'What you call "truth" is just another word,' explained the god.
'But isn't the truth, the truth? Empirical, objective, real?'
'I prefer to call it an "alternative lie". Everyone lies, what you choose to believe, well, that's your choice, your alternative,' the god answered, omnisciently.
'The senses are deceitful? Reason is a subterfuge?'
'Even this conversation is not what it seems,' the god laughed.
Its laughter was as thunder, rolling in the distant hills, echoing across the empty plains.
And so another version of myself splinters off into the future leaving me stuck in the past, still unenlightened, still longing for meaning, refusing to accept the alternative lies that fill the void of my soul. Am I already dead? Or still dying from this disease you humans call life?
'But isn't the truth, the truth? Empirical, objective, real?'
'I prefer to call it an "alternative lie". Everyone lies, what you choose to believe, well, that's your choice, your alternative,' the god answered, omnisciently.
'The senses are deceitful? Reason is a subterfuge?'
'Even this conversation is not what it seems,' the god laughed.
Its laughter was as thunder, rolling in the distant hills, echoing across the empty plains.
And so another version of myself splinters off into the future leaving me stuck in the past, still unenlightened, still longing for meaning, refusing to accept the alternative lies that fill the void of my soul. Am I already dead? Or still dying from this disease you humans call life?
REALITY SHIFT
Just another cock-up in this once seamless blanket of lies, threatening to puncture the nightmare fabric through to the quarks of dream-time consensus. Julian lit another high tar cigarette sucking the smoke greedily into his mouth where he let it linger a moment, allowing the nicotine a short cut to the brain through the capillaries behind his thin, pursed lips. Julian needed cigarettes like a fish needs gills; earth atmosphere was too rich in oxygen, it made Julian feel slow and stupid, but enveloped in a cloud of high tar tobacco smoke he was untouchable. The best telepath in the business, usually. Right now, he was in doo-doos, big ploppy doo-doos. His dream self was somewhere out on the edge of the multiverse taking a client through a standard sex'n'spies fantasy when suddenly along comes this hawk headed female and takes the whole frigging contract over. Not only that, she has the client chained up and held to ransom.
Trouble is Julian couldn't work out which of the characters were his and whose were the client's. Was it Philip Richards? Alba Lucia? Or was it the ugly one with the continuous boring monologue running in his head? Humans, who'd want to be one? You've got to be seriously sad to want to wander around with a face like that. Human. Another word for loser. An over stimulated intellect focused on the receding universe, with as much understanding as a calculating machine.
Reality shift. It was impossible keeping track of the mundane. Jason stepped into the synaesthesic multiverse that awaited him and found himself chained up in a cell with three non-human life forms. Julian was waving his arms and drooling in the corner, Philip Richards had taken the side of his face off to re-configure his appearance by resetting the DIP switches below his eye sockets and Susan hovered and fluttered like a tormented moth. Something had punched its way through. The ugly human was real, from another time, somehow he had managed to transcend his species’ slow stupidity and bootstraped himself into the here and now. Nice one Jason, thought Julian.
‘Now to get you out of there.’ Jason looked up, Julian was talking to him in a surprisingly calm and laid back tone. ‘Listen to me Jason. I'm going to try to get you out of there. But you've got to help me. You've got to find out who is the client. I need to know. Who's the client, which one?’
‘I thought you were the telepath. What's going on Julian? What do you mean get me out? What about you lot?’
NOH SHIT
Julian dropped the burnt down dog-end into the cold coffee in the plastic mug sat in front of him, on his morgue cold aluminium desk top. He backed his mind out of the fantasy space, logging the space time coordinates on the back of a cigarette packet with a spent match head. Get back to that one later. He stared at the pile of paperwork on his desk and absent mindedly took a swig of coffee. Oh shit.
His heart just wasn't in it anymore. I'm not getting any younger. The job's crap. My agent's a thief, the wife's lost interest in sex, and the death tax on cigarettes is crippling me. Working the fantasy lines was a stop gap measure, the idea was to earn enough credits to buy a small solar system closer to the heart of the galaxy. Somewhere where the air was breathable, somewhere where you could afford to raise a family... his thoughts tailed off and his mind wandered back to a past encounter, a fantasy for a fellow telepath, an amorph with no thought or form to call its own, just desires. It wanted to experience love, human love. Only fools and humans fall in love. He let the amorph play the part of a shy young children's entertainer, he played the part of a more experienced but even younger Irish girl, he forgot their names but not the feeling. That tingling, drippy, trippy feeling of falling in love. There was nothing to beat it. Pity humans were so visually repulsive. He switched on his computer and started to type: “MEMO: To all TFE's. When taking on any contract involving a client that wishes to become human, make sure you get them to read and understand the VANITY CLAUSE before signing it.” He selected the option to F-Mail it to all the TeleFantasy Executives.
CHRISTMAS
Julian's mind wandered back to indulge himself, to immerse his every cell and fibre in that sweet, breathless state. Humans were so good at living a symphony. In control of nothing, steering a path to nowhere, but utterly convinced that in the eternity at the bottom of emptiness, where a silver saxophone sighs; the moment never dies, just endlessly looped in memories. Julian suddenly felt a surge of joy rush through him. This was Christmas, this was what it's all about. People having fun. And love. Yes, love! Julian took Chiara's face between his hands and tilted her head toward him. Closing his eyes, his face close to hers he kissed her on the lips.
The leaping party animals paired off and swapped partners until the next party, the record player hissed and hummed tunelessly, abandoned along with the ashtrays and half drunk plastic cups of warm white wine. Chiara shook the swaying Julian in her arms, ‘wake up Julian, it's time for bed.’
He lit another cigarette and logged back into dream-time, picking up a couple of customer care calls on the way. ‘Good morning Mr Michelangelo, just a customer care call from TeleFantasy Inc, my name’s Julian and I'd like to update you on some of our services, judging by your account we haven’t seen much of you recently, maybe you've been getting bored with the same old fantasies? That’s Ok, we all crave variety, that's why we at TeleFantasy Inc never sleep, we’re working round the clock to bring you new programs, new experiences, new ways of dying.’ He shot a sample into the mail pod along with the folded hologram message, predated the package to more sensible century and F-mailed it.
SUSAN
‘Ah, Ms Susan, just a customer care call...’ Susan looked up from her desk, ‘Jason, good to see you again, what a remarkable coincidence. I'm a sly no-no, old chap.’ Susan laughed and laughed and laughed her head off, revealing the cruel, twin, hawk heads beneath.
Jason woke up in a pool of body fluids somewhere far away from sanity. Computer leads wrapped around his wrists and ankles, something out of Dr Faustus perched at the foot of his bed, its twin hawk heads drooling spittle and darting tongues.
Somewhere in the real world, Philip Richards had reconfigured his body to become a very big thing, big enough for Chiara Luna, Julian and Alba Lucia to climb inside, and was now smashing its way in through the dungeon wall.
REALITY SHIFTS AGAIN
‘Susan, you bastard,’ Julian was quite capable of handling himself, only Susan was even more capable, dodging the bullets with the grace of a zero-g stripper. They ran zig-zagging across the empty warehouse floor, pausing to take shots at each other, tossing the occasional neutron grenade.
‘Susan! Why? What did you do it for?’ a shot whistled by to ricochet off the alarmingly full drum of heating oil Jason had ducked behind, ‘what was it, the glory? The cash? Sex?’ Another bullet shot the gun out of Jason's hand and they both dived after it. Susan got there first.
‘You want to know why I did it? Reality. Because it's real, Julian. Don't you see, your job, your wife, your agent... they're not real, they’re fiction. TeleFantasy Inc, is it real or is it TFI? Well, you're about to find out, it’s time to die.’ A screaming roar interrupts her speech, both hawk heads exploded messily, several large holes appearing in Susan’s jerking body.
Jason grinned. ‘All right?’ He held out a hand for Julian to grasp, which he did, reluctantly. ‘Don't worry about it mate, I find you twice as ugly as you find me, believe me. She's right you know,’ he indicated Susan with his foot, ‘you're not real, only I am, you told me that yourself. This way.’ They ran back through the deserted warehouse, by now Julian was feeling faint from the excessive oxygen.
‘Stop a minute, I need a cigarette.’ They sat back to back, guns ready, and smoked.
‘If I'm not real, how do you know I told you the truth when I told you that you were real?’
‘You haven't told me yet, and when you do... you'll know. You'd have worked it out for yourself.’
‘No, not possible, I'm the master of time, all this is not in time, it's in space. I know everything I'm going to know, I've just got to get there, it's you that's tied to a single time track.’
‘That’s what you think now, but you’ll learn.’ The ground began to shake and Philip Richards burst through a wall that hadn't previously been there. Alba Lucia was driving, ‘get in, did you get Susan?’ Jason nodded as he climbed on board.
‘Not you Julian, you’ve got paperwork to do; Susan’s account?’
HACKEM ALL
Shit. Cold coffee sprayed over Susan’s invoice as Julian spat the sodden filter out of his mouth. He got up and got a fresh cup of coffee. Ripping the filter off, he lit up and considered the situation. Susan was dead, again, there's a 20th century human computer hacker on the loose and two fantasy characters that seem to think they're real. How do you code that? Outside it was getting dark, the thin drizzle that heralded so much had stopped, the threatened cloudburst was hanging gloomily over the city, unable to suppress the splendour of the autumn sunset. The sun setting over the river always reminded Jason of his own death. Julian had been human once himself, his death was his calling, liberation from the shackles of time. He died on a glorious autumn afternoon; the angry sunset reflecting off the bonnet of the red Ford Fiesta, his still warm blood dripping from the bumper, congealing into a brown scab on the black tarmac road.
FROM R.USA
Jason looked himself up and down in the full-length mirror. Mmm, not bad considering… black, skin tight PVC leggings with chrome zip fasteners on the thighs. Black lace push-up bra, white, acrylic/polyester, imitation seal fur coat and matching suede Chelsea boots. He admired his sleazy, athletic figure, pouting ruby red lips and shoulder-length, platinum blond hair. Medea broke the silence, ‘let's move, we can't hang about here, Susan can't sustain this sort of complexity for long. Alba Lucia, don't forget that box of neutron grenades.’
WITH LOVE
Life, the universe, everything is a crack between two realities. Human beings are creatures that are struggling to die. The only reason why they keep on living is because their lives contribute to the entropy of the universe. In other words, they consume life, and by consuming they live.
Just another cock-up in this once seamless blanket of lies, threatening to puncture the nightmare fabric through to the quarks of dream-time consensus. Julian lit another high tar cigarette sucking the smoke greedily into his mouth where he let it linger a moment, allowing the nicotine a short cut to the brain through the capillaries behind his thin, pursed lips. Julian needed cigarettes like a fish needs gills; earth atmosphere was too rich in oxygen, it made Julian feel slow and stupid, but enveloped in a cloud of high tar tobacco smoke he was untouchable. The best telepath in the business, usually. Right now, he was in doo-doos, big ploppy doo-doos. His dream self was somewhere out on the edge of the multiverse taking a client through a standard sex'n'spies fantasy when suddenly along comes this hawk headed female and takes the whole frigging contract over. Not only that, she has the client chained up and held to ransom.
Trouble is Julian couldn't work out which of the characters were his and whose were the client's. Was it Philip Richards? Alba Lucia? Or was it the ugly one with the continuous boring monologue running in his head? Humans, who'd want to be one? You've got to be seriously sad to want to wander around with a face like that. Human. Another word for loser. An over stimulated intellect focused on the receding universe, with as much understanding as a calculating machine.
Reality shift. It was impossible keeping track of the mundane. Jason stepped into the synaesthesic multiverse that awaited him and found himself chained up in a cell with three non-human life forms. Julian was waving his arms and drooling in the corner, Philip Richards had taken the side of his face off to re-configure his appearance by resetting the DIP switches below his eye sockets and Susan hovered and fluttered like a tormented moth. Something had punched its way through. The ugly human was real, from another time, somehow he had managed to transcend his species’ slow stupidity and bootstraped himself into the here and now. Nice one Jason, thought Julian.
‘Now to get you out of there.’ Jason looked up, Julian was talking to him in a surprisingly calm and laid back tone. ‘Listen to me Jason. I'm going to try to get you out of there. But you've got to help me. You've got to find out who is the client. I need to know. Who's the client, which one?’
‘I thought you were the telepath. What's going on Julian? What do you mean get me out? What about you lot?’
NOH SHIT
Julian dropped the burnt down dog-end into the cold coffee in the plastic mug sat in front of him, on his morgue cold aluminium desk top. He backed his mind out of the fantasy space, logging the space time coordinates on the back of a cigarette packet with a spent match head. Get back to that one later. He stared at the pile of paperwork on his desk and absent mindedly took a swig of coffee. Oh shit.
His heart just wasn't in it anymore. I'm not getting any younger. The job's crap. My agent's a thief, the wife's lost interest in sex, and the death tax on cigarettes is crippling me. Working the fantasy lines was a stop gap measure, the idea was to earn enough credits to buy a small solar system closer to the heart of the galaxy. Somewhere where the air was breathable, somewhere where you could afford to raise a family... his thoughts tailed off and his mind wandered back to a past encounter, a fantasy for a fellow telepath, an amorph with no thought or form to call its own, just desires. It wanted to experience love, human love. Only fools and humans fall in love. He let the amorph play the part of a shy young children's entertainer, he played the part of a more experienced but even younger Irish girl, he forgot their names but not the feeling. That tingling, drippy, trippy feeling of falling in love. There was nothing to beat it. Pity humans were so visually repulsive. He switched on his computer and started to type: “MEMO: To all TFE's. When taking on any contract involving a client that wishes to become human, make sure you get them to read and understand the VANITY CLAUSE before signing it.” He selected the option to F-Mail it to all the TeleFantasy Executives.
CHRISTMAS
Julian's mind wandered back to indulge himself, to immerse his every cell and fibre in that sweet, breathless state. Humans were so good at living a symphony. In control of nothing, steering a path to nowhere, but utterly convinced that in the eternity at the bottom of emptiness, where a silver saxophone sighs; the moment never dies, just endlessly looped in memories. Julian suddenly felt a surge of joy rush through him. This was Christmas, this was what it's all about. People having fun. And love. Yes, love! Julian took Chiara's face between his hands and tilted her head toward him. Closing his eyes, his face close to hers he kissed her on the lips.
The leaping party animals paired off and swapped partners until the next party, the record player hissed and hummed tunelessly, abandoned along with the ashtrays and half drunk plastic cups of warm white wine. Chiara shook the swaying Julian in her arms, ‘wake up Julian, it's time for bed.’
He lit another cigarette and logged back into dream-time, picking up a couple of customer care calls on the way. ‘Good morning Mr Michelangelo, just a customer care call from TeleFantasy Inc, my name’s Julian and I'd like to update you on some of our services, judging by your account we haven’t seen much of you recently, maybe you've been getting bored with the same old fantasies? That’s Ok, we all crave variety, that's why we at TeleFantasy Inc never sleep, we’re working round the clock to bring you new programs, new experiences, new ways of dying.’ He shot a sample into the mail pod along with the folded hologram message, predated the package to more sensible century and F-mailed it.
SUSAN
‘Ah, Ms Susan, just a customer care call...’ Susan looked up from her desk, ‘Jason, good to see you again, what a remarkable coincidence. I'm a sly no-no, old chap.’ Susan laughed and laughed and laughed her head off, revealing the cruel, twin, hawk heads beneath.
Jason woke up in a pool of body fluids somewhere far away from sanity. Computer leads wrapped around his wrists and ankles, something out of Dr Faustus perched at the foot of his bed, its twin hawk heads drooling spittle and darting tongues.
Somewhere in the real world, Philip Richards had reconfigured his body to become a very big thing, big enough for Chiara Luna, Julian and Alba Lucia to climb inside, and was now smashing its way in through the dungeon wall.
REALITY SHIFTS AGAIN
‘Susan, you bastard,’ Julian was quite capable of handling himself, only Susan was even more capable, dodging the bullets with the grace of a zero-g stripper. They ran zig-zagging across the empty warehouse floor, pausing to take shots at each other, tossing the occasional neutron grenade.
‘Susan! Why? What did you do it for?’ a shot whistled by to ricochet off the alarmingly full drum of heating oil Jason had ducked behind, ‘what was it, the glory? The cash? Sex?’ Another bullet shot the gun out of Jason's hand and they both dived after it. Susan got there first.
‘You want to know why I did it? Reality. Because it's real, Julian. Don't you see, your job, your wife, your agent... they're not real, they’re fiction. TeleFantasy Inc, is it real or is it TFI? Well, you're about to find out, it’s time to die.’ A screaming roar interrupts her speech, both hawk heads exploded messily, several large holes appearing in Susan’s jerking body.
Jason grinned. ‘All right?’ He held out a hand for Julian to grasp, which he did, reluctantly. ‘Don't worry about it mate, I find you twice as ugly as you find me, believe me. She's right you know,’ he indicated Susan with his foot, ‘you're not real, only I am, you told me that yourself. This way.’ They ran back through the deserted warehouse, by now Julian was feeling faint from the excessive oxygen.
‘Stop a minute, I need a cigarette.’ They sat back to back, guns ready, and smoked.
‘If I'm not real, how do you know I told you the truth when I told you that you were real?’
‘You haven't told me yet, and when you do... you'll know. You'd have worked it out for yourself.’
‘No, not possible, I'm the master of time, all this is not in time, it's in space. I know everything I'm going to know, I've just got to get there, it's you that's tied to a single time track.’
‘That’s what you think now, but you’ll learn.’ The ground began to shake and Philip Richards burst through a wall that hadn't previously been there. Alba Lucia was driving, ‘get in, did you get Susan?’ Jason nodded as he climbed on board.
‘Not you Julian, you’ve got paperwork to do; Susan’s account?’
HACKEM ALL
Shit. Cold coffee sprayed over Susan’s invoice as Julian spat the sodden filter out of his mouth. He got up and got a fresh cup of coffee. Ripping the filter off, he lit up and considered the situation. Susan was dead, again, there's a 20th century human computer hacker on the loose and two fantasy characters that seem to think they're real. How do you code that? Outside it was getting dark, the thin drizzle that heralded so much had stopped, the threatened cloudburst was hanging gloomily over the city, unable to suppress the splendour of the autumn sunset. The sun setting over the river always reminded Jason of his own death. Julian had been human once himself, his death was his calling, liberation from the shackles of time. He died on a glorious autumn afternoon; the angry sunset reflecting off the bonnet of the red Ford Fiesta, his still warm blood dripping from the bumper, congealing into a brown scab on the black tarmac road.
FROM R.USA
Jason looked himself up and down in the full-length mirror. Mmm, not bad considering… black, skin tight PVC leggings with chrome zip fasteners on the thighs. Black lace push-up bra, white, acrylic/polyester, imitation seal fur coat and matching suede Chelsea boots. He admired his sleazy, athletic figure, pouting ruby red lips and shoulder-length, platinum blond hair. Medea broke the silence, ‘let's move, we can't hang about here, Susan can't sustain this sort of complexity for long. Alba Lucia, don't forget that box of neutron grenades.’
WITH LOVE
Life, the universe, everything is a crack between two realities. Human beings are creatures that are struggling to die. The only reason why they keep on living is because their lives contribute to the entropy of the universe. In other words, they consume life, and by consuming they live.
