still got the scars to prove it.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, standing there like that you twat!?" I yelled out without even thinking much that I was talking to a giant ten foot tall golden statue. He'd just gone back to standing still, straight up and down like nothing had even happened, and I noticed that a couple of people had started to mull around. A few even put some change in the little gold hat that was on the floor, all silver though.

A gentle "Psst" I heard quietly, coming from the corner of his mouth, but it didn't move one bit. He must have been one hell of a ventriliquist. "I've got something to show you, Earl Gray Fisher.

Come with me."

I wondered for a little while about how the hell he knew my name and everything, but not too long. Stranger things had been happening ever since moving down here to Farmstead, so I thought no more of it and took it upon myself to follow this golden idol. The only problem being, that he did not move a muscle. he just stood there, so still, so silent, that I began to wonder if the whole time I was just talking to myself, and it really was a statue, and inanimate statue just standing there.

I started to feel really kind of stupid, with everyone kind of watching me and everything and after I'd made a big fool out of myself by jumping up to the roof and banging my fat head upon it. So I started to walk away, but then something made me turn back, some myserious force. I'm not sure what it was in actual fact.

I looked back anyhow and saw that the statue was gone. In fact there was nothing there that even remotely looked like there was a statue there ever in history. In its place was a table and chairs and a few young dandies sitting around sipping on tea.

I went over to invistigate the scene, but was quickly grabbed by an unseen force and hauled off into a hidden room.

Chapter VII - The Empress, or is it? Yes it most likely is, but can we be so sure?

Where I was taken into was like this really dark, dingy place and I couldn't see worth a damn or anything, and things kept brushing up against me and ruining my hair and everything. I'd just spent about an hour and a half on my hair that morning as well, with the straightener and everything.

All was a blur and I was still getting pulled along quite violently, by someone who was obviously a lot stronger than I was. I assumed in my hurried daze that it was the golden man who was standing in the alley perfectly still, although the tunnel we were going down seemed almost too small for it to be him and still move quite perfectly well.

At last we came to a clearing, but the roof was only about five feet high, so I had to duck down unless I wanted to hit my head again and further grow the egg that was already forming on the top of my head.

It would be big enough to hatch soon. Let's hope it doesn't get to that.

So the person who was dragging me along all along was this little short midget guy with a big old grey beard. He was dressed up all in bondage gear, complete with the missing cheeks from his behind.

Kind of strange I thought, but not totally unheard of. He was standing in front of a gorgeous blue velvet curtain type thing, really heavy and shining with all the different foldings as it draped down concealing what I assumed to be a doorway.

I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there, hunched over a bit with my hands on my knees and just stood looking at this weird little dwarf dude, as he stood looking at me with a kind of absent look on his face.

"The empress shall be with you shortly" he blurted out at last in a dull tone of voice.

He didn't seem all that bright to me.

"Yeah, ok." I muttered, and began impatiently waiting. I had no idea what the hell I was even waiting for, but it occurred to me that it better be pretty darn good, as I had quite a lot on that day, like go shopping for a pair of new sunnies to match my new top.

Maybe he had like a little buzzer or something that let him know, I don't know, something like that or else some kind of telepathy with this Empress chick to tell him when she was ready, because he seemed to know the instant she was ready, because suddenly, without any hint of warning, he pulled the big velvet curtain aside and grandly stated, "The Empress will see you now." Another possibility was that he had some kind of stop watch in his head or even was just vaguely keeping the time in his head from the moment that the Empress had told him that she would see me, to the moment that he let me in.

Anyway, I was beginning to get all excited about the prospect of meeting this Empress lady. She seemed, by the way everyone was talking about her, and talking her up, and waiting on her, to be some kind of groovy gal. And when I passed through under the curtain I was hardly disappointed.

It was a big round room, and in the middle of this big round room, was a big round bed, all covered with even more beautiful velvet, dark red this time, a deep, almost unreal red, and in the middle of that sat the girl I took to be the Empress, for who else could it be, thought I. She was sitting in a semi-lying down position facing away from me, so that all I could see was her long, flowing hair and she was wearing some kind of fantastic velvet dress, pretty much backless, and oh what a back I found exposed to me, the most beautiful of all backs that I'd ever seen. She was perfect!

Immediately my chin hit the floor (not literally of course, but almost) as I gazed at her beauty. Her image engulfing my mind, taking over my thoughts.

It was like some kind of magical spell came over me, and at that moment, all I wanted to do was to have her then and there, right on

that bed. Given, not the kinkiest of places, but it's the best I could come up with at the time.

I was entranced by her, by everything about her, and I lost control. I started walking towards the bed, wide eyed and bushy tailed, and then I felt my hands on my huge belt buckle, the one I'd bought just the other day, with the two big guns crossing on it. The best came off in a flash, and I was quickly onto the button and zipper, when the girl turned around to see me in my semi-undressed state.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the shrill and piercing scream of hers came out loud over the airwaves. Oh my it was beautiful music.

Interlude But now, a momentary interlude from my brother of vastly superior intelligence, the late, great Walter Fisher the third. Of course he may or may not be deceased at the time that you read this. I happened to find one of his manuscripts just lying around, and as it seems my mind is decaying in to oblivion at this moment in time, it may serve better that he takes you through a few chapters here and there and everywhere.

So sit back and enjoy, but mind you, he's a bit of a nut case, so don't blame me for what comes out in these next few pages. I think it's pretty trippy anyway, so I'm going to include it in my book, and he's my brother, so I'm sure he wouldn't mind all that much.

Here it is.

*****

Time Out with Walter S. Fisher III A little ditty by Joshua J Byrd I. With the absent-minded, and somewhat pathetically ignorant thought of starting this thing off – whatever this thing actually turns out to be – with a peculiar statement somehow pertaining to the fallacious assumption that I am in some overarching way, different from everyone else, I, Walter S. Fisher the third, it seems in actually fact, to be merely delaying the inevitable: the eventual forgone conclusion that this is in all likelihood, not the case at all. We are all unique in our indifference. That will be perhaps, to everyone's relief and wellbeing, my first and final attempt at humour in this brief account of whatever it is I am supposed to be accounting for.

In fact, there is more than probably a hundred million young boys – and what the hell, girls as well – who look, think, and act just the way I do, and what’s more, who somehow emperorishly believe themselves to be one of a kind, a snowflake, an anomaly of nature, that no one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, that no one understands. A snowflake however is a snowflake is a snowflake is a snowflake, just as a duck is a bird is a plane, is superman. Ok I will stop now.

Of course, that being said, there always remains an inkling, a sinking suspicion – call it a minor defect of consciousness in its quest for self-promotion – that there is that certain special something, the differentiating quality lying dormant deep within the soul somewhere.

It’s the same in us all. *****

Chapter VIII So I was supposed to be telling you all about this magical guitar wasn't I? I think I got kind of side tracked a bit. Now I can't really be bothered, especially in the state I'm in right now. Let's just say that last night I went a bit too heavy on the arrow root beer, but that's another story altogether. For now, I think I'm going to tell you about this one time when I was down at the river.

So right, there I was down by the river this one time. The river is massive. I could probably swim it. I'm a pretty good swimmer, but it would take quite a while and I'd be super puffed by the time I got over there. The others were over having a barbecue and drinking their various beverages to get them in the mood of being with each other. I was by myself. I usually don't like sitting around and talking to people that much. Well, sometimes it can be fun, but other times it just drains the life out of me.

Why is it so hot? How is anyone expected to write under these conditions? I guess I'll just shut up and get on with it.

Well anyway, the water was calm, and making its way out to the ocean, when my mind started to wander. Here's where it went.

The undercurrents of society flow, Like dreaming fog lights caught in the undertow.

A lone warrior fights only with himself, So that soon one day he can be put on the shelf, Ready to be picked at the drop of a hat, Sadly misused I know not what is said.

Forty two misseltoe drive is where my baby lies, under the shade of my boomdocks ride, so long and farewell my princess belle, no two times go together very well.

Try as you might, you will never fail at succeeding. Don't judge a book by the may it misleads you. A heaven and a hell can interchange periodically, like the sun in the sky ducking well below the ground.

No two human hands can hold what will never be, never see what way is my weakest misery. Themselves go down to the stow away

liner, pulling all the time on the old kitchen diner, freeway of life, come ride with me tonight, or I know that I'll ride upon you 'for a die.

Fridge blossom, come move my way, for you see there's no subsistence any other day. Will you not be good to my stanger's homestead? My my, how the times have changed. Channelling and tuning into the the people's rag, it glows in my head all around me, and it says things that should never be said, but it says them forever and agast like a movie in my mind, playing just for me, but all can see, for it shines out of my eyes and projects there on the wall, the cave wall of all the tortured souls, the maid's stall whereby all the kitchens are afraid.

Into the night my baby strides. She skips lightly, and softly she treads upon the green meadow. Oh how she grows. Oh how she knows that what I really want to do is to just sit by and watch her great divide.

Poisonous mistrust of words my dear lady, poisonous misuse of your head. Don't go too long, for you'll soon be dead. Eat all your supper or you'll get no ginger bread. Look to the left if you want to be right.

Right all the wrongs that you're going past tonight. Along came a spider to sit on your head. It spoke to you softly and whispered all the secrets that you thought that you only knew. How did this spider know all your secrets? And then you came to a ghastly realisation, and that realisation was that in reality, it truth, you had no secrets at all, and neither did anyone else. It was this and this alone that made you stop and think, stop and think about your place in the world, about all the pretty girls, the young pretty women you picked up along the way. Where are they now you ask yourself in wonderment.

Long ago you said your goodbyes to that kind of life, but now you start to wonder what exactly it was like, what would it be like again should it happen?

Forget about those questions now, and think of things without a doubt, the park, the trees, the river runs through, big enough now for me and you, though what heppens next when we all start to multiply and fill the space with all that comes with our high standard of living.

Born again are the days of forgivenment, forged in the irons of fire

and brimstone, staggering into the death defying pits of evil, looking straight into the deamons of your past. No onw knew what was happening then, no one know what you meant by what you just said.

All metaphor is nonsense unless it is not in fact. What if all metaphor was real? What if there was no such thing as a metaphor?

Grass, green all around, look out, look out for all the brown, all around town.

The ground is soft, like the touch of a cool flame. We walk the broken highways like old Zimmerman did way back then, and John and Paul look down from on high to where the stars collide, they watch over us all. Little zeppelins appear and disappear all the time without warning. You will not want to go over to where the traffic lies. Mystical being where have you gone? Do you even know what is in store for you my child?

Railroad passenger hear the call of the whistle being blown over the high praries, no longer do we have to sumbit to their torture. Oh they think they're so smart. Oh they think they have it all under control, but it is a fool who thinks that they have anything under control.

Chaos reigns in an ordered world.

Smell the system all around you, it surrounds you, don't take your time for that time is already mine. Do you think you'd like it if I owned a part of you. You're all slaves to the system you know, but hey, while you're having fun, don't you think you should go and give in a little bit at the meat market? From the depths of my shattered heart, we think these things out and about. You should always carry a dark bulb. Think of all the things that you use dot do. Where are these words coming from?

No one likes to hear it when you think about it. They don't want anything fake, they want the truth. Give them the truth. What comes up in conversation is what happens when we die.

Lost in a sea of oblivion is where you find yourself, dark night style guide. Don't listen to the distractions. Stay focused. Good god do you think we will ever make it? How did it end up this way?

Long grass hits you in the shin, When you walk past the ancor and back again.

Do the time that's given to you For there's always be time to be more blue.

Songs have come and songs will go, Take me out when you think you know.

Be my bloody valentine if you will Try not to take just that last pill Forgo all the obvious, and forget all the past You better get going and you better go fast.

And so that's pretty much that, that's where my mind wandered to on that particular day. I can't exactly say what it all meant, but that's pretty much how it went. Maybe someone can decode it one of these days, and for that I would be eternally gratefull.

The patterns in the waves were making little smiling faces, hundreds and hundreds of them. Falcon and his friends were still talking and having a ball. I thought they were going to play frisbee. If they played frisbee I'd be over in a shot. I love playing frisbee. Perhaps that's a topic for another day.

So I just sat there some more and tried to focus on different things, fixing holes so my mind doesn't wander any more. Sometimes a wandering mind can be a real pain, because you don't know where it's going to end up, or where it's going to go, and sometimes it can go into the strangest of places.

Well, that about wraps it up. This chapter was the hardest. I think I will attempt to keep on the straight and narrow if I want to continue this book thing. It's a lot tougher than I thought it would be.

Chapter IX -- Outset Into the Big Wide Yonder As it turns out, I did travel away. Oh my yes, that's right, I did. I travelled without deliberation, without hesitation, just up one day with my jagger root tea in the morning, and I got the urge, plain as day, clear as the night, to just get out of there as quick as I could, just run out the door and embark upon this journey. I didn't pack at all really. There wasn't much I needed, and all my stuff was in hard to find places in the house anyway. So I basically just got my guitar case and stuffed my old guitar in there and a few other supplies and headed out the front door.

"See ya Falcon!" I yelled as I passed by his room. I'm pretty sure he was still asleep at the time, though it must have phased him a little, because I was usually never awake at that hour, and never happily walking out the door like that. From the window as I was going out the gate I heard him shout out.

"Where the hell are you off to?"

"I'm just going to the store to get some cigarettes" I hollered back, just to throw him off. I knew it'd be a while before he realised that I didn't actually smoke. Falcon smoked like a chimney. He smoked like two chimneys in fact with a bloody great fire burning in his stomach, always blowing the smoke into various shapes, doing smoke rings and then blowing some kind of arrow through the middle was his favourite trick. Sometimes he would do other objects, like birds and flowers and flying squirrels. He had developed quite a repetoir over all the years of practice.

"Oi! hang on a minute, you don't even smoke you fucker!" I heard distantly, but I was already free, up the road and headed into the Dirty Valley.

The Dirty Valley lived up to its name like you wouldn't believe. There

was trash all over the place, both in person and in garbage form. It really hit right after the border between the two suburbs. It was astounding really, on the one side you had Newton, all pristine and almost magical looking, and then on the other there was the Valley, all dark and dingy and mysteriously bleak. The old laundrymat was where the boundary lay, and there was always a whole gang of ladies of ill repute, hookers, prostitutes hanging around, just waiting for their time to shine. No time for that however that day, or any day really, although I did sometimes wonder what it would be like. The threat of catching some dirty valley disease hung over that area though, although you'd guess that they'd have proper precautions and standards.

Walking past with guitar in hand, the golden girls of the bunch seemed to see an opportunity and flocked. I didn't have any case anyway, so just kindly refused their false advances. All the money I had was in the bank, and it wasn't that much.

"Oh, we accept plastic Sir." one of them explained. My how technology has changed. I wondered where the card slot was.

"Dreadfully sorry Madam, perhaps some other day."

So I continued my way and descended into the real dirty part. There were homeless people everywhere of all descriptions, with their bottles, with their spray cans, with their hands out ready for you to feel sorry for them. One of them had a sign that read "Will code HTML for food". That caught my attention, but I had no need for a website just yet, as my career had just started.

I kind of had an idea about what kind of person I was setting out to become, that kind of travelling hobo ideal that came to the forefront of minds back when Woody Guthrie was inspiring the great Zimmerman, but it was a long road from the entrenched lower middle working class that I had become accustomed.

The one good things about Dirts Valley was that it was filled with music, music of all kinds from folk to electro, and it was everywhere you looked, in all the cafes and down in all the clubs. Fortunately a wave of discontent for pre-recorded music had found its way into

our sleepy little town, turning almost everyone into a live performer, everyone who had half the talent to play anything half decently. It was everywhere and all over the place, and all through the day and night. Performers would come on for breakfast and play till dawn the next day, almost. The good ones at least.

I figured it wouldn't be too hard to get a show somewhere and to start raking in the dough. But wait, I wasn't in it for the money. I don't even know exactly what I was in it for to be perfectly honest. It must have been the music.

I needed a rest, so I sat down. Needed to do some writing, and was trying not the let the place get me down, though perhaps that's exactly what I needed.

Another Time Out With Walter S. Fisher II. Well now, it seems that during my relatively brief time on this socalled planet earth, a few people may have already guessed that the name I usually go by in this part of the woods is Walter Fisher. I guess I should get that one out of the way quite early on. Oh and this as well, as most introductions usually go, that most people who know me, do not in actual fact call me Walter. Somehow, though I most definitely do not purposely influence them in their calling me it, they get it in their heads to call me Wally. I don't particularly mind it though, and never really persuade anyone not to call me Wally, so it's fine either way. To further elaborate on my current existence at this time, I feel, would be quite unnecessary. I will in all probability cover all that when the time comes around.

To explain this body of work, which I expect will certainly not be extensive by any means, I should state that, through no fault of my own of course, I am reluctantly being forced into writing this, and as such, I fully expect that whatever ghastly rubbish I write down here

will almost certainly not be worth the paper it is written on -especially should that same paper be of the expensive kind that you might find in some kind of fancy stationary store. It was in fact the only paper I could find in the drawers. My Aunty never writes letters these days anyway. I do quite like the fancy little gold trimming around the edges however. So classy!

This will supposedly help me. It will be beneficial to my development as a young individual on my way forward in this world, towards wherever the hell it is they want me to go.

Somehow I don't think so.

Chapter X -- What Am I Still Doing Here?

Well, actually, this is quite embarrasing. With all that thought on getting away, it seems I didn't even really get away at all, just walked up the road. What I really needed to do was to get on a train and actually go somewhere.

I thought about buying a ticket, but then stopped and thought. That's not how they would do it. That's not how I should do it. I should be going and stowing away in freight carriages or something, that's the real authentic way of doing it. So I did.

It was a while down by the train lines before I spotted a train that looked suitable. I watched all the other normal passengers get on and off the platform. Fools! I thought.

Not going to go through all the rediculous detail for you, as it was all quite within normality and not much really happened out of the ordinary at all. I had some writing to do, and I'd started trying to work out the thoughts in my head by doing this kind of automatic writing where I'd just let loose completely and just let the words flow straight out of my head, just like when my mind was wandering the other chapter.

Here's what I got that day anyway, riding down south on that lonesome carriage, in and amongst all these chickens and other things being carried away to god knows where.

Animals travelling, doomed to die another day. I walk the rail and sail on down to a little country town. All is calm in the mind's eye, until the raging waters somehow fulfill the prophet's destiny. To see where no eye has seen, to hear what no ear has before, that is the true gift of being, for who can say with all honesty to himself at the end of the day, that there has never been a shred of doubt against what was known to him before his day.

Stow away life leads me down to the river's edge and beyond, just

waiting to take that plunge, just waiting to be free. No one knows the misery of the cage of life but me. I am the one who knows that life is but a dream, a mystery, a lustless grain that has the potential of a thousand million trillion everlasting suns. It's because of all this that I do what it is that I do. No one else can know. No one else it seems can see, but then again they do. All of us do.

Become one with the sun. Become one with the son. You know what I mean do you not, for all the elders talk of such things. But where are the elders these days, when we put such trust in the youth of yesterday? Doomed accounts of violent beginnings. Lost long local ruins tiled in virginity. Battle weiry peasants alone at the end of the day. These are the memories that blood can't wash away.

Forgo your pride, let me step a while inside, your mind is a haven where I can venture to stride. Lone longing, where do you weep?

Drone calling me in my sleep. Forgive the past and the future will forgive you. Strive till the last, and the hunter will be true.

End the days where teh place mats do call. I'm in a daze and I wonder at all. Do you really think that she'll come when she's called?

Face the crowd now and I'll be with you all.

A little between you know the carpenter's wife, he shuffles down the hall, in bedrobes of white and blue yonder, covering his yolk.

Stranded young widow moves fast when she's tall. Walking and crawling upon the strange heat.

Pills and gills and spills go through the tiger lilly and come out shining so bright that they light up a million brights suns. They empty their energy out into space and it is collected by the dreams of plantets, plants growing alone and begging to be tall, so they may catch the rays, the beams, the little tiny waves and particles. Go between us queen warrior, go between and never tell the tale that you were once a lowly stranger and had no crown on your head. How did you become so tall? How did you get it all? How has the fate of light shone so bright upon your beautious face?

It's in the people you meet along the way. It's not much like the signs that you read in the lane while you're driving at night. I've seen the

comon man walk and talk and I've seen that he's good. I've seen the wealthy elite swindle and crook. You never need take what you've never been offered.

The wind blows steady as the train moves along, with the horses galloping to and fro, trying to catch up to the train, but they never will for they are mearly horses, and evolution's journey for them does not run with them, but for the train, it may continue, for the tracks they may be laid down again and again.

Storm the rivers. Storm the houses, and wear no coat on your back.

Dear lady can you not hear the wind blow? Stuck in my head are these lines, out of how many others? Why do they not all fit in?

And that's when I stopped writing for a little while, and instead just sat with my legs dangling over the edge. The train was going quite slow, the way those trains go when they're just trudging along. I'd forgotten almost all about Westy the trout in my pocket. I looked in there and he had gone. I remembered back to the house, all that I'd left behind. My oh my, such strange times, though it seems out here in the real world, I'd left all that behind.

I looked over the words that I'd just written, some of it astounded me, and some of it confounded. Thought I might try another session and see what may come of it. This time deeper. This time better. This time further. This time...

Meditation the First Let's hear it boys and girls. Let's hear all the people cry. Cry out oh young bold soldiers. The time is almost come. Listen to the westward winds, blowing in the trees. Tell the time by what you find, floating in the breeze.

Looks like life is what you find, when you're busy seeking other

things. There's a bit from an old movie I saw once upon a dream.

Looking down into the pit, you know where it may lead. Over and under and under and over and around and around again.

The baby's putting all things aside to see the world with brand new eyes. What it would be to start anew, day after day, after day. Jelly bean childred wander the streets in search of truth. Gail force winds hit most hard when the janitor is away.

The good girls turn on their heads the second they see what inside they can find. Looking away whenever they see something they don't quite like. Time goes by every once in a while. The kings horsemen ride on to heavy ground only once they'd trodden over the green green pastures of yonder Brittain and all thoughout your own house.

Dextrous young hands may be the morning of the next flood, but not even god himself could write all of this. There is none who can reconstruct it in its entiriy, for no one but me will live this twice, or if I might once again take this hand upon this page, should it be just the next in a succession?

Steely blue tears run into rivers down below, they are the tears of the lady of the hills, and she cries and she cries, though no one hears her sound, they mearly bask in the bountiful glory of her stream. She cries both day and night. She cries for she knows only sorrow, she knows not how to refrain from the sadness coming her way both day and night.

The paper boy comes and delivered every time, the news from the west, the news we love best, the news that they tell us is all you will need. Forget the rest of the talkes they say, as they speak and they spatter and discredit away.

Grains of sparrow food sit mellow on toast where honey and jam bread doughnuts form rings around the signpost that you were supposed to read when you were driving along the interstate a hundred and fifty miles away. The dolphin is pleased to be passing through, unnoticed again, and untamed for the tide is lifting, the bride is shifting, and all the kings horses and coming again to tie you up and to tie you down, you don't ever want to mess with them while

they're coming around.

Boyhood dreams soon become imaterial and ethereal, and they turn into a certain madness that can never be obtained, but the dream is always there and we sit and wait and wonder and wander and this fish called Wanda just sits and snorkles in the night. No one can see her except in the daylight. So she stays awake at night and plays in her little fish pond, never expecting to see the light of day, for all day long she hides, hides away from prying eyes.

Goldfish become what their masters always knew they would be.

Growing almost dayly to where they are waiting to become all the fish in the sea. Time waits for no woman or child, but to man it goes even faster. Do not deny the fact that alighting the path, alighting the past is a series of individuals that have put down things into writing and other people have paid attention. These days it is almost a different story, with information being gathered and indexed by giant machines.

What are they? Where did they come from? What do they want?

We gave it all away. Here's to the billions of souls just trying to be free, the unguarded peaceful soldiers who march forward for their lives and yours, who can never be stopped by force of the canon, for the ideals instilled within their march will live on even after the last gunpowder is exploded.

We must accept of course that there are those few who are not trying to be free. And who are they? Are they not the enemy? But what enemy could that be? They are not the enemy, but friends.

Travelling deeper and deeper into the abyss, and what do I see. I see the lines of the parties are not so easily blurred. I see the face of a desert buried in the sand. I see the cast of a patient never taken by the hand. I see my body lying naked all alone in the sky. I see the feeling of living alive in your heart. I see the dying ones happy they've found a new start.

And so now it seems this must come to an end. Today there's a million young songs to pretend, that we all know just one more thing

for the day, and that's just enough to keep the pirates at bay. What is it, what is it that keeps you here still, still bashing away on your typewriter until, you find that one thing that you know never will be.

How can we know what we never will see?

Gone are the days where patterns in the sand used to be your only guide and free will would hide in your little note book. Sure there would be a few young ones who could see the light, but in all honesty, they were few and far between, and their hair was insensed with deliberation for the stories ahead.

Oh my yes, I remember the time well, that day back when she blew my heart away. Moaning away in her little tip truck, never did like her Father that much. These little tales we take to so much, the same over and again, but what of the others? What of the stories that are never told, about the little match book that could. Or the little cigarette lighter that could, or anything really that could. What about that? What about everything that ever exists? Do they not deserve attention? Or is it only that which finds its way to the people's hearts.

I draw it in and spit it out, that's all I ever do, get a reading of the climate today, no weatherman though is going to shout it aloud. So you better hold tight for the storm is coming soon. A hard rain's afallin and we're all singing the blues.

So pour me another, the time is coming soon. We're all in this toghether, one big ship, so spare me the retoric. This is the planet, and you are part of this, wheather you like it or not.

Now comes sleep, sweet slumber. My hands have grown weary. Until the next, I bid you goodnight. Just like the Beatles, but soon, oh yes, all too soon, you shall awake. And now the dreaming begins. *end meditation That's it. The night is getting on. I'm travelling away. Soon be home.

Third Time Out With Walter S. Fisher They'll be expecting something for sure, so I may as well get on with it. They advised me that they wouldn't read it, but I understand that in all probability they will. I'm sure they will not be expecting this however. They'll be expecting something childish, immature, something they would expect to come from some kid with no brains or ability at anything worthwhile. They've misjudged gravely in their falsely elevated state, the way they misjudge every kid with any real talent in this godforsaken school. It'll be over before too long anyway. It escapes me at this very moment what exactly I mean by that.

As compared with the majority of children, I guess it could be argued that I am rather atypical. While the other boys are out playing hug the guy with the big ball, you'd find me spending my high time reading or playing guitar in my room or something else weird like that. I'd read all kinds of silly books alone in my room. No one bothered disturbing me at all really. Most of the time I would have the whole empty house to myself, with my Aunty Olivia out all the time dabbling in god knows what. My brother Earl would come to visit once in a blue moon. I liked him, despite him being a complete and utter nut case, but far be it for me to hold that against him, me of all people.

Well, just recently my feeble existence it seems has taken on a rather eccentric element. Some might argue that that is a vast understatement. None is as uncertain as to what the future holds as I am in these unsettling times. Perhaps Rev Gallantry is right in making me record all this craziness. Perhaps it may help in some strange way, for it seems that nothing else is helping much at all. The darkness is setting in, and I can feel it creeping up upon me, ready to engulf me into its eternal oblivion. Sounds depressing I know, but at times it can really get like that, the highs contrast so completely with those death-defying lows.

None of them can say what's truly the matter with me, the expensive doctors, the kind-hearted musical therapists (the rapists), hungry for your soul, or even if there is anything really the matter with me at all.

I can't say myself really. I only have these perceptions and no one else's, just as anyone else, and as such, as everyone, it becomes a matter of guesswork as to whether your own world view is in some way sub-standard to the rest of them. But perhaps that's not it at all, levels of standards out the window. Sometimes I think that it is a mere case of compatibility. Though if what they say is even remotely correct, then how have I seen the things I've seen, the way things have been?

And yet another thing comes clear to me, that if they are indeed right, then they had better lock us all away quick smart, if preservation of their precious established system is in their high priorities. For it seems for those sitting upon the fence, that it is catching, this pestilence, this so called disease.

A generation, my generation, our generation, emerging upon the world.

Earl Gray Fisher Awakens from His Slumber Woke up, another day. Where the hell is this? What's going on. It's so hot. It's dark. The canopy has grown over. The vines climbing into my room are catching up with my pruning. My room? My room! I'm back in my room! Was I dreaming this? I'd been asking that question quite a lot. Maybe I was just going nuts, but I was pretty much certain that I had left that house down my the Newton River and begun to embark upon my journey. Oh dear, what was happening to me?

I became convinced that I was starting to lose it. I crawled out of bed. There was a thick layer of grass growing through the carpet, and multi-coloured butterflies dancing around in and amongst the flowers, all smiling faces up at me, and turning to follow me as I walked past. They seemed so happy, I almost expected them to sing.

I checked my pocket for Westy. Yep, still there alright. I said hello.

"Hello Westy!" Westy however seemed a bit out of it, and all that he could muster was a few inaudible gulps. The doorway had grown, I swear it had, as I had to reach up to grab the door handle. Strange.

Out to the lounge room, Falcon was sitting, calm as anything in the middle of the lounge room, getting out yet another Rolling Stones album, he seemed to have hundreds, thousands even.

He looked over at me and said his hi's and hellos like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, like nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened.

"Falcon, how did I get back here?"

"I guess you walked" he replied without much thought. "Where did you go anyway? I didn't hear you leave."

"I was... on a cargo train... heading south." It started to sound a little off key even for me.

Falcon wasn't paying attention anyway. He was too busy listening to Brian Jones shaking the maracas, and Keith riffing up a storm.

I was baffled, plain and simple. It was like I had fallen asleep on the train to nowhere, and just magically woken up in my bed, right back where I started from. Seems to always be the case, andytime I try to follow my dreams, any time I try to get anywhere at all in life, it seems that some mysterious force holds me back.

I couldn't think too much about it due to the fact that my head was about to explode from some kind of creeping headache, not quite a migrain, but something closing in on that definition. The Stones weren't helping much so I thought I might go out back for a while. I made my way through all the twists and turns of the house, past the room of mirrors, past the ruby red room, past the old dungeon, past the magic portal room, and out the back door.

For some reason the back door was smaller than all the rest of the doors in the house and you had to kind of crawl down on your hands and knees to get through it. The hallway, the long hallway that leads to it kind of tapers in towards the end. Very peculiar design if you ask me.

Anyway, so out on the back stairs, admiring the view. Where we lived was on this kind of big hill, so the back staircase had on it a couple of hundred steps descending down into a kind of grassy jungle valley, all overgrown because we never mow it. I'd be surprised if anyone ever has. Out past our thriving mass of vegetation is the nextdoor mass of units, shooting out of the ground, high up into the clouds. A few years back a whole lot of developers had moved their enterprises into the area, so now its like a combination of the really old and nice old houses and then these giant great tall buildings jutting out all over the place like crazy. Certainly gives the place a touch of veriety at least.

And so I sat there on the back steps looking down to the valley below and up to the tops of the highest residential units on the block, the wall facing us was this bright ugly blue that hurt your retina if you stared at it for too long, so I soon looked away. I sat there in the late morning sun, and slowly my head began to feel quite a bit better.

in the distance a bird called out in a strange tone. Just then i noticed something coming up towards me, up the stairs towards the house. It was so far away that I couldn't make it out at first down there in the jungle, but once it got up the first fifty stairs, I could see that it was some kind of animal, a cat or something. It was a cat, a black one, all black except for a little bit underneath its chin. I wondered if that still counted as bad luck, because technically speaking it's not a black cat, it was a black and white cat. I thought how brilliant it would be if it were zebra striped. I had some paint out back. It was quite a lot of effort though fortunately for the cat.

Friendly cats are a delight, this one however was not especially friendly towards me, though I wouldn't say she was hostile either, just a little bit indifferent. She walked straight up to the very top step to where I was seated, turned around and just sat staring at the stairs that it had just traversed, like it was some kind of massive achievement. It was quite an achievemt though, I have to say. If you've ever tried to walk up those stairs, you'd know what I mean.

The cat didn't move much, except to look up at me every so often. I might have been crazy, but I felt that it was acting awefully strange for a cat, and it seemed to be getting a little agitated, flicking its tail around a little bit. I decided to pat it a little. That seemed to keep her satisfied for a little while, but for long, and she kept making these strange meowing sounds, unlike any other cat that I'd heard before. I tried not to let her ruin the vibe I was getting just sitting out there in the sun, but to tell you the truth, I almost wished she would just go back into the jungle and leave me the hell alone.

I decided to ignore her for a bit. The meows kept coming, louder and louder each time. Then i heard the voice of Falcon in the background.

"Hey Fisher! Are you going to feed that cat or what, or is she going to go about it all freakin day?"

I was astounded by his ability to tell that that's what she wanted, and I got up and headed to the kitchen, only to find her eagerly following me.

The Talking Cat that Everyone Can Hear Speak Except Fisher So as you may or may not have already guessed by reading the title of this chapter -- I've now given up on numbering them. Don't worry, I'm sure if you've come this far you'll be able to keep up -- the cat that followed me into the kitchen was some kind of mystical talking cat that from what I could guess was from somewhere in Siam or somewhere like that. The only thing was, strange as it may be, I was unable to hear it speak. Usually I can hear everything speak, even things that no one else could hear, and people would be going around calling me the crazy one.

Of course, I didn't accept this story first up. When I got into the kitchen, Falcon was in there looking at me like I was some idiot.

"So are you going to feed her or what?" he asked. "She keeps asking for it. She wants it bad."

I immediately thought he was acting a little nutty. "What do you mean she's asking for it? How in all hell do you know that she's hungry."

"Well, derr, she's been saying it for about fifteen minutes now. She would like some kind of trout or something. I think she can smell that thing you keep in your pocket for some reason."

"Who, Westy? I'm not giving her Westy! She can go to hell if she wants to eat Westy, Westy's my friend.

"Well you better feed her something soon. It's alright sweety, we'll get you something soon."

"Who you calling sweety?

"The Cat, you moron! Sorry what was your name little one?" The cat was circling around my ankle, suspiciously looking up at my left

pocket.

"Her name is Misty. I think there's some old cheese in the fridge. Get her that."

I of course thought he was just having a go, pulling my leg for laughs and everything, shits and giggles.

"Piss off Falcon you bastard!"

"Look, are you going deaf or something? You really can't hear her speak?" He was either being serious or had just been six months training with the actors studio. I looked at him suspiciously for a few minutes, but couldn't sense a thing wrong with his performance.

"Wait a minute, cats don't eat cheese." I said defiently.

"Have you ever owned a cat?"

"No" "Well, trust me, they love cheese."

I played along. "Well alright" and went over to the fridge to cut a slice. Misty pretty much jumped up and grabbed the cheese right out of my hand, almost taking half my index finger with her.

"Where the hell did you find that cat anyway?"

"I don't know, she kind of just walked in from out back. We really need to mow that lawn. It's literally turned into a jungle out there.

There could be all kinds of outlandish animals breeding and evolving in that place." I asked him what she was saying now.

"Alright I'll translate for you, but really Fisher, you should go clean out your ears or something. Misty is talking clear as day. She's saying, alright Misty, go ahead and I'll translate.

'Hello Mr Earl Gray Fisher. I have travelled many miles to meet you.

Thankyou for the cheese by the way, and sorry about your finger. My

master is the Empress of Lolliander. She seems to think that you visited her sometime and she has a message for you. She says: "Greetings Sir Fisher. I have sent my cat Misty in order to find you and to bring you this message. It appears that I have somehow, through no fault of my own, though perhaps I was a touch careless in my dealings, somehow been kidnapped by some kind of shapeshifting demon who appears to go by the name of Luci. He, she, or it has taken me captive and put me in some kind of tower somewhere. I'm not entirely sure where it is, but it's atop a great hill, and I have wonderful views all around, though none of them are familiar. I have called to you for aid because of that one magical night we had oh so long ago. I remembered you telling me about some dealing at a crossroads and you got some kind of old record. I have heard this Luci talk about this record many times. Apparently he wants it back and I've heard him say that he would 'trade anything just to listen to that record one more time', so this is what I am asking of you Earl Gray Fisher: to dig up that old dusty record, somehow find where I am being held prisoner, and come to rescue me by giving Luci what he/she seeks. I just know that I can count on you Fisher. Oh yes, and could you bring back my magical guitar if you have it handy as well. I feel like playing it again."

And that, Earl, was my mistresses message to you. And now that I have delivered it to you. I have been instructed to help you carry out your task in any way that I can, though if what you say is true and you really cannot even hear me speak, then I think that task is going to be quite difficult.'

"And that's pretty much what Misty said ok Fisher. Pretty strange if you ask me. What the hell have you been getting up to?"

I needed some tea, and quick. There's no way I could get involved in something like this. I mean sure, that night with Epress what's her face was fun, but I didn't count on it developing into anything serious. This was a veritable mission, and I was just some crazy nut from Farmstead.

Ahhh, that was better. I left Misty and Falcon to their idle conversation, and started thinking. Luci, Luci, I had run into that guy

a few times before, always hanging around crossroads and stuff that guy. Really strange kind of guy. He must live around here somewhere. That record. Where was that record? I'd pretty much forgotten all about that.

"Hey Falcon, what did you do with that record that she was talking about?" I hoped that he would remember. But he didn't have the foggyest notion of where it could be. That guitar as well. Did I even still have it? Had I ever had it here? My memory at that time was shocking, like I've siad before, and things keep phasing in and out of reality.

Walter S. Fisher III Explains Himself Away Though there was of course almost an infinitum of preceedings to this particular phase of existence that I feel now somehow obliged to convey, for some strange reason, it all started I guess when me and my friend, Earnie Longshore began playing together. Playing music I mean of course, the only way to play.

A Little Mind-Wander with Earl Gray Fisher Well it was just about as much excitement as I could handle all this and my brain couldn't really take it any more, so I decided I'd have a little sit down and sip on some jagger root tea and clear my head. The cat hung around like it said it would, but it stopped talking for a while. I knew this because Westy told me, as Falcon had gone into his room to listen to some new Rolling Stones records that they'd just released, the undiscovered colection that they only just discovered like the week before.

I had this thing to write anyway. I'd started writing this crazy little book of wanderings, oh that's right, the one that I was writing on the train. Yes it still had my entry from when I was on that train, even though Falcon swears I never went anywhere and it was all in my head.

"Westy, has the cat said anything yet?" I asked into my pocket.

"Nothing Mister Fisher man, look over there. He be alseep. Yes-siree." he spat out, splashing around.

I took my book out and started to re-read that part I'd written on the trian, trying to work out what it all meant, but it was too much for me, so I just opened a new leaf and started writing again. Actually, I better tell you about this book. It's a funny story actually.

My friend, Ron works at a giant department store which I won't name in here, but it's one of those big ones with the black and the white. He works in there a lot, they put him up in electronics, but anyway I was speaking with him one day and he said that they'd just put up a brand new Christmas display and there was a huge bookshelf filled with books of all different kinds. And so one day he was curious and decided to take a look at one of these books, so he pulled down one right and took a look inside. Totally blank, just blank pages. So he pulled down another, and it was the same. On the

outside they looked just like regular books, but on the inside they were just paper with nothing written on them.

Anyway, when they pulled down the display, Ron volunteered to take the books home with him, so he's got a whole huge library, real impressive, of books with nothing in them. I guess in a way it kind of reflects his character a little. So back to the books, I was over admiring his collection one day when I noticed this one book, on the spine in little letters was written "ego". I pulled it down and sure enough all the pages were blank blank blank.

"That one's a good read." he told me, playfully. "Go on, take it home and give it a go" So I did, and now it's about a quarter of the way filled with my various mind wanderings, just whatever golden rubbish comes into my head at the time I'm writing. It seems to calm my thoughts a bit from the giant hurricane that they are usually in.

The tea was helping a little. I started to write.

Sinbad Sails His Song Down the Stream Fallen away with my name is what I really want to do, though we don't think there's enough time or money to be wanting to do that.

It's all in good faith, and all in good time that we all know our way around the place without so much as a time of day or going away.

Pain looks back into the burning abyss of the night's cauldron.

The people have spokem, and some have gone away, gone away to find themselves a better day. A place where they can live free and in harmony with each other and the universe at large. That is why, what is why there is such wonderment abounding. That is why there is such astounding astonishments wherever you may look.

Ballons sing songs about how they can float so high and yet never touch the sky. Railroad tracks tell stories about how they can travel

from one side of the country to the other, yet never leave the ground.

The giant water faring oil tanker hauls its cargo along, knowing full well what it will be used for. The little homeless boy is walking the streets again while his father denies him again and again, wasting away on wall street.

The language that is spoken among men is alive and living well beyond its years. Many may say that within us all there is something that should be outside. There is no inside and outside, it is all inside, except all that is outside. All that is outside can be internalised.

Enough philosophy and let's get on with it.

Bling bling, there goes little laurenza in her fast little car, driving about all stylishly and winking at all the boys and making their hearts go aflutter. She always wears high heels and a low cut dress and you can always see her cleavage for miles on end. Where does she go at night when she sneaks out the bathroom window? Nobody knows exactly.

And who's that over there by the post office square. It's little lousy Tommy boy the page boy, looking so dirty and clean all over. He likes to go from house to house at night and look into all the windows. Right little peeper he is. Loves to watch them dirty little birds getting themselves off in their rooms. Loves it to pieces, oh that dirty little peeping Tom. Right right, roll call time again, it's the professor who sits around all night drinking brandy straight from the bottle, but no one knows. He lever lets on that he drinks, but when he's alone in his study that's when he lets loose, that's when he has all his brilliant ideas. That's when he is truly free. Professor Mongomery, the greatest writer known to mankind.

Look over there, it's the lady who wears those little short skirts so that you can pretty much see everything. I like that lady.

Now let's not get all out of hand or anything. Let's just think this through, or mayne that's just what we don't want. Too much thinking though can be a bad thing, and we don't want anything bad now do we?

Monkey washing hte deep dishes, go down to the pantry cupboard and get me some laundry detergant, for it is oh so cold in here.

I Did the Dishes in the Dark An avant guard novel by Earl Gray Fisher I did the dishes in the dark. That's what I did, and I did it good. I did those dishes the best I could, and I did those dishes like nothing else.

It was dark, those dishes when I did, those dishes in the dark, it was oh so dishy and dark. It was dark enough to do the dishes I'd say, it was dark enough to do them well. And afterwards, those dishes were well, well, well, well, done.

A Constant Painter Once there was a painter named Constant, and he painted all the time. Oh my how he would paint. He would paint the most detailed paintings that you ever beheld and they would be constantly moving and flowing with beauty. This painter at last died, but the paintings lived on. That is the moral of the story, this story, the whole story.

The Late Great Poet Kingsmen come with me on this journey of absolution. Wring out your decaying corpses of yonder foundlings, and lay waste to all those good sould living in the towns and countries of the peaceful. Attempt to at least you might, but you'll find it is you who will be wasted in the end, for we are free and invincible in our ideals. You will not touch us, you will not even cause a blemmish upon our skin with your phoney war.

The time has come good captain to put away your swords. It is a new day and nothing will stop us from progressing. It is a reflection of us this fighting, and what is it that we can do about it all? In the real world this is not the way things are meant to be, but htey are and that means that it is, but it doesn't have to be does it?

Distant longing can you come down and say to me that the way to a peaceful existence is to live every moment like it was you last and to be a free loving person with an open heart like those knowingly giving their souls to rock n roll. Know not what it is that takes us there, but do know just when it will get there because you never know when this thing is going to blow. Tiger headed nonsense, come fill the page with your age.

You enter the room and you hear the sounds and you see the sighs.

Revolution is in the air. I can feel it, though know not where it comes from. Music that's the ticket. You can feel it can you not? You can feel it, can you know what it is like?

Deep breathless beauty, who knows what it will be like?

The winds of change are blowing down the street. The fellow fathers they want us all to meet, and going to market to sell them their feet, and give away their daughters to the travelling elite. Done away with whiskey, done away with wine, done away with debauchery of every other kind, but you my dear I will never give up, not when my mind is an open cup. Fill me my dear, fill me up to the brim, for I can be your vessel you'll be atravelling in.

Ladies how I know you well. Well enough to kiss and tell. Well enough to wait in vane. Well enough to start again.

Would you say to all those willing to hear, that the most productive thing is to sit and stare. At the walls, at the floor, we've all heard the news, that the next thing you know you could never abuse.

Incandescence burns in the moonlit night, that's why we dream our little dreams, and how do those dreams come to be, they come to be by a little process I like to call "evolution", and it is this so called "evolution" that dreams are dreamt. Now I'm not talking about the

dreams that you have when you're alseep. I'm talking aspirations all the way. How do aspirations get into people's heads? I asume you right now may even have some aspirations about what you would like to do in the future, what dreams that you might want to fulfil, something that once you've achieved it, then you will be happy.

Now we all know that being happy will probably not be something that a lot of people will have to endure. It's in our nature to be dissatisfied with our current existences, it's what gets things done in this place.

But we're diverging quite a bit I think. What we're talking about here are dreams. It's really not that complicated. Dreams exist and live within human minds right, so they owe their existence to us, and so they form a symbiotic relationship with us, but in order for them to survive, they must procreate, otherwise they will die, because all humans die and if all the humans with the dreams that they have die without passing that dream on to the next lot, then that dream will die along with it. Now the really intelligent and complex dreams devise ways of not dying, that's why they're here in the first place. So those dreams that survive are the ones that make their host perosn do something that will inspire others to take on that same dream.

Ok, so you need an example. Let's take music for example. The dream of being a rock n roll star, makes people want to make music, and so when other people listen to that music they too want to do the same. Alright so I'm bad at examples, but you get the general idea don't you?

Good enough, but for now, let's get back to the story.

The Record Store or "Pixie Hut" as it is Sometimes Called, and the Search for Said Record Store So this was all getting a little too complicated and difficult for me to go into what exactly happened. I think I took a nap at one point because I was feeling a certain haze of mystery come over me. When I awoke it was night time. I don't much like the daylight anyway. I think I've said that before. So that night when I woke up I decided I'd start out on this quest type thing.

So I haphazardly rounded everyone up and took them out the front door. We were going to the park. I was kind of terrible at coming up with any kind of plan at all so I consulted Falcon about what was to be done. He was the ideas man, but I suspect he was getting some of his ideas from Misty following along behind. I couldn't quite make out what exactly she was saying, but I was almost beginning to tell when she was talking and when she was just meowing and trying to snatch Westy the trout from my left pocket. Westy of course was no help at all, always out of it most of the time in his own little world.

He'd made quite a home for himself deep down in there in my left pocket, like some kind of octopuses garden or something.

So that plan that Falcon came up with was that we should scout around for a shop that might have a copy of that record that I got from Luci that crazy night down at the crossroads. He'd been in his room trying to listen again to the mystical record that seems to put you in a trance and keeps repeating something about New Emitex or something.

I came in there and had the idea that we should try playing the record backwards. And oh my that was a good idea, but the record was still broken, still scratched so all we got was a kind of satanic "zet-ee-mee wenn, zeteemee wenn" over and over again. That made absolutely no sense to anyone except the Misty the cat who Falcon translated that she thought it sounded like some kind of Egyptian dialect.

We gave up on that idea pretty quickly anyway because the record kept skipping and we were getting bored and stuffy from being in the house so long. So anyway now back to when we went for this walk to the enchanted park. So the idea was that we should go searching for a record store that might have a copy of this record, but the chances were slim. Falcon knew all the record stores in the area, but apparently if there was one record store that would have it, it would be at the very famed record store that keeps moving locations. I don't mean that it keeps shutting down and opening up in a new location around town, no, they all do that in a way if you live here long enough I'm told, but this one was a special of course. It had the best records and all kinds of other things as well like giant old posters and wall sheets that could just trip you out for hours on end. It was really something. But yea, the problem was, you never quite would know where abouts this record store was due to the fact that it would always be moving. It was never in the same place twice. It was like lightning. Sometimes you'd just stumble upon it some day and even if you weren't going to buy a record that day, or hadn't planned to, you'd just have to go in there anyway due to the rare fact that you found out where the place was. There was always lots of groovy stuff in there anyway.

So we had the idea of looking for this record store, but that was just the problem. You'd never be able to find it. It would just suddenly appear as you walked down the street or looked around. It wasn't too hard to miss. On top were these great big neon wings, pixie wings that shone so bright in the night, and you'd swear that in you didn't know better that that's how the place kept moving around, by flying.

The place was known as the Pixie Record Hut or just the Pixie Hut for short, though it didn't have any signage up or anything that would identify it as that; everyone just knew that that's what it was called.

It was run by this guy who everyone just calls pixie boy, really skinny like a rake, like half a rake, and tall too, well sometimes. Strange, cause sometimes you'd see him and he'd be really tall, and then other times he would just be normal height. I don't know what it was, maybe the shoes. He would always be wearing these little elf-like pixie shoes, long and pointy that kind of curl up at the end, and he would always talk in this high little voice and really fast too in a kind of an accent that you couldn't quite place, some kind of elf language

influence or something like that. I'm not really too sure as I didn't get into Tolkien that much when I was a kid.

Anyway, we didn't really have all night to walk around and just wait for the off chance that we might run into the Pixie Hut, which really was a very rare occurence that would happen just perhaps seven or eight times a year or so. Actually it depends upon the person really, and seems to change and cater for people who like to go to record stores a lot. I'm not quite sure how it works, but it's pretty groovy nevertheless. So what we had to do was to come up with a way to find the Pixie Hut without having to just stumble past its neon glow.

That's where it becomes tricky, because it seems the moment you even think about trying to look for it, it seems to never be around.

What we needed to do, and what I came up with that we should do is to go and climb on the giant rope towers that were over yonder and just chill out for a bit.

I tried, oh I tried not to think that perhaps, maybe there was a small possibility that from way up there on the towers, we might, out of the corner of our eye, just spot those glowing wings in the distance. I certainly didn't tell the others. They thought I was just going of on another tangent an a peculiar little wander.

"The towers?" questioned Falcon, "Come on Fisher, what about the Empress?"

"The Empress, the Empress, always on about the Empress. You know what Falcon, I think you may be developing quite a liking for this Empress, quite a shine."

"Oh that's rediculous! You're the one who's got the obsession. I'm just in it for the gold. She's gotta be rich or something, and if we rescue her, then I'm sure there'll be a hefty reward."

"Whatever, let's just go play on the rope tower things. They're brilliant!"

So we made the treck over there. They are pretty good actually, going up into the sky in two towers, the huge long shafts in the middle made of metal and then sprawling out from all sides are the

intertwining ropes spiraling down. They were pretty high right up the top. One of the towers was taller than the other. We found that out the first time we attempted the climb. It was such a challenge just to get to the top of the short one, and you can't tell from the bottom that they're not the same height as each other. So we got right up to the top and then looked over at the other one and saw that it was about five metres taller than we were, the high mast tower, though we were exhausted and had to leave the big climb until the next treck in the park.

We knew which one to climb that time though, the tall one and sure enough it turned into a race before too long; it always does with me and Falcon. There's always some kind of competitive thing going on, which is strange because we're so different in a lot of ways. I guess that's good though because it means that sometimes he wins and sometimes I win. As it happens I knew that I was the better climber by far, but I would always slow the pace down a little bit and let him catch up to the point where he thinks he's going to be able to overtake me, but then I just quickly hike up another two levels like a spring. What I didn't count on that night was Misty, with her cat climbing skills she of course made it right up to the top without breaking a sweat, and while Falcon and I were still clambering near the bottom.

That night I'd say the towers were pretty tall. Sometimes they get real tall like tall poppies and you just want to chop them down, but then sometimes they're not that tall and you can climb up them without too much effort. Luckily they were really tall this time, because it might serve well for looking out and finding record stores, though I was trying real hard not to think of that, but you know how it is when someone tells you not to think of an elephant, it's pretty hard not to think of an elephant. Try it right now why don't you, try as hard as you can to no think of an elephant right now. I think the best way is to think of an anti-elephant, not the absense of an elephant but like the existential opposite of an elephant, whatever that might be.

But that's beside the point anyway. Eventually we go to the top. My oh my was it high, so very very high. We sat up on the top rung all puffed out and everything. Falcon pulled out one of his cigarettes, one of his special cigarettes that he gets from his Doctor Robert, or

Doctor Dick as he likes to call him. He offered me one and I would normally have declined, but I was feeling rather peculiar for some reason that day and I decided just to have a puff of his. Perhaps it would help us relax and find this record store or something, I thought, trying really hard not to think about that.

"What the hell do you keep looking around for? Misty wants to know" Falcon called out to me.

"Oh, nothing, nothing at all. I was just um, hey look there's the rubbish man.

The rubbish man it seems, comes around and collects all the rubbish from all the bins in the park. I think he must live in the park or something, because he's always around and maybe it takes him all night to empty all the bins then sleeps all day and then comes out again when it's night again. We talked about what a life that would be to live and decided that it should be a splendid idea if we recorded this rubbish man a song and leave it on top of a bin one night for him to find. The song would be a dedication to him and he would go home and listen to it and wonder who exactly it was who recorded this song for him.

Still no sign of that record store.

What better time to record it than right there and then, so we did.

Maybe it would distract my mind. I pulled out by pittiful portable multi-track recordamatatron and we started up. We got everyone to join in, Westy, Misty, the bats in the trees. There were these bats trying to eat fruit from the mango trees next to the rope towers. They were huge mango trees, almost as tall at the towers, and the mangoes that grew on them were the finest in all the land. Big and juicy and oh that taste that could almost send you to heaven. But anyway, there were bats eating them and we called out to them to bring some over, and so they did. It was great, and then we got them to make some really high pitched notes on our recording. So it wasn't too long before we'd gotten all the parts down pat and so I mixed it down and pushed the button to make it spit out a little CD. Our song went something along the lines of:

Oh ho hi di ho, the rubbish man will come and go.

He takes the rubbish and carts it off Into the night he goes he goes, Into the night he goes.

Where he came from no one knows, Where he's going, nobody knows, He sings a song as he travels along The rubbish man will sing this song Yea, well it might have been a little different to that. I'm not sure because now the rubbish man has presumablly the only copy in existence of that song. Actually now that I think of it, the song didn't really go anything much like that at all. It was a pretty good song. I just made that up then kind of how I thought that the song would go if I had written it myself, and of course the original rubbish man song was written by us as a collective and so using our collective intellect we were able to devise something that no single man ever could. It really was quite something special. Oh I'd give anything just to get my hands on a copy of that, just so that I could listen to it one more time. Oh and the reason that it still wasn't on my recordamatatron device is a long story that I won't go into at this particular point in the story; maybe later. It would have really blown his mind anyway, let's just say that.

Anyway, I had my sneaking suspicions that the others really were up there looking for that record store as well, the great glowing pixie wings, and that's the reason why I was having such a hell of a time finding it out of the corner of my eye. But it seemed like our little diversion worked because just as Falcon was fashioning a paper plane envelope to send our little recording down to the next bin, right out of the corner of my right eye, I saw it, the big neon wings, the Pixie Record Hut in all its glory.

"It's over there!" I shouted at the top of my lungs and it kind of made Falcon loose his balance a bit at the exact moment that he was about to launch the paper plane envelope down down down from the top of the tower to the lowly of lows, the rubbish bin. I'd like to say it happened in slow motion because of the drama in that, but it didn't really, it kind of happened really fast. Falcon fell from the top of the tallest rope tower and tumbled down to the darkness below.

It was almost quite humorous had it not been for the very real fact that Falcon could either by seriously hurt or even dead. If it were a cartoon, I'd be laughing my guts out all over the place, but it wasn't and I slowly made my descent to see if he was lying dead on the ground. I told the others to wait up top, the others meaning Misty and our new bat friend Quippy who sang backup vocals on the recording. It seemed he was one of those band members that you just can't seem to get rid of no matter how hard you try. He was a good kid anyway.

But yea, Falcon, on the ground, very serious, could be a very grave turn of events. Are you sensing yet that I'm going to take this chapter to a close and am trying to build suspense so that you go on and can't wait to read the next chapter. Well sincerely hope I succeeded, yet I absolutely know that there will be some people reading this now who will not care in the slightest about poor old Falcon, and will put down this rediculous book right after this chapter. Of course I'm also assuming that most people who have somehow started reading this book would have torn it up into pieces about one twenty-fifth of the way into it. Either way, we'll see what happens in the next chapter.

Coming up, right after this...

A Little Bit of Nonsense Dong diddle went dimpley do do plat, when she downed the dwight of light board in blenting fruhooloo! Pont the Gong thong pair of tongs, we strop the frop the drop the cop of the mop, until there is nothing left to say except all the words in the world, and then all the words that are not in the world. You see where I'm coming from now? You see? Oh no, you don't see do you, you will never see. But hey, that's the way things go in the jungle you see, that's the way things go. Bling blabble blu ba, look a dabble do da.

You like nice things. Oh yes you do. Da!

A Little More Sensible Nonsense.

So I better put down this little part in my book where I had this really great brainstorm when outside a monster storm came down upon us.

Now, seeing as it is storming here now, I thought what better way to write the day away. Granted this storm now is nowhere near the immensity of the storm that hit us way back then. Oh that storm was insane, covered the entire city and turned the daylight black as night.

Thunder and lightning was cracking down every few seconds, all around and right after each other so you know they're close. The rain came pouring down for hours upon end and the whole suburb of Farmstead was flooded. We went out and played in the swimming pool that our backyard had turned into and we got Falcon's surf board and headed over to the park. It was a hell of a good time.

Anyway, here's what came of it as it happened, in my little ego book.

The rain withers through the heart strings of your fairy tale mind, as the windy peaks of babylon blow down the houses of the three little pigs. All known and none blown is where you will meet us, walking and singing in the rain of want and neglect. Peaceful village people grow fond of the steely skyline and want nothing more than to walk with the great ones who are walking with them already.

Standing all in a line they fall down constantly hugging and sitting up in the televised tree of knowlege, coming down, coming all the way down to the ground, but you'll never know what hit you until you find a way to walk through the valley of the shadow of death without being stolen or misused. So hard is it to know all the things you do not know, that people will often find themselves learning nothing at all but what they already do know. To know the unknown is to know yourself.

To know yourself is to know the unknown, until you know it and then it just turns into something oddly familiar, like a home that you haven't been to in fifty years, trudging back to the farmland up the hill and over the water's edge. Lay still my dear dreaded passion, I have not finished my procedure as yet, and it seems you may or not be enjoying this, so I will continue regardless of your nondescipt lack

of negative enthusiasm. A long time ago we saw this thing come to a standstill, and now it seems the time has come to know that the king will one day be peasant and the peasant will one day be king. Look around you, all you see is golden. Look behind you, all you see is black. My heart and it beats often. My eyes and they blink too much.

My hand and it works with noble vigour. My teeth and they bite the hand that feeds.

And now for a little detour, I as skillfully going to explain to you the secrets of the universe, so listen up cause here I come. What a shame.

And once you begin to unfold the basic contruct of existence, the path come clear, very clear and it shoots up to the sky with all the angels in heaven. Imagine that there is for a moment, and imagine them all with no possessions. Their harps are made of stone and belong to the state, so you better remain true, you better not cry because you just might find the very thing that you're looking for is right there under your nose.

Here's a teaching, better than any of those other people, those new agey people, though emergence it seems is everywhere and the market can decide what is the worst for the people. I will go the opposite and sway will come my way.

The Evolution of Blah So kids this is what we're going to be talking about today. Oh isn't it fun! Today we're going to be talking about the evolution of a whole bunch of stuff and finally you are going to understand the secrets of the world, the big unexplainables can be understood and dealt with in an eager mind with little to no difficulty on the part of the thinker. So kids, put on your thinking caps for the day and let's get started.

So we don't start at the start because that's the stupid way to start.

You start right now. Now I'm not saying I know everything, but I can take a guess that if you're reading this, you're most likely a human, or a computer and you live on a planet that you know of as Earth, or

something similar. It will depend upon your language of course, but if we can assume that you're not reading a translated version of this piece of writing, then it can be relatively a sure thing to assume that you can speak English. Ok, so I can also tell that you would be alive too, most likely.

Anyway, let's not do you, let's do my because that might be a little easier.

On second thoughts, this is dreadfully hard. Back to basics for a while, just a short while however.

So the night watchman creeps inside a bedrobe don't you know that the wind blows straight down into the ctreets of New York, the chosen capital of the kingdom of heaven. We draw blood when we walk around town and see the devil saying what's what wherever we shall go.

Let's try some haiku.

We never worry A long chain of following Is never aloof Sitting asunder The clouds roll away from you You start to roll too Freedom is what you get when you're not terrified any more.

Finding Falcon and the Locating of the Pixie Record Hut Now where were we again? Oh that's right, Falcon had just fallen off the top of the giant rope towers and had dissapeared from sight. I had begun to become really worried actually that he may have really hurt himself or something. The descent was difficult and unsteady and I nearly lost my ballance a few times. I can't believe that kids actually climb up this with such ease and shorefootedness. I was rubbish compared to most of those kids. I wonder if it is a skill that you start to lose when you start to get older or if kids these days are just getting to be much better climbers than our generation.

Whatever, it was probably because I was just worried about Falcon and maybe half to do with that Dr Robert's special medicine from the top of the tower. Anyway, I descended into darkness and the darkness just kept on coming, until at last I found the ground. I looked around, everywhere, and no sign of the F man. Where was he? I started thinking that maybe he'd fallen into one of those hollows in the ground. There are quite a few that you have to be careful of in the enchanted park. If you fall in one of those holes it takes you on a slide-like journey, kind of like Being John Malcovich and then puts you inside some random person's body for a little while then spits you back out usually somewhere in the city. It's a good way of getting into town though if you don't have money for a bus ticket and you don't mind the mind-blowing freakout of having to experience the world though a random stranger. Sometimes it can be hard going, but most of the time it can really be an eye opening experience. The holes are rarely found these days though, but I thought he may have fallen into one of those, which would have been a bad thing because then I'd have to go pick him up from the city. I didn't see any holes anyway.

A cloud had moved past the moon and lit up the are just a little. I looked around, all around and saw no sign of him, and then, looking up to the moon, a huge orchestral climax alerted me to the scene, that it must be pretty important. What it was that I saw was some

kind of bird flying up into the sky and past the moon, making a kind of sillhouette against the bright light in the sky. I don't think the music really suited the scene though all that much, but it was ok. The bird flew past and then it was gone.

Jeez, what I'm trying to get across in a not too well manner is that the bird up there was a symbol of Falcon rising from the ashes, or from his descent, from his fall and flying again, kind of like a reincarnation type thing or a symbol of enlightenment. So just imagine that I'd come up with all this gorgeous language to describe that.

What really happend I believe was that Falcon had a near death experience and had fallen behind that bush just near the rope towers, and he had released, rather much like at the end of Bladerunner, a small falcon that flew off into the night. He didn't die however of course, and he didn't actually turn into a falcon, as I know some of you were thinking, but it did represent a vital step in his evolution towards enlightenment.

"Fuck! What happened?" the old mulberry bush said. It was actually Falcon from behind it.

"You fell off you clumsy fucker. Scared the shit out of me. But whatever, I've found the record shop. I saw it, the Pixie Hut. It's right over there, that way. We better hurry before it moves again." He was of course a little dazed and confused still and disorientated, and a little discombobulated, but he managed to follow along. I called up to Misty and to Tootie the fruit bat and they started to follow in the direction of the record shop in the distance. I just prayed that it would still be there when we arrived, because I knew that if it wasn't still there, then we'd have to do that whole business of looking for it all over again and then I'd have to tell it again and then you'd get really bored because nothing in the story would be happening, nothing new anyway, and you'd stop reading because you'd have like about a million other better things that you could be doing right now.

In fact that's what actually happened and I'm just saying that we found it first go just to keep things interesting and not like life, so repetitive and not story like.

Whatever, we got there, all of us, even our newly acuired pal Tootie

who seemed to like to run around on his two hind legs, kind of skipping along merrily following on his way. He could fly but then how was he going to talk to any of us, and plus he said he needed the excersise anyway. So we all got there and were standing out the front of the record store, the big neon wings glowing above us. It was quite impressive. It always is. Inside is even more impressive.

We could see in through the glass windows, all those records lined up in rows and all the rows lined with beams and strings of lights, it was totally decked out. We couldn't wait to head on in there and just start looking around, even if we didn't find the record we were looking for, there was certain to be something that we could just take home and listen to, tune out from the world for a bit and just get really emmersed. We all approaced the center door, only to find a little note stuck there on the glass door.

Nature calls, will be back in 5 or 6 or 35 or 2897.

Either is a distinct possibility, though non-exclusive.

Best wishes and love eternal, Pixie Boy How peculiar, we thought, and began taking up our places to wait for Pixie Boy, hoping that it would be one of the first few times, and that his call to nature will not be too long. So there we were, all sitting up against the glass shopfront, and we started to talk.

The Nonsense We Talked About Outside The Pixie Record Hut and How it Affected Our Subconscious Minds Individually as well as Our Collective Unconscoius We waited, and we waited and waited and waited, for ages and ages and ages, and we thought about leaving, but every time we thought about it, we thought that that would just put us right back to where to started from, and we'd have to find the record store all over agian, so we stayed, and we waited, an dwe talked about a whole plethora of different topics. We talked and talked and talked and thought and discussed and got in deep, real deep, deeper than any of us had gone before.

Unfortunately I can't seem to recall all the things we were discussing.

Strange how the brain when working on a different level seems to remember only those memories from other times of that being.

Anyway, I'll try to paraphrase some stuff as I think of it. Maybe I'll have to let my mind wander a bit to find those tidbits of information scattered around the mental wasteland.

We dipped into the waters of thought, never ventured and found little nuggets of truth deep within, the ones that seem to make sense in a long and round about way, the things that no one you bet had thought about before, the ones that in your mind you know that you have to remember them, that they will be somehow beneficial to your survival in some way shape or form, even though your better judgement just keeps telling you that it is totally and utterly useless information that you will most likely forget about or if you do remember it, that it would make no sense or you'd think that it's irrelevant when you went back to look at it.

Most of these ideas sure enough have flown my head. A couple still remain, through some strange defect of the brain. We discussed things like guitar picks, and how many each of us had, how many

each of us had bought, and how many we'd found along the way, determining that the real musicians, the authentic ones didn't need to buy guitar picks, that they would invariably just come across them at shows and at gigs and everything on the floor and wherever you find picks, and borrowing them off other people, and that the phoney guitarists are the ones who go out and actually purchase all these fancy picks from shops. I'm not certain how much credit I'd give this theory right now. We went into the drawbacks and everything as well.

Interesting how theories stick in the mind depending on their different qualities. We talked about how this assumption may pose a problem with the supply of picks to people who would want to appear genuine, and that in desperate times these people may have to dress up in a disguise just to go and get picks. It was an interesting conversation at least.

Then we talked a bit about spooning etiquette, you know, like when you're with a girl and you curl yourself around her while she's facing outwards. Oh we talked a whole lot about spooning, when it is acceptable to spoon, when unacceptable, when to put the hand over the top, what of course to do with the hand underneath, like if it gets trapped under there and the blood circulation starts to get cut off, or if you need to roll over during the night, or what happens when the outside spoon is too little for the inside spoon. There was lots more on that topic, but that's all I seem to be able to recall at such little notice. Falcon and I were going to write a book about the whole subject, but I doubt that will ever happen.

We discussed the need for shaving and how the unshaved look seemed to be growing in popularity. We all came to the conclusion that what it saw was happening was that no one had the unshaven look except certain men and of course girls, young men usually, and then the idea that being young somehow was better, which in all likelihood meant that they were more attractive to the ladies, that is, they got more sex, and so it was desirable to have less facial hair, but early on in shaving history, there must have been only a select few who were without facial hair, girls of course, and guys who were rather girl like, but then suddenly some took like the razor came about and suddenly the look grew as the people started to shave off their extra facial hair in order to maintian that certain look. So this look was growing like wildfire throughout the community and every

guy wanted to have it, so then the razor industry took off like nothing anyone had ever seen before, because usually before this, there was not that much new technology that was attributed to the science of looking younger, and so then it was like this new look was selfperpetuating because now these razors were being made into a living population and we all know that populations grow and do not really like to be taken out of existence, but they fight for their existence, that's what led to them having a population in the first place, so these razors began to propagate the idea that having a shaved face is a good thing. They seemed to do this primarily through the advertising media, with images of good looking guys with shaved faces, somtimes with an accompanying girl, or with insinuation that if you had a shaved face that somehow you would be much more attractive to the opposite sex and that they would be falling over themselves to be with you.

That was the basic idea anyway. Of course there was much more that we discussed, but I just can't get access to that information just at this second. It is locksafe up there in the vault.

We talked about how terrible it is to chat to people on the internet, how much conversation is lost in translation. We spoke about the rise and fall of democracy in this crazy country. We talked about how laptop batteries should be made so they lasted a week of constant use before they needed a recharge. We talked about language. We talked about the history of violence and how it has nothing to do with video games. We talked about how voting should certainly remain a citizen's free choice. We talked of the incompetence of government in making any decisions whatsoever. We talked about the working class and the down trodden. We talked about the weather and how the earth is exactly the right environment for thunder and lightning at a regular basis. We talked about how different would views get into different people. We talked about the recent wave of anti-religion that seemed to be spreading through the youth of today and secularist belief and with it, the shift in admiration for the state.

We talked about John Lennon and the time he was with Yoko Ono and the things that she could get away with doing because she was going out with John at the time, like in that Rolling Stones Rock N Roll Circus when she just gets on stage and lets loose with the real

dreadful screeming and that violin player looking all nervous and out of place. Our theory was that there was no one in the room, hell, no one in the country who had the guts to actually say something to John about the situation. No one though to go up to him and say, "Ok John, yes, well, I know she's your girlfriend and all John, but let's be honest then shall we. She can't sing" Yep, no one had the guts to say that. Because you just know that somewhere along the line someone did say something like that, perhaps without noticing or without meaning it, but it didn't get past John and he slapped them down faster then a dirty old engine driver after a girl scout.

And you're just skimming the surface there with what we were talking about. We all put in ideas and everything as well. It wasn't just Falcon and I. It was everyone. Of course someone would always have to translate whatever Misty said when she piped up. None of us still had any idea why on earth it seemed that I was the only one on earth who could not hear that cat speak. We talked about cat boundaries in suburban yards, like where they draw up their borders, and how do they know their borders, about if they knew the other cats around the neighbourhood by smell or whatever, or if they actually had a conception about the other cats' personalities and their pecking orders and what territory belongs to what cat.

It was all quite interesting actually, but it was starting to actually get on in the night, and Pixie Boy was still not back from wherever the hell he was, and then suddenly the conversation went dead. You know when you're in a conversation and then it just fizzles out.

Usually happens to people who don't really know each other too well and they're forced to be alone together. Usually it will just be a short lul in the conversation and then someone would think of something remotely funny and would talk about that. This isn't what happened that time though. We actually went dead for perhaps almost twenty minutes, which in dead conversastion talk is a near eternity.

The silence was broken by the sound of Pixie Boy, coming up the street.

The Inside of the Magical and Mystical Record Store run by Pixie Boy Tommy Yep, Tommy was his name alright. Well that's what he told us anyway I think a little while back. I'm not sure if that is his actual name though because I've actually heard other people call him that name. I think it's just because he likes that Who album "Tommy" quite a bit that he told us that day we were in there looking for some Stones albums, the really obscure ones that you can't find anywhere else. We just called him Pixie Boy anyway.

I'm not sure if we told you or not, but yea, Pixie boy was kind of a punk, well a bit of a try hard punk, a pixie punk if you will. He tried to dress the part, but there were things that he just couldn't quite pull off. He was still really trendy and everything though, had always those skin tight jeans on and those pointy shoes. Oh yes, I remember I have told you that before haven't I? Doesn't matter cause I'd better get on with what happens anyway.

So like I said, we had just had this long discussion about just about every concievable topic in the world and had almost forgotten even the reason that we were there in the first place. In fact I think we did forget for a while, while Tommy came up and opened the shop.

"Hey Pixie Boy, where the hell have you been? We've been waiting here for nigh on a year!" I really let him have it. Well not really; I was kind of joking around, acting like I was really angry and everything, when really there was nothing in the known universe that could possibly make me angry at Tommy. Maybe in the unknown universe though, but we won't go there just yet.

Tommy looked like he'd just come out of a train wreck, literally, all sootty and everything and with his hair all standing on end. Actually what he looked like was when those cartoon characters get shot by a gun and they don't die, they just feel the effects of the smoke and whistles, and mirrors too. He didn't really say where he'd been or even acknowledge that we were there at all really besides a quick nod

of the head in our direction. It was a bit strange because I'd never before seen him out of his shop. I really did want to know where he'd been and what happened to him. I guess it was kind of late at night and he probably was off somewhere doing whatever it is that pixie boys do when they're not in their shops selling records. I didn't want to be too nosey or anything because that might be pushing the relationship and maybe I'll just stop randomly running into this record shop any more, or what would be worse, if Falcon stopped running into this record shop because then he would totally blame me for it.

We all lined up, a line of misfits waiting at the door, and by that time we were all looking forward to just getting in there and finding some rare gems in and amongst the multitude of records that Tommy had.

The door was bolted tight, with about twenty-eight locks all around the door. Tommy unlocked them all with a giant set of keys on a big old keychain. He opened the door and we stepped on through into the other side.

It came from out the back. Oh dear, I'd forgotten, that Pixie Boy had a dog, a little tiny chihuahua named Puffy that had the most annoying and ear splitting bark you could ever imagine. Usually he would be ok though if you let him out. Tommy went to let him out when I yelled out to him to reconsider because of Misty, and that perhaps they wouldn't get along swimmingly. It was too late though and Puffy came bolting out from out back and started running around and doing little back flips everywhere. He was some kind of weird pixie dog and he could do all kinds of tricks and everything all over the place. He could stand on his two front legs and walk around and he could, like we said before, do back flips and all that kind of stuff. He could also kind of bark in a way that sounded like he was talking.

Tommy had tought him to say things like "rerrow" and "corn frakes" and stuff like that. It was crazy.

Anyway the dog Puffy of course went straight for Misty as soon as he saw her, though Misty didn't seem too phased by the this tiny little puppy running towards her that was about half the size of her, so in the end she just have the puppy a good slap in the face and that put him in his place alright, her aparently saying "that'll teach the little

scoundrel", as translated by Tommy who was astounded at my talking cat, which is understandable because he'd been training Puffy for years and all that he could say was a few simple words and phrases, but Misty here (from what others have told me) can actually hold an intelligent conversation without getting confused about what you're talking about or anything. I started to really wonder why it seemed I was the only one in the world who couldn't understand this cat. Perhaps, if we have time, we'll try to go into it more in later chapters.

But I haven't even gone into what the record store looks like when you're on the inside. We might have to wait a little until we really start to get into this. I'm not even sure we're really going to make it, but we'll see.

The Text From the Strange Little Record in the Pixie Record Hut After looking around a bit in the record store, I came across this one record that really took my fancy. It was mostly because of what was written inside the cover. The cover was pretty plain, just a picture of a young guy on a scooter, but even that had some kind of strange mystical charm about it and symbolism of like youth and rebellion and all that kind of stuff. You could read into it so deep i you wanted to, but I guess anything is like that a bit. You can almost read anything into anything if you just make those connections.

Anyway, the text was what I was really attracted to on this record. It was much like the writing that I'd been writing into my book. You know that book that I got from that guy who worked in a department store and he found it in one of the displays at work. Anyway, it was a lot like that.

It was a little bit like this actually, what I'm about to write down, but seriously, don't take it as gospel because to claim something like that would just be a darstadly act to do, and you should be wary of any who claim such a thing. even this.

The text was, right on the inside cover, really small so you could barely read it without squinting, but there was quite a bit of it, and here it is, right, now: And what a night it would have been, if only the winds had been blowing the right way for me. Oh if only, because you take that gamble each time you try for a night, to see where the breeze pleases.

Songs of wisdom hit hard and slow, yet songs hard and fast are the way people seem to be rolling, but they're coming around fast.

Together we can be everyone and no one at the same time and in the same exact place in three dimensional coordinates, where all the people meet -- all the trendy ones at least -- the ones who are shaping this future and doing all that will influence all else in time, those people who's lives will be studied and copied for centuries on end,

those who tell the story, as opposed to those who watch it. Television glows in the centre of the room and all trances towards it shape the destiny of tomorrow and the perceptions of the past. Errol Flynn would weep at the sight, not that I really knew who he was or where he was going to. A few bits and pieces I seem to catch up along the way, but not a lot. You see, a lot of people seem to be quite interested in knowing quite a bit about other people, and what they go on about throughout their days and who they hang out with and all that kind of stuff. They thrive on it. It is their bread and butter. It is their golden glory. It is their all. It is their being. It is them.

Forgiveness is a thing that has been propped up over the centuries as something that may be a good idea. Not many people have been against it, well there are a few actually now that I think of it. You know, the vendetta type. The type that hold grudges; the type who will never let something slide, no matter how many times you say you're sorry; no matter how sorry you actually are, they sill persist in their little games of revenge. Yep, so exactly like that. But yes, so do you think the policy on being human should be the policy of forgiveness, or the policy of revenge? There are quite a few different views on this issue, and you can guarantee that the side against will be ready to take over as soon as the people are, and then the dominant one will be those people.

You see, the interesting thing about ideas is that they almost need to be split down the middle in order for them to have any impact at all upon society. It's a bit like dominant populations and stuff like that.

It's like that with worldview issues as well. Whether one side is able to both battle on in the subject's mind, as well as battle on in the population of minds. And then one must think of what happens before that, or at a smaller scale depending if you subscribe to the view that the small interactions necessarily preceed the larger interactions, on an existental level, no not the movement, or anything really, I just couldn't think of a better word.

Now is the time, more than any, where you can care about being around and about way to go down the street again for that really means that things don't look the same to me and you, to you and me, to the way down south, to the way you walk about, to the highway in your head, that you've been down twice two many, to the broadway

on your mind, that you play two twice daily. It looks like it is going to be that time again. It looks like things are really starting to come back down to earth and not extended all the way to the heaven's. No one knows a thing when it comes down to the end of the day. When they measure it up and see where it's taken us, when they go and they give the dog a new piece of meat that he can chew on for a little while until he gets sick of that. For the poor little children who offer themselves up to this cruel world, never knowing what will happen or where anyone is going to, or who's existence you are influencing or altering or infringing upon. It's nothing to be worried about however, it's just a natural urge to be afraid, so seriously, do not be afraid.

Think of other characters, what they might do if they were not you.

You see, you have a very unique abillity to be able to view other people inside your own head, but then I guess it's not quite so unique. I mena there are literally billions of other humans on this planet who can do the same thing, but they probably aren't nearly as good as it as you are. Anyway, what I'm meaning to say in this whole agenda was mearly the fact that this ability to recreate characters on the fly, in the mind, is a pretty successful trait amonst the animal species, not really amongst the plant species that much, because they didn't really quite need that in order to survive, although it might be handy one of these days, and who knows, there maybe, just may be some guy named the fisherman, who will documenting all of this. He will not go out of history without being remembered for whatever he was remembered for. It is quite hard due to the fact that there are billions of people and yet our primative brain, well, a brain that has evolved over time to conserve space and evergy on the task of remembering characters, but ours is quite good, of course it could be improved upon vastly, it could be improved upon to the point that you could remember any single person who you've ever met or heard about in your entire life and everything about them. You could bring up a person at will and then recreate their entire being right there in your head and you'd be able to rethink your future interactions based upon such a model. Oh but then, but then of course, there is always a but then of course and it will always go something along the lines of, but then of course you would have to keep an eye out for who was disemminating these character sketches, because they could be saying things that vastly differ from the one true word, and that word was good, so then how would one know who the true character is and

where this true character lies in relation to his ultimate congregational position in conceptual history.

Don't even really worry about that just yet even, because it's not exactly what I want to talk about, and of course what I really want to talk about is the writing tecnique whereby a writer, perfectly forming a coherant sentence and then slowly decimating the coherance of that sentence to the point where it doesn't even make much sense of the time of day where you do the laundry but then your mind kind of works around it to get to where it is coming from.

Gravtiate towards those times where you see yourself in someone else. If time is of no importance then why do people keep saying it is of the essence? Think about it. I have about a million of these. I'll be here all night. Long standing citizens of the city should be given by code of law the right not to be bound by any law whatsover should that law not harm another too much. A little is ok, but that's actually what we're doing right now, just testing the waters of what is acceptable harm and what will cause an uproar, meaning the eventual overthrow of an entire system, and replacing it with a new system.

I'm not entirely sure that that ever happens at all really because it sure hasn't happened in my time, but what we're talking absout there are things that take place over the course of many many people's lives, and then you almost forget that they're actually people, and that they once had hopes, dreams, and aspirations.

I would once just like to study, or be able to study the life of an absolute no one. I'm sure there are lots of books about that same topic, because I think it's a thought that most people have during their lives. I would want to be able to go back and see what it's like to be a certain person in history, a king on a throan, or one of the Beatles, or someone like that anyway.

It really pains me to say it, but I think I shall say it just the same. The blonde girls in history will be known by this name. The straight faced beauties will come out to play, and we will see them shine away some other day. You know what you know because of the people you meet, on the street, taking each day week by week. The forest comes to blow you out of the water and into the dark recesses of my imagination, and that's exactly what I'm going to do, and whether you

like it or not, you will be seen with the best and the worst, and what does that make you, up there in your lonely old life? I think that makes me a thinker, and you don't have to be a thinker like they keep telling you. It's alright, whatever you are. All right with me, was going to be the cover and the soundtrack and the slogan and whatever else a phrase like that could be called.

The discussion was backed up a little and the falling shoes were tumbling down the wall like there was no tomorrow. Who knew that this town was so alive. Who knew that there were actually people like that? Who knew that there was something that a poor boy could do and break though and become all that has been and all that will be.

We will see and we will be until they tell us not to and then we'll go to court and tell them what things may be there, and what stocking they should wear, some takings from the mealy worms of wrath.

What surrent circut was the main title of the 1983 cinematic experience that was the olive boy. I loved that film.

Drama of rock n roll takes it toll and sometimes when things seem grey and blue, you should know that there is still someone there who knows exactly what you're going through and who can talk to you, well you can talk to me, you can talk to me, if you're lonely you can talk to me. So the way things are going they're going to get very messy very quickly due to the fact that neither of us would like to know what exactly is going on. We don't like to judge the fact that people aroud us are going to town with the utmost possibility that this will all go to hell. Long distance superglue melts down the plastic that keeps the microwave crackling, you know the little ball things that create the radiation that cooks the food. Anwyay that may or may not be an utter and complete load of nonsense, but the main thing is that I made it. Oh Andy, I've made it, and you have helped me through all of this. To you I owe my live my dear.

Poor children take heart to the fact that people often change, that people often change their skins and their lives for that simple afternoon show of peace and happiness, and that no one knows your name in the streets of happiness. No one knows that your shadow is mearly following along, and doesn't quite know which street you should be on. Time makes it's move oh so quickly, but if you are truly lucky, your time will be made anew each and every revolution.

Time and time again.

Ok, So Enough of that Rubbish and Back to the Story at Hand So that was the record I liked anyway, and I got it alright. The music on it wasn't all that impressive, but I liked the cover. The cover mesmerised me like nothing before. I thought that if ever I was going to do an album I would have a cover like that. And no, I know what you're thinking, it wasn't actually my album that I'd somehow forgotten I'd produced and I'm only now rediscovering again. Or is it? There was no credits on this album. What kind of person creates an album and doesn't even put their name on there or anything? I think I can remember recording something, a long time ago. It could have been it, let's just leave it at that.

Anyway, we weren't even looking for that record, the record we were looking for was the one that was sold to me that night out on the crossroads by Luci. Did we have it with us?

"Falcon did you manage to find that record?" I asked.

"Oh yea sure it's just right here in my pocket". He was being sarcastic of course, or faceicious or whatever the hell you call it when someone says it's right in their pocket when clearly it's not in their pocket and couldn't possibly be in their pocket and they just like to play you for the fool you are who actually looks in his pocket to see if there is actually a record in there.

After telling him how absolutely side-spittingly funny he was I asked if he remembered what the record looked like or what it had on it.

Surely Pixie Boy would know what I was talking about if I described what the cover looked like. So I tried to describe it because Falcon obviously had no clue as to what it was like. I remembered it had on it some kind of thing like the Beatles White Album, or the Beatles' The Beatles album, self-titled mass of brilliance.

Hang on, let me just go back and check in my previous chapters because I know that I wrote it down. It's in this mass of pages

somewhere. Hold on just a second. Do not move. I'll be right back. ...

Ok, I'm back and I found it and now it seems to be all coming back to me now.

"The record is all black, shiny black like the shine on a black slug, all black and minimalistic like the White Album done by that minimalist artist" I said to Tommy at the store, "and it has some kind of embossed letters that I couldn't understand and that's right," that's something I didn't write down earlier, "it had a little number on the bottom, and the number that was on the bottom of the one that I bought from Luci was the number nine hundred and ninety nine." So I figure that there must be at least a few more of these records out there, around a thousand at least if I had number nine hundred and ninety nine.

Pixie Boy scratched his head for a moment and thought deeply, so deeply I thought he'd gone into a trance or something. He was acting a little strange that day actually. I'm not sure what it was. He's usually so aimiable and nice and feisty and friendly. Oh well, it doesn't really matter. I should really be talking more about Pixie Boy I guess because he is an important character, but I just don't think we have the time, so I'll talk about this record and what happened. Well, the moment I described that record, and especially the number nine hundred and ninety nine.

"Oh yes Mr Fisher, oh yes, that record does sound familiar oh me oh my it certainly does." He said this in a very cheerful way but a little bit mysterious and whimsical and some other word too that I can't quite figure out, but you get the general idea anyway. "Do you by any chance have that record. You know it could be worth something."

"Well, actually we lost it somewhere in the house. You know how that house can get sometimes, very temeramental and it seems it is somewhere in the house and well, we can't find it. And besides it was scratched and you couldn't really play it properly and it just kept playing some rubbish about something. I'm not even sure what it was saying really"

Tommy told us the story about these records that they were recorded a long time ago in the time of the actients, sometime in the sixties I think it was, and anyway they were some kind of mystical recordings that gave the listener special powers or something. He didn't elaborate about what mystical powers the listener got, but he did say that there were only about a thousand of them made, and in actual fact that the one that I had may have been the final one printed. I started to wish that I hadn't let that record out of my sight, scratched or not. Anyway he said that these records were extremely susseptible to scratching, so it wasn't at all surprising that the one that I had was scratched. He said they did this on purpose to raise the value of any ones that weren't scratched, a clever tactic, yet somehow it seemed wrong.

I asked Tommy if he happened to have any of those records, but alas he didn't.

"I must apologise Fisher and friends, but I do not have any of those records on my, oh my oh my if I did I would be laughing. If i even had a scratched recording I would be over the moon."

I really wanted to hear about the rest of the story and where those recordings actually came from and who recorded them, but Pixie Boy didn't seem to want to tell me. Maybe he didn't even know. I started to think it was a job for the internet -- if only we had a connection at home. I figured it be these mystical musical shamans from a far away land who put spells on people with their music. Something like that anyway.

So we were all pretty disappointed about there being no records there, the one place that might have it, and we all had our wingy faces on and were about to walk out the door when I spotted Tommy's face out of the corner of my eye. I seem to be good at spotting things out of the corner of my eye, almost better than when I spot things just normally. Anyway on this slender little face, Pixie Boy had a cheeky little smirk, or a smile, or a cross between a smirk and a smile, and he had a glint in his eye that sparkled like the star of david (if that's what it's even called, that star that guided the three wise men to the birth of Jesus) anyways, I imediately knew something was up.

"Hey Pixie Boy, what's that smile for?"

"Oh nothing.."

"Bah! Don't give me that oh nothing nosese, something's up. You've got a copy. You've got a copy of that record don't you? Don't you?"

"Mwa ha ha! Well all I told you was that I don't have any of those records in my possession, although I never said, I never said anything at all about me not having any recordings on tape. Cassette tape, remember, those little box type thingies that you used to have to rewind?"

"Oh yeah right, I think I remember those things, but, hang on a minute. No one uses those things any more. Why don't you have it on CD or something?"

"Oh my dear Fisher, do you not think that I've tried. Each and every way I've tried to copy this tape recording to CD or to the computer or anything like that, but alas it doesn't work. It is something to do with the digital, the recording doesn't like digital and it just doesn't work, and it just comes out sounding like an old Rod Steward recording, really strange, one time it even came out as Elton John's first album. Shocking!

"Anyway, here. I'll make you a copy, just bear with me for one second."

Tommy went in the back room and stayed there for a bit like he was rummaging around for something. Eventually he emerged again with a giant tape deck, twin slots for the tapes and a whole lot of other strange gadgets attached to it that looked like they were custom fitted. He explained that they were to stop the distortion that is produced by the evergy that is released when anyone tries to copy the tape.

I asked him where he was able to get a copy of the record, but he only said that he did something that he wasn't proud of, and that he would take that information to the grave.

We waited as the tape copied and we listened, and we listened, and we fell into this strange kind of trance that took hold immediately. It was as if the music was talking to each of us intividually and knew our inner most thoughts intimately. And suddenly, all of a sudden, a flurry of words came into my head from a place far beyond my own mental perceptions.

These words were as follows.

The Mystical Words That Magically Came Into Earl Gray Fisher's Head As He Listened To the Mysterious Record That He Got From Luci at the Crossroads -- Part I Through the smoke rings you will see the meaning of within you and without you all the way from timbucktoo to where you are going to on this sunday afternoon where the mirrors shine away and steel away, away from the sun, away from the moon, away from all the stars in the high of the sky. Down to the ground you all fall in time, not by way of slighting though the doors of perception, but by way of alighting your mind to the major task at hand. For a long long time we sat and stared at the dust clouds that ran through your mind at that particular time of day and night, and all the times in between you and me, the spaces within the spaces without.

Through no fault of your own you may find yourself reigning in on the harness you yourself have made from the straps across your back from which you were raised. Take this not as punishment, but let it be a sign of forgiveness that the straps are not twice as many and twice as thick and have not barbs upon them and that the lashes were not given to you by a man dressed in leather with holes cut out from the behind. You would have to believe that some kind of spell had been given to you to put on the pages of existence, to put on the bill of rights, to hand to the people, and those people would then study and ammend and hand it to their government, their government that they own, their government that they control, their government that

is afraid of them, their government that has no control over them, that government that does not govern because it is so good that it needs never step in, that it merely watches as the people go along and go about their business and about their activities of the night. Will you need this to be the way things are going, or will you conceed that all of this is at last the way things will be.

Do you think that metaphysics is a sport? Do you find that people think about all that, and about all this, and about all the things that they talk about on the television, on those mystical disksm and about the here and now. Do you think that the working man is hard done by in this world? Do you think that everything has been said before?

Is it a natural history or is it the way things have to be? Is it not the way to be?

Now is not the time to be distracted or to follow intellectual pursuits, but to be steady in the way of love, in the relationships that you have with people and to extend those relationships to the vast space that surrounds you in all directions until the edge of the universe, should there happen to be one, though that matter seems now to be gaining ground in the hearts and mind of the world, you see because there are few conflicting theories to go against it that fit into the minds of men. That's the way it works this game, the nature of it is unclear, but no matter how confusing it might be, you'll see traces of truth coming through, and those are the truths that you must cling to, but oh, but oh, remember that there are other truths that are just as true as that one thruth that you hold so dear, and that these truths, some others may hold in just as much esteem, though they will usually not see the fact that your thruth may possibly be just as valid, this is most usually due to the fact that those truths, in order for them to survive must have in their nature, the ability to pursuade the believer into thinking that they are the only truth, and so there they go again, preaching about their one true truth without so much as an acknowledgement of any other that goes against it. Their truth blocks their mind, and stops it from being open to all the posibillities. You must watch against this type of thinking because it hinders your cause.

As to what you're thinking of right now, I know that this is not what the ladies say is the good thing do with your head, but maybe, you

must not think that way when you're feeling all the rage inside you, that's if you do have a lot of rage in you, deep inside, because a lot of people seem to. It is unfortunate that you do not seem to heed the warnings or listen to the advise of your elders when they speak to you. Don't paint your pretty face when you say that things are bad, you all know the lies that are told to you when you're young and when you're free and the shackles come loose once again when you go down to the sea.

Seven hundred million men all marching to the tune, of silver rows of cello bows aligning in the dunes, a carcophany of silence both upon the midnight hour, where wicked things abound, where heaven hears the sound, where the squares all turn round, where no one can be found, where the individual becomes but many, wher the nightbirds sing aplenty, where the river bots sing solftly, where the holly kissis you under, inside the birds asunder, along the morning thunder, roars gently to the ocean, and out to the windy shores of nirvana, comes blowing in through your bathroom window, she sings a happy tune of doubt, while pointing at the moon we shout, like wolves howling in the night, like frogs croaking in the sea of drought and darkness comes to all those who wait, in the light of the sun we all debate, the intracicies of the window curtains, the hand that stirs the pot of your friend the sailor, who sails his boat down the steam of consciousness, until he reaches your heart of hearts, like no one has done before, he makes you come, come back home, to me, to you, to me, to you, like no other, like no brother, like no sister too.

Right now! Look inside yourself, and what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? What do you smell? What do you taste?

What do you perceive? The deep winds are blowing your house down like the three little pigs, and it huffs and puffs away, but you know it won't blow down your house, built with your imagination, stronger than the bricks, stronger than the wood, stronger than the straw, stronger than the feathers that fall to the kitchen floor. Find a good place to rest your head, find a place that's safe and warm, and then let your head wander, and let your mind replace what your body has been doing all these years, for it has been an oh so long time since you first came, came into this world, and first set the steps in motion for your eventual replication. It will be five times that you will realise the prophecy of divination. Here are the signs you must look for, and

oh do not take them as vague, or set them down in vague terms for they must be precice, as precice as they can be without seeming to be impossibly precice, but as vague as they can be without them seeming vague. Here they are.

And it shall come to pass that when all the great heores are dead and gone, you know the ones I mean, that there shall come one that will be as a new kind of hero. This person, be it man, woman or child, shall emerge, and become elevated amongs the multitude, and shall bring light to a new day. It will also come to pass, that the skies will open up and a heavy rain, a hard rain will fall upon the land and the sea, such that has not been seen for a long long time, or even ever, than that rain will be like a deep fog, and no one will be able to see or to move within it for those who try will surely perish and become at last one with that which they came.

Take these words and hold them dear to your heat. You know not yet what they mean, but the time will come when they will be reborn again within your mind, and the tables will turn like upon a great resteraunt table that revolves the food around to each.

Listen, and listen again. Copy, and copy again. And you shall be free.

The Musical Boxes The others weren't listening, not really anyway. I only just realised that they were too busy off on their own finding a treasure trove of new records. Falcon had a pile in his arms that he could hardly carry, most of them being Rolling Stones as far as I could see, but a few were other bands and singers and groups and artists. A few were computer music. I'd noticed Falcon getting into a little bit of strange stuff like that, music that is made by computers, and has very minimal human involvement. It's getting quite good actually, and works by playing something that is then judged by humans as being good or bad, and then based upon their ratings, it changes the next generation of music. I think personally it has a lot of potential, but right now I think I'll stick to the classics.

I wasn't feeling myself after listening to that record in its entirety, and in fact that's not all that ran through my head during that space in time, but I may get to the other stuff eventually, maybe in an appendix or something, but for now I should get on with the story.

Well, the others had all the records they could carry, and Falcon even had more than he could carry, and was staggering around trying to keep them all balanced. Even Westy had a little fish record, recorded down in the pond in the mystical park that we was going to play on his underwater turntable that he got just the other day. I wasn't feeling too well actually and thought I needed some time to myself to try to get over this trip-like trance thing that I was in, so I told the guys that I could use just a bit of time to myself, even Westy. I gave the little trout to Falcon to put in his pocket for a little bit. I figured it would be good for him to have a little holiday anyway from my left pocket, the poor little bugger.

So Falcon, with Westy, Misty, and Tootie all cleared off out the door, happy as hippoes in mud with their rare record finds, while I happily paid Tommy the two dollars for the taped copy. Quite a bargain I thought, but my mind was racing with about a million different things. I said my goodbyes to Pixie Boy and headed out the door myself, waving goodbye to the guys going up the road towards home as I headed across to the park again, just on the outskirts where there

were a borderline of milk crates all in a row, lined up, marking the boundaries of the enchanted park.

I wondered why no one had stolen any of the crates yet to use as chairs or shelves or anything (maybe you could think of a better use), and then I tried, just a test to take one, and oh to my realisation, that was the reason they were all still there: they were all stuck to the ground. Although they weren't stuck fast, they were more like stuck slow because you could move them a little bit, even though it was difficult, but the further away you moved them, the harder it was to move them. It was almost like a giant invisible rubber band was attached to the bottom of them, but when you let it go it didn't snap back real fast, it kind of floated back real slow and steady, back to it's original place. Each one had a little tone that it would make too when you kicked it or moved it and depending on the way you kicked it or moved it it would produce a different type of sound.

I started, musically minded as I was, to kick around a few tunes, and this actually began to help my messy mindset, except that after a few notes and kicks, after I'd play a certain melody there would be this weird loud buzz sound, and then all the sound would stop altogether and I would have to wait until all the blocks reset until I could hit any of them again. It all seemed so familiar, but I couldn't quite work out where it was from. It puzzled me. It puzzled me immensely. And then it came to me, quick as a flash. A game, a puzzle game. I'd played this once before on the Nintendo back home when I was a kid. What was this game doing out in the real world? I thought that perhaps it was an elaborate marketing plan from those crazy marketing people over in Japan, but that seemed a little far fetched indeed. Whatever it was, I figured I'd better figure it out, because always in video games you need to figure out these puzzle things in order to progress further in the game, so naturally I wanted to figure it out, so I went about figuring it out.

It was really quite ingenious the way I figured it out. I'm not going to go into it too much, mostly because I can't quite recall how I came to the conclusion of what tune to play. I can never usually remember how I come to complex conclusions like that, they kind of just come to my mind, like my subconscious is working them out for me, and then just sending the answer via the post up to my conscious mind.

So the song I played anyway was Guns and Roses, Sweet Child of Mine, kind of a strange choice I thought, but I kind of knew how to play it on guitar, so I just tried my best to run between the boxes and kick each one. It was pretty hard, but after a few tries the loud buzz that seemed to signify an error turned into a big ding sound and then some twinkling sounds that seemed to say that I had done it. I had unlocked the puzzle, and so I stood there waiting to claim the prize or to progress to the next level or whatever it was, but nothing seemed to be happening. I guessed that things don't always work out in real life like they do in video games.

I was kind of disappointed that I'd spent all that mental energy working out the puzzle and then there was no reward. Such is life, I thought, and I started to walk in the direction of home, and then behind me was like this little puff of an explosion that sounded really 8-bit and I turned around to see this dark figure emerge from the smoke.

Luci! It was Luci himself standing there.

"Congratulations on unlocking the secret of the Demon of the Darkness interactive video game" Luci said in a rather uninterested and monotone voice, not realising it was me. "Please tell me how you would like to collect your prize of one Nintendo Ultra Reality System and your own copy of Demon of the Darkness video game signed by the development team. Oh! It's you!" He finally realised it was I, Earl Gray Fisher.

"Yes it's me Luci. What are you doing here?"

"Workin' for the man Fisher, what does it look like. I'm the only demon stupid enough to accept this crap job. Those bozos at Nintendo have put up all these puzzles all over the world. I've been teleporting around all over the place this week giving people free Nintendo systems and games. It's incredibly boring and tedious."

"Hey wait a minute. You're the person I'm trying to find. That's what I've been doing for like ages now, and all I had to do all the time was figure out this stupid musical puzzle thing. So what you've like

captured that alley way empress and got her locked away in like some kind of castle somehwere right?"

"Jeezus christ Fisher what the hell have you been smoking? Who told you that?"

"Well, Misty told me."

"Misty? Who's Misty?"

"Umm.. well, Misty is a talking cat who everyone can hear talk except me."

"Right... so Misty is a talking cat, but you can't understand what she's saying. So then how did she tell you that story?"

"Well Falcon translated for Misty. Ok, ok, yes I can see that it may sound a little strange and yes I am begining to have my doubts about it even now that I'm explaining it properly to an outside party such as yourself, but hang on a minute. You mean, you haven't captured this Empress chick, and you haven't got her locked away in a turret somewhere on top of a castle?"

"Fisher you dope! I've been running around giving away hundreds of video game units to kids all around the galaxy. Which brings me to another point. How the hell did you work out the tune to play?

You've got to be the only fully grown adult -- if I can indeed call you that -- who has worked out how to play Sweet Child O' Mine on these stilly musical crate things. Jeez Fisher, I knew you were a strange one, but this is just crazy."

Just then Luci got a call on his mobile, it was the intern Wanda down at the Nintendo galactical headquarters letting him know that another console and game had just been won and there were no other demons available to do the call out. So he apologised profusely that he could not possibly stay and chat, but he'll give me a call to try to sort out this whole thing.

"Luci, wait, just one more thing." I shouted out just as he was about to throw a smoke pod to the ground and dissapear to god knows

where, "Do you have any shape shifting abilities at all?"

He replied a little bewildered and pissed off that I was keeping him up, and like he was going to get into a hell of a lot of trouble if he didn't hurry up. "Shape-shifting? what is God's name are you talking about Fisher you loon? If I could shape shift, do you think I'd be looking like this? For chrissake Fisher, seriously, you need to go and see a psychiatrist or something, don't let those crazy scientologists tell you any different either. You need professional help, and fast. Now why don't you just go home and get some rest."

Homeward Bound So I started for home. What else was there to do. I kind of wanted to figure out what was going on, but then again it just seemed like it was way too much trouble than it was worth, and after running into Luci down at the park, everything was all mixed up and muddled in my mind. What the hell, I'd just go home and maybe sleep on it. I had no idea what the time was, but imagined it must have been late.

As I started walking along the old road home, I noticed, yep, out of the corner of my eye once more, this big old red truck, the kind you'd expect to find out on some old farm somewhere in the mid thirties, but it wasn't the mid-thirties, it was right then and I thought it a little weird. It was going so slow and it passed me by. I couldn't figure out any of the figures in the car, but they looked big and ominous. Then one leant out the window, his face was the very picture of detesibility, warty and old and ogre like, green in colour and he had his tongue sticking out of his big mouth, forked like a lizards. He was pretty much the most disgusting thing that I had ever seen, and as they drove past he looked right at me and yelled out something in some kind of a strange reptilian language that I couldn't understand but I assume that it wasn't very nice. I had a bad feeling about the whole situation, and I saw them slow down even more up the street a little bit, and I assumed it was to confront me, for some unknown reason, perhaps to get the tape, perhaps just for kicks, but whatever, I didn't like it, and so I turned down the side street and continued walking cautiously looking back every now and then to see if they were following, and sure enough, back at the start of the street, the red van was there coming around the corner, still going slow, but it went past me and stopped again.

I took another side street turn even though it was in the opposite direction to where I was going, and I continued walking on. I figured I would just walk up to Gillard St and then turn down Shaw and head home the back way, and so I did. Everything seem good, and I thought I was in the clear, only a little way to go then I'd be home free. But then behind me, that sound once more, old motor running nearly idle. It was them and this time they had me.

They'd stopped the car and a few of them had gotten out of the car, the one in particular, that one who I saw, that one who yelled at me came out first and started for me, all the while screeching at me in his reptile voice, uninterpretable and foreign and unintelligible. He was even more disgusting than when I saw him in the car. His clothes were all ripped and torn and his skin was rough and bubbly and wet like slimy and scaley all over. He stumbled as he came towards me, as though he had just come from a long night of drinking industrial strength battery fluid or something like that, whatever those reptillian ogre things drink on a Thursday night when they've got nothing to do and nowhere to go on Friday. Not that I really had anywhere to go the next day either, and I didn't even have anything to do now that I'd found out that Luci hadn't even kidnapped the empress or anything like that, but I did want to go home and straighten things out with Misty the talking cat and find out why she either lied to Falcon or she got some wrong information, or if Falcon was just making the whole thing up (something I wouldn't entirely put past him) or whatever other possibilities there could be.

It didn't really matter at that point anyway, because coming after me, mumbling some angry language were like four ogreish reptile creatures who clearly had it in for my for some god knows what reason. Maybe they were just bored and looking for someone who looked vulnerable to pick on. What went though my mind just in a flash was about a million different eventualities, most of which ended with me lying face down on the ground while these giant reptiles continued to kick the living crap out of me. There were a few however that seemed a little less severe, and by that time I had run out of time completely.

I dodged a punch from the newbie lizard thing. I could tell he was the new guy because of the way the others were giving him orders and egging him on. I contemplated throwing one back, but instead, while I was bending back, kicked my leg at his while stepping backwards, and somehow he managed to trip a bit over it, him being more than a little tipsy at the time. He seemed not to like that at all very much and got up and came at me with even more ferocity and anger in his dark heart. The others too were closing in on the action and I decided the only thing to do was to hot foot it out of there. I can run quite fast when I want to, and those guys surely wouldn't be

able to keep up, or so I thought. It must have been the reptilian in them, but these guys could sure run and it seemed they knew what they were doing, because they scattered, all in different directions, and then there was only the one following me, but I just knew that the others were around somewhere, just waiting to pounce upon me.

I'd come to the crossroads, just up the road from my place on the corner, and I froze, because ahead of my, to my right and left, and to the rear were the four lizard creatures, slowly but steadily closing in. I was cornered on all sides and I figured I was done for unless some kind of deux ex machina came in and saved the day like they always do in those terribly written stories, usually melodramas and things like that and when people can't think of a proper plotline, so they just bring in someone or something to save the day at the last minute.

And that's when it came to me, this spot here was Luci's crossroads, where he always is trying to sell the various junk that he's collected over the years, the hundreds of years, thousands probably, who the hell knows? But how do you summon a demon like Luci? I had no idea, I never watched Charmed or any of those TV shows, and I never really got into all that hocus pocus like some of the kids at school, with all their spell books and seance books and the like.

All I could think of was a very long shot, and I even doubted whether that would work, but the relentless reptilians were closing in, so it was worth a shot, and I let loose the greatest Sweet Child O' Mine air guitar solo that the world had seen. It was so good that the lizard agres even paused for a second to applaud, mentally.

For a moment there I thought it hadn't worked and I prepared myself for the beating of a lifetime, but then, out of nowhere, a big puff of smoke right where I was engulfed the area, at least if engulfed me and I began to cough like nuts, like I'd just inhaled half of the city's looming smog that seems to hover over the town twenty-four hours a day.

It was Luci alright and he'd come in just in time, well actually it was a bit presumptuous to immediately thin, or presume, if you will, that Luci would just defeat these attacking attackers just like that, but much to me great relief and personal comfort, it seemed that was

exactly what Luci was here to do. And oh my if you have never seen Luci and action, like I'd never really seem going off like in the movies or something, you really get a treat when you actually see the spectacle.

Firstly he pulled out a giant hammer from behind his back, then his eyes start glowing and smoke starts to rise up all around and a strange, mystical, red light seems to shine up from below. The lizard kings were in a frenzy and continued to advance and that's when Luci began to roar up into the air, put his arms back and let out this giant growl that would have turned the bravest hero into a cowering and shivering little man, but these things were too dopey to think twice about anything like that, to stupid for their own slef-preservation and they kept on coming as Luci began to glow a bright red and grow in size, with his blood red cape blowing in the breeze. He got up to about twenty-two feet tall at least, and by that stage, I didn't know who I was more terrified from, those ugly reptile ogres or this giant Luci. I'd never, ever seem him like this. It would have been a great party trick to pull off some night.

Anyway, it was just like out of one of those old cartoons, or out of an old Batman, the TV series where ther bad guys didn't even stand a chance. The first lizard jumped forward and attempted to latch onto Luci's left leg. He was however met with a clobbering blow to the head, a backhand from the now demolition ball hand, sending him flying into the distance.

The next two attack in unison, one trying for the head, while the other aims for the tail area. Luci proceeds to summon up some hellfire and trows it symultaniously at both of them. They instantly catch on fire and the screams fill the night as they run around ablaze, not realising that the best way to put out the fire would be to roll around on the ground. Instead they just burned and burned, right down to the bone.

The lizard thing that was left, the one that yelled at me out the window couldn't believe this unprecedented turn of his events, although it was difficult to tell what was going on in his mind. He looked at the charred remains of his two friends and the blodied and bashed body up against the wall of the leader of the pack. How was

he ever going to get into the club with those guys gone, he thought.

That was exactly why he was doing that, scouting for people to give a good beating to. It was at the word of the leader, and it was a kind of test to get into this lame club or gang, or whatever.

He turned and ran just as fast as he could back down the street to where he'd left the car.

"Should we take chase Fisher" said Luci in an amazingly deep voice.

I told him it wasn't worth bothering about and thanked him for saving my skin and told him that if he ever needed my soul or anything that all he had to do was ask. He told me that he'd think about it and that maybe we could meet up for coffee down at the crossroads again some other day. He really seemed like a nice guy, so I agreed. He asked if I needed some company for the walk home. I was really quite tired, and flustered from the chase and everything, so I declined in a nice manner and started for home, which was only just down the street, and I seriously doubted that anyone would give me trouble after all that hell-fire and destruction.

I crawled up the front stairs and headed straight for bed, and didn't even say a thing to the guys who were sitting around listening to their various records, even Westy was in his bowl on the mantle and was listening to his little record from the heartland of the pond, or heartwater I should say.

I tried to write a bit before going to sleep, but it didn't last long and before I knew it, I was in dream land.

A Brief Dream From the Early Seconds of Sleep Diamonds are not they do not come down the the sea when there is nothing there, no people, no paper, no door mats, no light, and it wasn't done up, think we're made of music, but we're not, even though your mind is fully blown, you don't know just what is

happeneing with the other hand. See girls go around and tease othe girls , when there's nothing and no one better to do. You yourslef can be the one, hwo really have that same old style, it's like an arm cucumber. Don't ask me what a warm cucumber sandwich was doing in a place like this, but then we all started dancing around the maypole pole as though we were naked pagans of midsummer night's festivities. Poor weather and long days have seen me through the summer. This periodic sunshine is most times intollerable.

Weekend warrior put down your weapon, and pick up a daisy or who, and let us sing for you, much enjoy the fact that we will actully have our how name added to it, no, no, bue you don't know where that's been, so you'd better keep in in you pants. No that would no be humiliating enough for both of us, for a year.

Tabletop dancer why don't you fix us a drink We'll call on your sister to let us know what you think.

Bed time was over, over a hundred minutes ago No one declared that you could just come and go So leave all the washing machine dishes For the cleaner the very next day They'll never seem like they when when I Looked out when I was alone And that seems is that. Nice work. Yep, yes.

The Events Leading Up To The Hard Rain A-Fallin' and Perhaps Even A Bit of It Falling Down, You Never Know When I woke up it was raining, just barely, just barely spitting, but it was perceivable for sure, on the windows a slight sprinkle and the tiny drops hitting the roof making minute bubbles of sound that echoed through my room and indeed the whole house. I wondered at that point if anyone else had recognised that it had started raining, or if I was the only one, for it certainly wasn't a heavy rain, a hard rain, but the softest type of rain, that perhaps some might not even call rain at all. Whatever, it was rain to me and it was wonderful. I wanted to go outside and check it out, check out what it looked like from out back.

So I climbed out of bed, my sunken bed, put on some pants and headed out. I walked past the others who it seemed had passes out in the lounge room while listening to records. They were fast asleep so I didn't disturb them and I headed out back. It must have been only around eight twenty eight or so, and the sun was already quite high in the sky, it being summer and all, the sun usually rises up pretty early, like at around four thirty or so. Anyway, when I opened to door I could see our back staircase, remember, the one that descends down into deep jungle overgrowth. I swear it must have had been growing for many a long year, perhaps hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, who knows?

We never really went down there too often actually. It was much too dark and there were all kinds of bugs and other creepy crawlies and snakes, and lions and tigers and bears, well maybe not bears, or lions and tigers, but there were some pretty scary animals down there let me tell you. One time when Falcon went down there he swore he saw a monster size rat that was about the size of a large dog. When I asked the question that perhaps it was in fact a large dog, he went peculiarly silent on the subject. Whatever, it was big and dark and scary and I didn't feel like going down there, and I don't even feel like describing it really, just that it's out of the ordinary. I mean really, how many people do you know that have fully grown rainforests in

their backyards, with stairs leading down a thousand steps or so?

So I was out there to take a look at the rain coming anyway, the slight rain, the almost imperceptible rain that had started coming down while I was sleeping. It was really nice rain, almost like mist falling and flowing through the air, and that smell, oh that smell of rain, the lightest of the light, when it gently kisses the ground or the leaves or the roofs or anything really, your skin, pushing particles up into the sky so we can breathe it in. What is it that makes it smell so appealing. Is it biological? Is it there so that we have a natural inclination to like it when it starts to rain because otherwise our species would die out because they wouldn't like the rain predominantly and then they wouldn't drink and then they'd die. Ok Fisher, stop being stupid and tell the story properly.

Well, ok we've established that it was raining right? Can you see I'm not really in the mood? Never mind, let's do this thing anyway, no matter what the cost. Must be done, so I'm just going to stop complaining and write it, and I'm going to write it good. Ok so rain, that's always pleasant, droplets and stuff. Let's try to get some kind of visuals going. So we've got the rain, and the sun. Now they make nice little lens type things or whatever that the sun can shine through and make it all sparkley and everything, and what about those rainbow things that come with all that misty rain, just imagine that ok? Are you imagining? Is this working? Perhaps not.

Well maybe I should do something else first and then start to tell the big rain story because it will almost aduredly turn out a terrible mess if I keep continuing to try to tell it in this state, so I might tell you about some other strange time, or I might just ramble around for a bit with all the things in my head.

The Time When Time Wasn't Time and Space Wasn't Space and Nothing Was What it Should Be, and No One Knew Your Name, though there was no one around to percieve your form in the first place One time, there was a time, when time was not what it seemed. More than that however because I can see the true face of reality through these time-lapsed spectacles, these specks of reality that you are perceiving through tight knit jeans covering your eyes. You drift away and time it seems no longer has a meaning for you and it's not that it just means a different thing to millions, much more than that indeed.

Time means nothing to you and everything at the same time. Oh at the same time, how clever. Forget everything. Learn this. That's a technique, that's a trap. Don't forget anything, that's the real trick.

But who do you think you are, Google or something? Or God perhaps. Where is this path taking you? Where is this stream leading?

Why are these questions being posed to you? What have you gotten yourself into? What questions remain? What questions do you ask yourself late at night? Does that not define, in some strange way, the person that you are? If indeed you are.

To the dock you find yourself, sitting on the edge, of a pier where once you sat with your true love dear. Oh so close you found out the way to happiness, was sleeping there within your chair, a-rocking along to a sweet old song, beginning and ending with a verse that she never knew, so she hums along and strums some chords that you taught her just a week before, not knowing that those chords are the chords that you learned so long ago, so strong those chords, those notes that go together like cogs in a machine of love, passed on from me to you, from you to her from her to another, from another to you, and back again. To the beginning, to where they came from, to the genesis, to all the clown that once made you laugh. No one man, no one woman was creator, was inventor, was invented. There is no cause, there is no first cause, and any who says there are are simply fooling themselves, or letting themselves be fooled by the things in their head, they let them in and now they are controlling them and blocking out all that could be. They think they're open minded, but they're as closed as a bank on Sunday morning.

Riding that old highway, like a million sould come before, you know you're getting somewhere when you feel your foot touch the floor.

Fly down a hundred miles before you waste away, to get there through a different door, you'll have to fly my way. Trace the line from head to toe and see the figure it draws. There are many in this world who think that they know more. Terror builds the mind and turns it a different way. Feel the light upon your head and think of all the days, you've sat down beside the one you loved and felt the world at peace, with all the conflict going on it seems a far far reach. Join us on the other side, where bold young profits the world over reside.

Sitting up there on the hill, thought of as only fools until, until the story is once again told, and the oposition once again holds the fairer ground. Then and only then, will the listeners heed the call, for they will recognise that what once was not there at all has become a trove of ideas that challenge the established order and there in the social mind arises a new pillar of debate, but oh that is a nasty word, a nasty world, so loaded with connotation, and oh there we go again. We all know what you were thinking about.

Ten o'clock and it's time to dine, your food will match all the dark fine wine, the twisted spine, the willow pine, adn washing line, out to the shores divine, up to a different kind, of tabletop spinning line, soap box porcupine.

Hallow of the halls of David we sing, and dance, and jive, and rock n roll around the clock, till eight o'clock, look who it is standing there on the dance floor, a pretty young thing, ready to take you in, ready to explore the insides of your mind. Oh why the waiting, and oh why the playing, and all you want is to make her happy, or sad, or whatever she wants to be, something goes dead in the night time when you're singing, and when you're playing and it all seems so well timed and a delight to the ears and when no one else is aorund you can play it for yourself and that's just what everyone else is doing, because they all think they're too much tied in to be listening to that rubbish, and what's more, they attempt to stop other people from listening to that rubbish, at the state level or federal if necessary, because they know best, oh yes yes yes, they do.

Wry in your sky when flying away from me. Tour when you're dying and trying to take from me. Green with the envy of all those before me. Steel eyed beauty when she's coming after me. Black heart of the fury when I have it down upon me. Grey eyes of the cutie who looking over to me. Velvet patterned blue dress that she's wearing just for me. Salt water tears when she's pining after me. Telephone calls to the opposite side of the room, when she is there a-missin' me.

Here it goes, by snow boots wander this open hillside, while it has been snowing for the last few days, and it is oh so cold that you could very well freeze to death should you stop moving even just for a few moments, so that's what we're doing while we're here, we are here, just not freezing, keeping the joints moving because that's the way things get done, adn done quite well I might add, the full product of our labours, and it is one of the greatest labours, both in difficulty and in pristine presence.

Look out to me as I go passing by. I'm sailing away. Shipping off to new lands, and it is doubtful that you will see me again. One however knows which way the wind may blow.

Androgeny takes its place amongst the mainstream. California daze is in full swing. Alighting the thoughts is a mortal occupation. Stealing thunder is the way to become great in the eyes of no one but yourself. And let's face it, that is not a great thing to do. Show me the way to become all that there is, all that has past, and all that will ever be. Is that even a posibility, or would things be just because they are or would they be things merely because that's is what we perceive them to be? Snow white has lost one dwarf and now there are only six. Times we won have been shaddowed by the times we've lost. He is me, is new is old and born in death, as right middle, left, and all over again. Whoever came up with that idea must have some thinking to do.

It's not going the way it should. Let's try one last time.

Sentences of life come and go from your head like stones washed up on the beach, like pippies that you catch with your toes on the beach, like the snails you find in the garden. Going away feels like yesterday, and now I'm back here all alone, and you are away on your own, in

the world, just flying. You left me stranded, you left me cold, you left me dying from this hole in my heart. You put all your clothes out on my line, and now they're gone, though I don't feel fine. Fool on the hill, you know him well. He's the one who plays for you his tinker bells. Who is that who measures success from what they see on the TV? Or what they see in the papers today?

Xylophones beat out of time and the drum kicks in a beat too late, but is it music still, or will you push the next track to go on and not say that you like that song anyway though you know that millions do.

Heartland in the city and the lights are still on. We race through the days and the nights go on and on. Can you see through the haze that covers me when you're gone? It feels like a blanket upon my bed.

Firey light come shine on me and take me away with sympathy, for tonight we dine on unsuspecing kinds who think that life is but a dream.

May the rain fall ever still and let the sun never show its smiling face around here any more. It is only my dark heart that shines into the night, making it all black, painting it all black. Pink fingernails run up against my back, but they're not there for any reason at all. Tigers cross into our zoo because everyone knows that we are the best.

Seemingly the day has come where we are on the verge, and that day seems to always be fast approaching but it actually never arrives and it just goes on and on, because let's face it, the people want something to look warward to or to be scared of as coming. This is the main thing, that the people find something to worry about. It could be anything, anything at all, but usually you don't have to wait too long before something comes up and presents itself as the answer to all your prayers because that's just the way it works.

Newly wed couple breaks the barriers set up by society, and everyone rejoices. Everyone dislikes barriers, except those special ones. You know the ones I'm talking about. Today all too soon becomes yesterday. Think now to what they all where thinking of. When they were in their output mode, and did they produce more, much more than the public media is letting out.

Everything is going slow, slowing down and I am feeling like my eyes are about to roll back into their heads. Soon be over, soon by home,

soon be in a dream, soon be what I mean when I say that all woman are not equal, and that's as absurd to say that about a man, and you can smear me any time you want it. I almost do want it happen, at least something interesting would happen, instead of this insulated existence that they've got us living. How did they manange to pull that off? From back in the day, hunting and gathering, who actually sat down and worked out what was going to happen next and what to be in case of fire. We are writing ourself off the book, and youdon't understand our guilt or misunderstandings that we have the tendencey to commit to anything that is committable. So where are things kind who might like to see the play, but then I'm sure that someone will make a proper excuse gerenation book.

Time is getting on, and we haven't much left, until it's all gone.

Sitting on the Steps Looking Down So all that was pretty much what was going on in my head at that time. I know because I wrote it down in my little Ego book. It was still raining, a little heavier now, the mist had turned into actual droplets, but it was still quite fine, and a very pleasant view out back to the rainforest and to the sky high apartments reaching up to the heavens.

I sipped some Jagger Root Tea and faded away into space once more.

Rain Rain and More Rain So I sat out there quite a long time. I didn't really have anything much else to do. I didn't have a job, I didn't have a girl, I didn't have any cash, I didn't have much family around, the fridge was bare. Life in fact if you were to look at it in certain terms could have seemed a little bleak. But I wasn't too worried. It's not like I really wanted those things in my life anyway and was quite happy sitting out the back drinking my jagger root tea and phasing out while watching the rain come down.

By that time it had begun to come on a lot stronger. In fact, it had steadily increased from the morning mist that it was to quite a substantial drop. To qualify how strong it was I would say that it was just barely enough to keep me from walking in it. Although that really depends upon where you're walking to and why, so I should classify, it would have been just barely more than what would keep me from walking to the shop up the road unaided by an umbrella to get some milk for my tea because I was out of milk. Luckily I wasn't out of milk and I just sat on the steps and just started thinking, thinking away, about all kinds of strange things.

I thought about water and how it's like the building block of life and why that is and if it is always that way or not, and whether it's just that we have so much of it here on earth that life just started to utilise water in its daily going ons and that really it could be anything, anything of abundance that is just lying around. I thought that things just arise out of whatever it is that is just lying around waiting to be used. I saw a few passers by heading down the street with their umbrellas and thought of the umbrella and how it just came about.

With the umbrella you can see that it would naturally come into existence due to the fact that humans don't really like getting wet and so when it rained someone would have the bright idea of getting something to cover themselves with. Very visual also this rain cover is when you see someone walking down the street with something covering their heads so they don't get wet. This is a kind of way that the umbrella spreads from person to person. You see when another person sees a person carrying an umbrella and not getting wet, it instantly creates a desire for an umbrella in the person who is

umbrellaless, and then that person either goes out and buys an umbrella, or in the case of the first rain covers, made most likely of palm leaves or something similar, they just go out and pick a palm leaf. The umbrella is an evolving population as well, and has over time adapted to its environment quite well. It has developed an ability to fold away, thus making it easier to carry by its owner, the umbrella has developed a shape most suitable for stopping water from getting on the carrier with its downward facing flaps. All in all, the umbrella is a perfect example of something that has arisen out of something abundent. I always seem to think of the most peculiar things when just sitting there sipping tea, but somehow they make sense, and somehow they make more sense than whatever established information is floating around at that particular time.

Then I started actually thinking about how people come to know things. I think it's called something like epistemology or something like that, actually no, maybe that's way off, but yea, it's a school of philosophy that deals with knowledge. So anyway, I asked myself the question, while sitting on the back steps, watching the rain, of how things are known. I took my previous example of umbrellas and extended upon it. I wondered how it was that I thought I knew what process by which the umbrella, the modern umbrella had come into existence, essentially the story I told you before about them evolving out of an abundence of necessity and of falling water, but you could most easily take the easy way out, which it seems a great many people do, and just say that God created the umbrella in its present day form. This of course is a rather silly conclusion to draw, but of course, to the human mind, it has the ability to make sense, and anything, any conclusion, any way of explanation to the things we see or perceive, that has the ability to make sense, of course has a great advantage over those things and explanations that don't make a lot of sense, and so those conclusions tend to be more readily drawn into people's minds and become part of their reality. So there may not be a whole hell of a lot of people who are actually going aorund thinking that God just magically created these things called umbrellas that are just magically suited to their environments, but there may be a few and just by was of the natural order of things, those people will attempt to convince you that their understanding of that particular part of reality is the correct understanding and all other understandings are false. It is no particular fault of that individual,

but they are falling victim a little to their narrow way of thinking. You can pretty much explain most things away in that way however, and for some things it seems quite rational to say that, hey, I can't think of any other way that it could have happened, so it must have been some kind of God magic.

That's another thing about Occham's Razor, that one where the most simple answer is the correct one. I got to thinking about that and was puzzled because of a few things. For one, what determines what is a simple answer and what is a complex one? and two, what about the simple answers that it's just done by magic, when something under further invistigation really is done by some totally different process. It was baffling anyway, but I had all day to think about it. I wasn't stressed or anything, just casually thinking away while the rain poured down.

It was getting quite hard actually now, the rain. It was at about the level that you'd be drenched to the bone if you stayed out in it for about five minutes. It had been increasing in heaviness quite steadily for a few hours and it was showing no sign on stopping any time soon. I continued to think.

I thought about how there are only a few different types of things for some things, like no real variety at all, but then in other things there is great variety. To explain what I'm talking about I guess it was all to do with increasing returns and systems that feed back into themselves, all chaos theory type stuff, but the problem with that is, how do you determine what level of variety something has, and is that just down to personal preference or personal way of distinguishing things from other things. It began to hurt my head a bit so I let my mind wander a little.

I was onto about my fifth jagger root tea when I thought to myself that this here was no ordinary downpour. The whole sky had become dark as though it was getting onto night, but it wasn't even close, it was the clouds amassing. In the distance I heard the sound of distant thunder, which was still a far far way off, but it sounded like it was approaching. It was pouring down rain by then, buckets and buckets, like it hadn't rained in years. We were supposed to be in the middle of a drought -- that's what the news had been telling us for years and

years anyhow. This rain was in fact unlike anything that I'd seen sinse I was a kid. We used to get flooded out of our house as a child, the whole backyard was like a swimming pool and I'd go swimming in it with the ducks that would already be swimming around like ducks in the rain (if that's even an expression). Have you noticed a rise in duck connotations lately? I have. It must have been party attributable to me back then saying all these things about ducks. It was really quite funny actually.

Darkness was descending more and more and the rain kept pelting down more and more until it was going so hard that the big droplets were making the rainforest backyard leaves droop down towards the ground. I wondered if it would flood. It had never flooded around thereof all the time that I'd been there, but you know that the rules are meant to be broken, and as the water came down, the skies turned black and the thunder and lightning were here at last, and oh they came on hard and fast. Bolts, big bright bolts in quick succession followed by the loudest crackings of almost deafening thunder that seemed to shake the house.

I had to move into the hallway a little just to get out of the way of the water that was richocheing off the roof and over my way. It went on, and on, and on. I'd never seen anything like it, and the water flow from the skies was increasing almost exponentially now. The kind of rain where you can't even see where you're going to or even know why you're out in the rain in the first place. I wondered about people stuck in the rain, then I stopped worrying about it.

Where was the water level? Oh there it is over there, oh my. Do you see that? The water was climbing the stairs, one by one, in their hundreds, and it was coming up fast. The place was flooding. I assumed that we certainly weren't the first to realise that the whole suburb was being covered in a vast layer of water. Floods and terrential rains hadn't hit in a long time. I didn't have anything under the house anyway, so I was pretty lucky. We wouold have been in trouble if the water level got to the border was. And by border, of course I meant to the upstairs part of the house. All appologies, I am virtually falling asleep as I type this.

It kept on rising, rising rising rising, and the rain just kept on coming,

until at last, it had come to the border, the border that connects the old from the new, from the underhouse to the main house, and verious other descriptions that I can't think of just yet. When it was nearly at the top, somehow the rain mysteriously calmed, and it was just enough to get me in there and to make a really great movie about how things really were. Wait, scrap that last part. I think that was a dream. Anyway, it was astounding. I pitied anyone in the suburb who didn't have a high-set queenslaner, because all their gear would have gotten raining on.

Wait a sec, did I have all my stuff? The only think I remembered was the bicycle that I had left under the house, but that would be ok. It was like it was Venice out there and I imagined what it would be like if it stayed like this and everyone got boats and were sailing aorund and stuff with their gondeliers or whatever they're called.

I had to show someone. This was too cool to let slide, so I headed on into the lounge to wake up the others, who were still asleep, and not knowing how they could have missed the lightning, and couldn't believe that they'd slept through all that thunderous thunder, and told them to get ready because we were going to have a great night out.

So I came up with this little ditty and just thought I'd have to share it with you folk. Actually, the truth in the matter is that I came up with this a while ago and I wrote it down, yes indeed I wrote it down and it went like this.

Little girl from the English countryside Sitting in your room all alone, With your legs open wide.

There's no need to to cry Or to turn your back and run and hide.

Why don't you zip up your trousers And come take us for a ride.

So that was that. The second version of what I came up with because the first version was lost, lost in the transfer, but I think it is quite close to the first, by a high degree so you really should stop worrying

about it.

But Enough of That, And Welcome to The Next Chapter If we can indeed call it that at all, who the hell knows any more? And you don't want to be walking down this garden path at all. The next part is of course a deviation from the set story, but never mind, in light of these deviations, you will come to see the true meaning of the story.

But what were we saying in actual fact? Oh that's right, I was telling you of how the whole entire rainforest backyard got absolutely soaked and flooded and there was a whole underwater scene that we'll get to in all good time. But now for something completely different.

A Part From A Book of Unknown Origin, All That We Know is That Her Name Was Cleopatra, but Then Again, Isn't Everyone's?

Undone is the way they think we are, but more together than any other we are, and they will see, just as soon as they recognise the simple words of the gray text and last testament, for the time is soon coming near, when another dear character gets distracted from reality for a small moment, a very small moment, until the time comes when it is the general theory that all sentient beings become like their maker, but come now, could you really be thinking what it is you're thinking? Surely not. All things surely do not have makers that are of a greater knowledge etc than they are. You see a lot of thought goes into this subject for the plain and simple reason, that it is simple, it is more simple to visualise an infinite distance than to visualise or conceptualise a distance that is a certain length of great and random value. Remember that kids when you're learning at home, or in school. Text comes and goes down the chimney and under the tree.

You make believe like the life you are leading is your own and purely yours along, and you forget the fact that things are never ever what

they seem, unless they are on that rarest of moments, but you have to be ready for them as well. All the times you sit and wait for the bus and there is someone there who you don't know and you most likely never will know. How can we know us all? Is that not what we're striving for? For a little of the world to figure out just who we are?

Perhaps, and perhaps not.

Lines stroll down the row as though they are soldiers all in a line, trained for most of the year when they weren't goofing off and causing trouble around the yard, oh yes they were fairly roudy briggants, but that's just the way it is, and you'd better get used to it, and not to your fataly flawed outlook that you got from the movies and television, do not let that judgement affect your mood or your turn of notion.

Bright is the day when the gypsey walks the sea, to get her back from the time she came to me, I want to know just how she made you see, for all I know right now is the way for me to see.

Free gates that open with the slightest of a touching hand, sweet aches of token when she's playing with the band. Soft waves are aplenty who make it up to the promised land, when table tennis goes flailing with the arm that holds your hand.

Fortune of the deep is nowhere to be found, find it now or find it last or find it round and round where you're standing it seems to me to be an entirely reprehensible act, that someone as rough as he was was entitled to such extravagance. It seemed a little out of place and you wonder what miracle it was that in this society that he, it seemed could get ahead, while the others were weft on the side and never even looked down to except perhaps for a smile.

Crumple out and into one another's cold stone tomb, because that's what tomorrow brings when we relive the past, and when the future is yet to come, we rin the world and we sound our song about the station and make sure that we are well heard. For the people in the castles and the people in the tower will make amense and know that what we say is real, and how we say it in the most timely fashion that even the most well educated folk would sit and have a laugh, but would wonder in their heart of hearts what exactly these people are

on about, and not just that, but to hold it in their imagination that they too could be unlocking the secrets of existence. It is the mode of all existence. It is why we have all those scools and things for people who don't want to go out and work for a broken back and get a pittance in return. No for them to truly earn their worth, and really what is it that people have been trying to do all these years. It's not about freedom or the people, it is all about the redistribution of the wealth, which is a lot of money, but a lot of money is held by a very few people and they set up little ways of getting what money we have and giving it them, they do this in a number of ways.

Now I'm not really saying this because I agree with the methods, but I am here to say that this was not rehearsed at all. None of this writing has a stunt double, and if it did, this writing would do its own stunts anyway. Also, I am not implying some kind of intelligence in the system, the dumb system, the system that is established at this time, that you are plugged in to. How incredible that would be, but really would it?

Interdimentional fools gold there lies await, just waiting for some poor unfortunate soul to come along with their wheel barrow full of frut salad that is still growing on the trees. Yea yea it just came out just then, and you guys are the first to try it, and I can't think of anywhere else that I would rather try it than here, so that's what I'm doing. It will be quite permissive to see yourself rolling up the horizon and playing out of time with a beat that's gone by so easy and breezy and something that wakes up the neighbours and something that everything thinks but that isn't true.

It comes to reason when the brain starts to come to the incorrect conclusions and then you start to believe the computer, even though most of them are rediculously horrible to use, but you have to use them anyway because that's the main terminals that they use, and they're probably not even as powerful as your average computer that you've got at home, but yea, it would be exactly like it was new years but it would be a few weeks before new years.

Gone to the water he has gone, and I'm not entirely sure if we'll ever find him again, but keep that hope alive in the team. Where has he gone, where oh where has it gone? She listens intently but her

tabletop is not the correct level of degrees so that each time the life essensce spits the rain atom in two and lets more rain fall adn turn the desearts into rainforests once more, then that will be the time for revolution, and you will know who we are, because no one has leaked anything, except now you know who the ehrif and then she runs away with the cast, mine mine mine.

That will be the time when she called in and left her number on that notepad, oh yes that one, and that girl to yes. That girl. The one that you've been saying is quite attractive. Go on, you know you want to.

The lights are indise and I think that's a new version of a week and a half, back when I was still doing what they all do, and what seems to be doing things, but now there's all these verification tickets everywhere and I don't know if these are ours.

See all the jugling clouns, and watch them roar and roar out what they want to roar and not what they tell them. Say that they should roar more to help their image as the band who roars and everything.

But I've thought about that. What if I'm travelling around australia..

See the grey rain come down to the ground where it makes a drip drop sounds and what happens when you stay around and whatch what grows, and I can still be all that you want me to be. Poker faces don't count when you know a person a reasonably bit and then they really come into play, the second you introduce someone you get that person, but they're never quite the same as the image that you have in your head.

It's alone we wander through the time of the drains that go places that never even know that we're going to the other one the one that was playing at that time. We stepped on the line and she's started it anew. The orginal can only be the best, but that depends on your uptake of music habits. It seems to go a bit like this.

Little wee bird making your sound in the ground you know that no one else knows , but you my friend and quite a conversation about various subjsrct them all, the host could have something to do with it? We'll see, but we won't let it get in or out that you and I were the ones and that we were perfect and we don't need any more vigilantes

in our midst, trying to get a piece of the pie, but really what a waste of time.

Longing you to be next to me, and then to follow the light of red and blue nad green, and never even mind about the climbing, because I could help you out by dealing with the comptuers.

Flowers fall, and they they look like they're dead, and then you almsot pull those pants from production and just test one look and then have a look at her breath breath and breath more. Everything comes from the breath where. There were very particular about the duel wealding, but I suppose it is whoever the bullets are in. The one who is outside our strange situation.

Says that's what the good times are for.

The Deluge and the Emersion "Come on guys get up" I screamed out to the guys still asleep in the lounge room, and most of them woke up except for tootie who was fast fast asleep. I guess he only really comes out in the night time anyway, so I forgave him. I took westy out of his little bowl and put him back in my left jacket pocket. I think he missed being in the because he got this really big smile on his face when I put him in there.

"What's going on" Falcon muttered, still half asleep. "I was having a dream that I was flying on a magic carpet through Pepperland, you know from Yellow Submarine, but then when I ran into The Beatles, they were being acosted by the Rolling Stones and the Stones were all surrounding them and wouldn't let them go, and then John was all like 'come on Mick, this isn't even funny' and mick was all like 'what's the matter john, what's the matter john' on and on and on, until John finally snapped and went at Mick with everything he could and got him pretty bad, but then the rest of the Stones jumped in and saved mick and then they proceeded to gang up on the other Beatles. It was quite traumatic. I mean I like the Stones and all the best, but I also like the Beatles, you know, and I didn't even know what to do, so I just sat there and let the stones beat the Beatles into some kind of pumpkin soup, which they proceeded to put in a big pot and boil it up and then sit down and have it for tea. They even offered some to me. They said it was the blood and bone of christ."

"So what did you do? Did you eat the Beatles Pumpkin Soup?" I asked. I really wanted to know.

"Of course I ate it. You don't refuse anything that the Rolling Stones offer you, you know what I mean?"

"Well what did it taste like?"

"Um, it had a kind of musky flavour, but otherwise it tasted like a whole bag of skittles when you just put a whole lot in your mouth and chew for a while. Anyway it doesn't matter, what's going on? It's raining."

I let him know just how much of a genius he was to spot that it had been raining, and still was raining quite a bit, enough to keep the water level at a steady level. I don't know my what mechanism the rain knew to keep its flow at such a steady and perfect rate so as to ofset the water escaping and to keep the water level constant, but somehow it did, and I wasn't about to question it right then and there. All I knew was that it was pretty awesome. It was like listening to that backwards Stone Roses song and wanting to know how they managed to pull that off, just the way it is. You just sit and enjoy.

Anyway I took them all out the back to where everything was flooded out and just the look on all of their faces was priceless.

Falcon immediately just wanted to go and get his skim board so he could skim across the water. He's got one of those boards that has a hover device on it. They're pretty cool actually. He never lets me ride it much though.

But then Westy popped his head up out of my pocket. "Wait! Fisher!

Falcon!" said Westy in his little fish voice. Can you hear that?" We couldn't hear anything, but then again it seemed though I was half deaf as it is, not being able to hear the cat Misty speak, anyway Falcon didn't let on that he could hear anything, so one could only assume that he was telling the truth.

"What do you hear Westy? What do you hear?" asked Falcon.

"I'm not sure, something deep, something calling me the way it used to do, some strange call of the deep. I haven't heard that since.." And with that, he jumped right out of my pocket and down into the flood water below.

"Westy!" I cried out, wanting to know where the hell he thought he was going. He'd harly left my pocket in three or so years. How could he possibly fend for himself in the big, bad world, and expecially during a storm, during a flood. Did he have any idea how quickly these floods can subside? And then where would he be. He'd be flipping and flapping away on dry land gasping for air, and eventually he would drown, drown in the air. I wanted to go and get hi. I wanted to go after him, to save him. I was about to dive right in

when Falcon stopped me.

"Fisher, if you really want to find him, if you really want to go down there to where he is, to where his lives, to where his mindset is, to where all the fish are, then you can't do it by yourself, and you can't do it that way you are. Here take these." He handed me two small blue pills.

"What are these Viagra or something?"

"No, I have no use for that stuff. These my friend, are aquanaughtical pills, they let you experience the underwater as though you were something akin to a fish or at least to make it seem as though there is no water at all. I've never actually tried them out though, so I hope they work. I've only got four though and the recommendation is to take two at a time, so Misty and Tootie may have to stay at home."

"No way, they have to come with us. Look they're really tiny, can't we just have one and a half each and then give them half of one each?

That should do them."

Falcon thought for a while as though he was calculating mass and weight ratios in his head, and then he agreed.

"They'll have to catch us up a bit later though" he said, "because they will not feel the effects as fast as us. The pills aren't really meant for animal ingestion, but we'l see how they go.

So we split up the pills and each took our share with a glass of water, and then we waited. It wasn't long before I began to feel just a little out of breath. I started taking bigger gulps of air, but it was no use. It just felt like I was getting no oxygen from the air that I was breathing.

I was breathing heavy and fast. It hought I was going to hyperventilate, and I could see that Falcon was having the same trouble.

"What's going on Falcon? I can't breath properly."

"It must be just the pills, an after effect or something. Maybe it's nothing to worry about, maybe it's just psychological, maybe it's just

all in your head and you really can breath just fine."

It was getting worse though, and I was starting to become increasingly worried that Falcon, the stupid idiot (what I was thinking of him at the time) had given us all some bad pills and that this was the end, this was the end of all of us, all our wheelings and dealings, and all our adventures down in Farmstead, and that they'd find our bodies after the flood and they would just assume that we had all drowned.

Drowned! And then I had it. I have no idea why it hadn't come to be sooner, but oh, the excitement was too much and there was too little oxygen in my blood steam going to my head. I feinted, and all was black.

The Blackness and The Light and All That Comes Next After Passing Into The Next World Well that title may be a tiny bit misleading. No I didn't actually die, for if I did die, then who would have written all this? I'm sure I've read that somewhere before as well, but it doesn't really matter. What I meant by the next world, was of course that I was talking about the world under the water, and oh what a world it was. It was to my great fortune that I had falled into the water. I'd gone headfirst into our flooded backyard and the second my head hit the water and I was submerged, that's when I took a deep gasp. I woke up and could feel the water coursing in and filling up my lungs and at that moment I figured I was done for. At least, I thought, that it would be quite a peaceful death, as I'd heard stories from my Grandfather who was a fisherman down south, about the time that he nearly drowned, and was pulled out of the water right at the last minute. He said it felt very peaceful, a peaceful passing. And so I waited. I wanted to know exactly what it felt like. I didn't want to miss a thing. It was a moment that comes pretty much once in a lifetime, your own death, and I had pretty much resigned myself to the end of my existence.

And so I waited for the darkness to take me to oblivion, to eternal sleep, but for some strange reason it didn't come. I was breathing the water. It was as I suspected. Those pills must have had some reversing effects on the lungs and breathing and air and water. I swam up to the surface and put my head out to see Falcon there gasping on the back deck, floundering around like a fish out of water.

I found that it was virtually impossibe for me to breath air at that point, so I held my watery breath and grabs falcon and pulled him in.

The others it seemed, had just started to feel the effects and were beginning to breath heavily. I explained it all t them and told them that they would have to jump in the water and that it would be alright, it would be ok, and then they could come with us under the water and explore, look for Westy and live our lives like the start of Disney's The Little Mermaid, under the sea, with a whole lot of little sea creatures helping us and everything. That was the dream anyway.

It didn't really work out like that at all.

Falcon came to before too long. We were sitting on the stairs, just below the water's surface. We could see the sun shining down into the water, making little rays of sunbeams through the water. It was quite a sight, like sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool, only a hundred times better because you didn't have to come up for air every few minutes. I was surprised at how clean the water seemed, because when it was raining and from above the surface, the water seemed quite murkey. Perhaps it was part of the effects of the pills though I thought.

It was a really strange feeling breathing in the water, and you could feel it going down and back up again, and it made everything seem just a little peculiar and unreal. We just sat there for a while smiling at each other and at this underwater world that we had discovered and about how close we came to drowning on the very same air that we've breathed our whole lives and about how this very moment would be remembered and looked back upon as one of the defining moments in our lives, the time that we reversed things, we discovered something on the other side of the water's edge, something that we only thought we knew, but in reality, we didn't know it at all really.

We sat in wonder; we sat in awe.

Then out of nowhere came these two great splashes from above, it was Misty, who had obviously -- being a cat -- waited until the last moment to step foot in that water, and Tootie, being a bat, even more removed from the water. Misty just sank pretty much to the bottom and sat on the stairs panting away and looking around at all the fish swimming by, while Tootie was having a great old time, actually flying underwater all around. It was the most surprising of all that he seemed to love it so much, a smile from ear to ear as he flew or swam, or whatever you want to call it. Misty was not at all impressed, sitting there absolutely drenched, but she soon got used to it. That's what Falcon said anyway.

"Oh that's right Misty, I wanted to ask you something, though Falcon, perhaps I should talk to you first."

The Underwater Times It was really quite strange talking underwater, the liquid moves across your vocal chords in an entirely different way, so you end up sounding all funny, but you get used to it in the end and then it's pretty much like you're speaking normally and you don't even realise that you're underwater half of the time.

So I was building it up as though there was this big thing that had to be explained, but really it wasn't like that at all. I asked Falcon and he asked Misty about Luci and how Luci had saved my life and that it was probably some other demon who captured the Empress and was currently holding her captive in some tower somewhere, most likely a shape shifting one who made Misty think that it was Luci, when it wasn't all along.

Anyway, that problem seemed a little too huge for me to deal with at that moment. I wanted to find Westy and to see that he was alright. I checked my pocket just by habit, half-expecting him to be in there but he wasn't, but then oh I realised, you know what else wasn't in there as well? That copied tape, the mystical one copied from the record. It wasn't in there. Westy must had run off with it. He could be listening to it right now, and that's why he just ran off, because of the tape's magical powers.

I decided to waste no more time thinking about it and started off for the forest floor immediately. Down and down the stairs I went, but not really like I was walking down them, but more like gliding down.

I could have swum down, but I didn't really feel like swimming. I was kind of thirsty, and wondered if I could just drink some of the water that was all around me. I guessed that I could and took a small gulp down, such a weird sensation.

We descended down, down, down, a thousand steps or more, and the water got pretty dark, even though it was relatively clear. You could still see the sun in the sky penedtrating the waters with its rays from up above, but as we went down even more, it started to get so dark that we could barely see. On the branches of the trees there would occasionally be a few little glowing creatures that lit up the place.

Falcon emtied out his bottle of lemonaide and captured a few of these little worm creature in the bottle. When he shaked it a little bit they would glow even brighter. I wondered what their lights were used for, whether it was a mating thing or to guard against predators, or whether it even had any use at all and perhaps it was just a leftover evolutionary design that may serve a purpose when they go into the next phase in their development lifecycle, to turn into some kind of firefly type creature. Who knows, they served our purpose at that moment and so they were there, and perhaps that is the reason for their very existence in the first place, to serve our purpose.

Anyway, so after quite a while we got to the bottom, the ocean floor.

It must have been a few hundred metres deep at least, but we were fine with those mermaid pills, oh yea they had little mermaids on them, I don't think I told you that. So we were on the forest floor, looking around for any signs of Westy the trout, but there didn't seem to be any. Not at first at least, but then, Tootie, who had been flying around and having a grreat old time, he heard something, something with his giant sonar ears of his. It wasn't like anything he'd heard before, although that could have been because he was underwater, but he was sure of it, it was music, and it was coming from over there!

Over there was a little garden, that of course had been flooded over, but it looked almost like a little cottage, and there seemed to be some kind of fire burning inside (although I knew that was probably impossible) and it smelled strangely as though someone was cooking.

We knocked on the cottage door and noticed the smoke coming from the chimney, odd. And we waited.

We could hear the music playing inside, so we knew we were in the right place. Pretty soon someone came to the door, and opened the little flap and peeked a big eye through and stared straight out as us.

"Who is it!?" said the eye, or the owner of the eye at least through the door hole thing, whatever it's called. I didn't really know what to say and i wondered who this was down here in a cottage garden under the floodwater and rain, and what was he doing playing my tape that I had copied, and where where was Westy the trout? Because it certainly wasn't Westy who was looking through the door. I knew the

eyes of a trout when I saw them. This was a different eye, a more whymsical eye, whatever that means.

"My name is Earl Gray Fisher and this is my housemate Falcon -- I'm not sure about his first name, or if he even has one, or maybe Falcon is his first name -- anyway, it doesn't matter, you can call me Fisher if you want. We're looking for a trout, our friend Westy the trout. He's about this long." I held my hands measuring up to the door, "and he has an elongated doral fin, and, well, he looks like a trout and he answers to the name of Westy.

"Yes, yes, yes. Oh yes, so you are the ones. I know where you've been. I've been expecting you." The door opened and we were greeted by the strangest of sights.

The Octopusses Garden In The Shade So yep, you guessed it, what greeted us at the door was none other than a big giant octopus, akin to the one in that Beatles song, a Ringo Starr creation if I remember correctly. The octopus as it turned out was wearing some kind of dress, though it was almost certainly a member of the make sex, and he wore a funny little hat on his head, well I shouldn't say little, as it was quite large, like the hats that the ladies wear to the races. He let us in anyway, and yes, of course, he knew where we've been, most likely because Westy had told him over a nice hot cup of oyster soup a short time before.

"Sunbury is the name, Oscar Sunbury the friendly garden variety octopus at your service. And what can I do for you on this fine day?"

He seemed quite friendly as he showed us around his little garden place.

"Well, we're really just down here looking for out friend Westy. I see that you may have found him."

"Oh yes, Westy, little Westy, quite a chap. Yes, he's over there listening to that tape. He's been listening to it over and over again for about an hour now, quite strange and peculirar behaviour for a river trout."

We went over to the paisley couch that Westy was sitting on. He had on these headphones that looked way too big for his head and he was in a state of extreme concentration, at least that's what it looked like from the expression on his face. You get to know the certain looks of a trout after spending quite a bit of time with them, but anyway, we went over to him and I gently tapped him on the shoulder -- or what would be his shoulder if he had arms, and he seemed to snap out of it after a little while with oh such a look on his face as though he'd discovered the holy grail or something.

"What is it Westy?" I asked.

"Well, Fisher, I've been listening to that tape, that tape that you copied from Pixie Boy at the record hut, only it sounded really

different underwater, a lot clearer and I could hear everything better, all the different nuances and minute articulations of the sounds, and it was incredible, but then, oh yes, then I got the idea that I might run it backwards, like you said before about the record, playing it backwards, and so I ran the tape backwards using this reel to reel that Sunbury had, and then pure and true visions appeared before me, and the secrets to the universe unravelled around me."

I didn't really know what to say. Westy had never really spoken that much and it was usually about food or something, not about the secrets of the universe or anything as in depth as that, so I just said the first thing that came to me.

"Well, that's great" It was pretty warm, below the storm in this octopusses garden in the shade, and so we decided to stay there for a while. We put the song on the big speakers for everyone to have a listen to, but I guess it must work differently for different people, or maybe it's just for trouts. I didn't feel the same as when I listened to it the other day at the Pixie Hut, but maybe it was just my mood. Things always seemed to be changing, and I think that was a defining moment in my life, sitting there at the bottom of our backyard rainforest in the little garden cottage, when I began to wonder just what it was I was doing.

All these things that were happening around me, and compelling me to do things, and the tasks that needed to be done, I just took an overview of the whole situation, the record, the crossroads, Luci and supposed kidnapping of the alleyway Empress, Misty the talking cat, Tootie the bat, and Falcon and his silly ways. I began to wonder what it was all about, and I thought that things were pretty nice in this cottage, even though they didn't have any jagger root tea because it would just float away. What he were drinking was this kind of strange liquid that was lighter than water so it floated, so you had to hold your cup upside down so it wouldn't float away, then you would drink it by tipping the cup up to your top lip and taking a sip. It was quite an artform to achieve.

I thought that this existence, here staying away from everything, away from the world at large, away from all the drama of life and existence, just with friends enjoying the simple things. I really started to imagine

that I could stay here for an eternity, for ever, just live out the rest of my life under the water, without any of the hubbub and noise of all of that rubbish that goes on in the world, all the things that get people worried, relationships, the environment, the hole in the ozone layer, conflict between different countries and all of the other things that they tell you you have to worry about, money, drugs, health and disease, all the issues of being alive, reproduction, making it big in show bissiness, all the dreams that they seem to give you, dangling just in front of your nose like a carrot, but perhaps it's all pipe dreams, perhaps, I imagined, it is all part of the system, selling dreams, of fame and fortune in order to control society and stear it.

But no, that could not be. These dreams are alive in the society and they have evolved out of a genuine and authentic human urge, a noble cause, or is that just what they would have you believe.

I didn't want to think about it any longer, everyone was just having a good time, and I seriously wanted to stay down here, forever and ever and ever, but there was a problem. My mind was shutting it out, but there was certainly a problem. What was going to happen when the storm above subsides and the water in our backyard eventually washes away? What will happen then? We will have to return to our normal existencies and have to deal with all the things that we have to deal with. I don't think I've gone into all the minute details enough in this book for you to really understand the complexities of day to day existence, but maybe I'll add them in later or something, but you know for yourself that there's more to things than meets the eye.

This and everything else I thought about while down in the octopusses garden, and we talked about mundane things like the weather, and how it hadn't rained like this since we were all kids growing up and playing in the gutters with the streams of water flooding down the streets, and us having oh such fun. Those were the days, reminiscing about the times when you didn't have to worry about things as much, and you didn't have the responsibility to change the world, to be remembered, to have your life recognised, to leave something worth while behind, to be a part of society, a value to your community. It's a hard, hard road you have to walk, and sometimes you feel as though you want to escape from that forever and just live inside an octopusses garden forever, but I guess what I'm trying to touch on is that you can't live in an octopusses garden

forever, no matter what the Beatles song says. There's a harsh reality lurking around the corner, and at the moment the harsh reality hit me, and soon after it hit Falcon and the rest of them, all except Westy -- who of course was a fish and so the water had no effect on him.

That's right, the pills, those watergoing pills were apparently wearing off.

"Falcon, how long are theese things supposed to last?"

"Jees, I thought we'd be good for at least a few days, but I guess we did only take one and a half each." We both began to choke as the water in our lungs began to be rejected by our bodies returning to their normal state. The come down was harsh, and deadly, in the literal sense, but then our good friend Westy came to the rescue. I really was impressed with Westy, the way he handled this situation. I guess we owe him all our lives in a way, though we probably would have made it up to the surface alright, it gives him pleasure to believe that he saved our souls.

"Come!" Said Westy at that moment, "We've got no time to lose. I know of a passageway, it came to me in a dream while listening to that record." And he quickly swam away. We followed him out and down this little cave tunnel. It was dark but we didn't really need to see, as we were just feeling our way through, plus we still had those little glow worms in a jar that I had tied to my belt, and they lit things up a little bit. On and on we swam, up this tunnel that seemed to go on an on, up hill, and we were slowly coming down to our normal state and the breathing was getting harder and harder. Luckily there was a current taking us up and just as we though we couldn't swim any further, the surface came down to us, and there we were, all drenched to the bone, climbing out of the flood water indise some building, something that looked like it was from the thirteenth century, or the middle ages, or are they the same thing?

There were stone walls and on the wall was a flaming torch.

"What is this place?" I asked Westy, assuming he would know because he took us here. He wasn't sure however, saying something

strange about how he could only show me the door, but I had to walk through it myself, whatever that meant. I assumed he meant the door over in the corner.

"Oh, you mean that door?"

We didn't seem ammused. I went over there anyway and pulled the door open. On the other side were a set of spiral stairs ascending up into the heavens. We must have been in some kind of dungeon or something, and there was only one place that this could be. We all knew it from walking past it all the time on the way to the Dirty Valley, the biggest house on the street, and it had the look and feel of an old castle. The arch-bishop lived there according to local legend, though no one had ever seen his face around there.

We started up the stairs. They reminded me of a certain car park in the Dirty Valley that we sometimes go up to the roof on when we're bored. On and on they went, and it really did seem like they were going u pto heaven, or at least into the clouds, and we were all getting pretty tired, but nevertheless, so all continued on, feeling some kind of strange compulsion guiding us upwards towards our destiny. On and on and on we climbed until our legs felt like lead and sweat began dripping off our bodies. Westy was back in my jacket pocket, urging us to contunue, saying something about this being the ultimate passage or something. We continued.

At last we reached to top, and there was a small door, smaller than usual, but not so small as you couldn't walk through it, but you may have had to lean down a bit to avoid bumping your head, and so we all did, leaning in as though bowing to a higher presence while entering the room. I thought that perhaps this was all by design, but then thought the better of myself, that nothing in this god's green earth is by design, and it is all evolution baby, even god himself evolved in your mind. Well that's what I thought while entering this chamber anyway. It was huge, the tip of it sitting atop the long shaft of the staircase, a luxury penthouse with only a touch of the old dark ages theme. Whoever made this must have spent a fortune.

In the middle of the room was a big brass bed, just like the one Bob Dylan sang about in that Lay Lady Lay song of his, and on the bed

was the Empress, asleep and tied up. Over to one side was a gigantic throne and upon that was the Arch-Bishop, or who I assumed was the archbishop because he was all dressed funny and to his side was a kind of a septer like I've seen other archbishops weilding around all over the place. Anyway, he was asleep as well. I put two and two together and figured out that it was the Archbishop who had captured the Empress and was holding her captive up here. We had to get her out of here, but how?

"Come on guys, let's get the Empress out of here." I said in a voice rather unlike my own. I was commanding, taking charge, and that hardly ever happens, but it seemed to work, and the others sprang into action. Tootie and Misty went to work on chewing through the ropes that were tying her down, but Falcon went over to the big window to the right. It was quite a view from there, oh what a view. I wondered what the hell he was doing.

"What the hell are you doing Falcon you tripper?" I called out, "This is no time for sight seeing." But it was no use. He had been acting a little weird sinse listening to that backwards record as well, and one could only guess what was going on in his mind, most likely some strange view of enlightenment that somehow made sense to him, though would probably not make a hell of a lot of sense to anyone else. He stood staring out into the open skies. I went about the business of picking waking up the Empress.

"Empress, it's me Earl Gray Fisher, and I'm here to rescue you." I felt terribly like Luke Skywaker from A New Hope, but I had no idea how we were going to escape. We certainly couldn't swim through that tunnel again. That would be suicide. I stood trying to think of an escape plan, when over in the corner throne, the Arch-bishop began to stir. Think quick Fisher. What was I to do? I had no idea. I was about to run down the stairs again, when I looked over towards the window to behold a most profound transformation in Falcon.

The sky was just clearing up and the sun was beaming through. It was an awesome sight. Falcon was no longer Falcon. He had changed. It was his metamophosis as an ethereal being, it was the next stage in his personal evolution, it was his step forward towards the light. In his place was a giant eagle, a falcon, white head, and plumage of

beautiful colour, a rainbow explosion. Strangely enough it too reminded me of Star Wars, the millenium falcon that they used to escape from the Death Star when they were rescuing the Princess.

Quite a coincidence I thought as we hopped aboard the falcon express. With one gentle hop, we set sail upon the airwaves, the hot currents were rising from the city below, keeping us afloat, as we glided under the falcon's giant wingspan, into the setting sun.

Epilogue So that's just about it, how I remember it all going down. Just remember that my memory isn't all that good, so some of that stuff may or may not have actually happened. I like to think that it really happened though, and perhaps it actually did, who knows. Anyway, so I think I went through my own transformation in my own way.

I'm still around the place, still go down to the crossroads, though rarely do I run into my good friend Luci. I've returned Westy back into the pond in the enchanted park, and I'm certain he is telling all his new friends about his adventures on dry land. I think it really helped him open up to the world. The Empress is back in the alley way after staying with me for a few weeks. Things just didn't work out between us. You know how it is. It was probably never going to work. But we did have quite a time, and in the end, isn't that the main thing?

But enough writing for now. It has been a strange and wonderful journey into the human mind and soul, but enough of all that, all that has been done to death in novels all around town and all around the world, and most likely all around the universe on other planets. For now, I think I'll go in and make another nice hot pot of jagger root tea, and I'll sit out on the front steps sipping away, and watching the people walk past, wondering where they're headed to in their next evolution.