just another georgous morning after a cold night on the sunny side of the street, i fell asleep in the bottom half of a bunk bed, wrapped in a pixie blanket and surrounded with childrens toys, very deep, rewarding sleep, nice dreams. was chatting to sam while we are in the shower about the current status of our relationship, in the steam i drew a cube, 'complex' and a square 'simple' emphizising i'd like to keep things in the simple arena. I kinda feel incapable about anything out of the current arrangement, i mean i feel good about everything, i like the simplicity we have, its easy and constructive, i think i'd like to keep it like that for a while.

Idea for a video game:
History Revisionist
A video game, for the pc. The central charather is a right/left wing academic who has to outwit mossad, cia, mi5 and the media to get hold of documents that refute the holocuast and undernine the State of Israel. He has to knit a group of neo fascists, christian malitias and Islamo- fascists to help hi, He also gets support from the WASP establishment.
Theres a million cranks who would buy that shit, the world is filled with pricks. The only thing we need to do is keep it secret that it was invented by a black jew.

i was reading in a book about this idea a guy has, it's a holiday company for fat people. He thinks that fat people out number skinny people in england, and he feels they should have their own package tours, where they get to gorge on cream cakes and high cholestrial foods, mix with other fatties and go to nude beaches with them without feeling self concious or judged.

if there's one thing i can't seem to crack in this life its the secret of money, i work on the principle that if i keep it flowing, ie what comes in goes out, and never plan to save, then at least it flows in. The times i attempt to save are the times i come undone. But for the last few years i adopted an attitude that if i do what i love and not worry about the money then i'll generate money, but this has not worked. In fact i am now in debt. Its true i don't have the intrest or the mind for finantial matters, i am well outta my depth, i mean when i was divorced i had no idea who my bank was. People who understand money always facinate me, i am surrounded by wealthy people, they all seem to manage their money by living really boring safe lives, but there has to be a happy meduim, i'd quite happily adopt a boring life, I've tried may times but i am always thwarted, so yesterday when i recieved a bill from my accountant for $2000 i was stumped. I mean this guy gets me less on my tax return than any other accountant i have ever had and charges more. There's no way i can pay this, so i rang him up only to be told that i am going to be charged intrest. Can you believe this?
$2000 would get me on the exhibition circuit, it would pay for at least 4 more pieces of art i can sell and generate $ from, but no, its gotta go towards some breadhead straight to stash in his offshore bank account.
If i was generating enough cash it wouldn't be a problem but i litreally live hand to mouth, to pay such a debt risks me getting into further debt.

emilie the french girl seems to be ringing me more than ever now, inviting me out, telling me about her troubles, it's strange as i want to catch up with her but my motivation is shot, it's spent energy on something that could have been but never was. i been reading about the Hawkwind tour of Sydney 2000, they were due to play in New Zealand but the promoters ripped them off, offererd to pay them in bags of dope so they relocated and played in Australia. They loved it, apparently they have a huge fan base here. I am pretty certain my friend Proffesor Leary went to see them. I would have if i had my finger on the pulse, i think they played at the metro, a small venue, more club like. That would have been something. The book seems to shatter the myth that Hawkwind were a bunch of peace loving harmony hippies, in fact the inner tensions between members was horrific, ending in court, unpaid royalties, unfair wage structures and inequity, the discord could be harnessed to supply the grid. Shame, i sort of regret reading the book now, i liked the myth not the saga.

Okay now as you know i am a total freak about my diet, very careful about toxins and all the shit they subsutiute as food these days, on dropping in to see agent stone she gave me a present she purchased from something called the easter show, it was a bag filled with sour sweets, yeah a huge bag filled with SOUR sweets. I ate one and it was fucking foul, anyway the deal was that you have to keep the sweet in your mouth for 50 seconds, the first 20 being the worst, then it got slightly bearable, but i have to say people, i did it. The problem with these sweets is they are highly addictive, i mean this stuff pisses on smack or methadone, its far more damaging than ice or crack, this stuff is bad news, its legal and it sells in most newsagents, most mums and dads buy it for their loved ones when they have been good boys and girls, it's going to make children crazy, rot their teeth instantly, plug em into the medical adad model as the high levels of sugar ravage their little systems, it's going cuase diabeties and brain disorders, its going to poison the blood, and infiltrate the mind. I ate two sweets and suddenly my brain started to fuck up, tiny sezures, mild epileptic episodes, a sudden glimpse into dantes inferno, messages from the dead zones.

I was reading about the ethics of climbing up everest. apparently theres a big ho ha about the climbers who walk by other climbers who are half frozen and abandoned, they generally leave them to die, as did a group of climbers leave an english climber who subsequently froze to death, their rationale being, he would have died anyway.
Well i don't know, i don't actually put these guys in the same bracket as the edmund hillarys of the world, Hillary was a true adventurer, he didn't have the same kind of technology, he just had what was available at the time, no gps, maybe some thermal undies but he made the comment that he would never leave some one to die on the mountain and you gotta respect that. Maybe these modern idiots do know the risk, maybe we live in an age where the achievement has to be made at any cost but the real hero for me is Hillary. He spoke out where others didn't. I 'd rather climb with Hillary than the other bozo's, thats for sure.
I 'm reminded of 'Touching the Void' the brilliant film based on the book about two climbers in peru, one of whom had to cut the rope that connected him to the other lest he be killed. It was an amazing story, both managed to survive, under circumstances that they really stood no chance against. It's amazing what the body can do, the limits it can reach, one of the climbers said, 'My body was on auto piolet, i crawled home, my mind was gone, it was singing Boney M songs on loop.'

Dropped of the edge of the earth for a few days, yes it's true, certainly feels like that. Well the veiw from here is pretty good anyways, plenty of heat despite the space between us, plenty of space for playing.
So what's happening in my world, what stimulating information bounces around my synapses, releasing itself in this strange process via my fingertips and this keyboard. Well the region, a home office term for the asia pacific looks pretty fragile, earthquakes, war and outbreaks of bird flu, courruption in high and low places, global warming suddenly confirmed by the nuclear lobby, everyones an expert, the debate we have to have. Personally i feel slightly indifferent, why should we continue to trust these experts and nuclear people, after all they are all funded by the meat board, okay maybe not the meat board but everyone has an ulterior motive and if its not the carnivores its the drug companies.

I have been enjoying reading a book about the space rock band 'Hawkwind' a band i used to go and see quite regularly at Stonehenge and various other venues around London, pre punk. I even saw them one night play with Ginger Baker on drums, but the real brains behind Hawkwind was Robert Calvert the manic depressive poet who as far as i am concered wrote and sung their best stuff, 'Astounding Tales Amazing Music is a fantastic album, and listening to 'Refer Madness', still manages to make me smile. Credit to Dave Brock though who also made Hawkwind a more contempory band, he seemed to embrace technology way before any other musicians, and i would say even preceeded the rave stuff that became popular in the 80's.
The book is filled with endless bikering between the players, Dave Brock cretainly liked to assume control but generally it was pretty much a team effort, even Lemmy occasionally rejoins for shows. There's a few nice antedotes, one being when Jimmy Hendrix saw them play at the isle of wight and wanted to get up on stage and jam with them but experienced a conflicting emotion that if he jammed with them then he would steal the attention so he just watched and later congratulated them. I specifically liked the way the Hawkwind family just grew and grew and seemed everchanging. Anyway Calverts still my fave, he was regularly carted away to an institution when he was having episodes, he was so much larger than life. I vividly recall seeing them preform on the Marc Bolan tv show, under the name Hawks and Calvert was dressed up in a kind of air force piolets outfit from WW1. He had a stuffed hawk sitting upon his shoulder and a pair of goggles, along with these joppers and thigh high boots. Very cool.
One off my fave writers when i was a kid, a guy called Mike Moorcock was also in Hawkwind, he was a source of inspiration for the band but also played with them and wrote a few tunes. On of their best albums was based upon one of his books, the album is called Chronicles of the Black Sword and the charater is Elrich. The idea being Elrich drew his stregth and immortality from the victims of the sword, it was a sybiotic relationship, however the sword was indiscriminate and eventually killed Elrich's beloved.
Moorcock went on to write other books and slowley became one of Englands most respected writers, his non sci fi is excellent to but if you fancy something brilliant read 'The Dancers at the Edge of Time.'

strange day, wandering through hornsby mall, a suburb i never really go to except to visit the big bookshop there as it has a great selection of stock, anyways i picked up a book by alex grey, (see pic) the visionary artist that has obviously experienced dmt reality as his pictures really capture the dmt world, and was about to leave when a girl behind a city bank promotional desk asked me how i was, i was doing fine until i heard her seductive accent, french, what can i say, i started to melt in front of her, suddenly i had signed up for a new credit card or some thing i don't really understand about some big finantial institution. I mean i didn't even hear what she was saying, i just listened to her gorgeous voice and watched her little pixie face as she went through her routine. I mean who would have thought credit card intrest rates would be so sexy. Normally i am not a detail kinda guy, but i recall almost everything about her, her smell, what she was wearing, her shoes, her lips, eyes and everything else she told me about herself, except for the city bank stuff, anyway she had been living in sydney, pyrmont for a year and was very happy, she asked me a whole bunch of stuff, i gave her a card, when she found out my age she seemed surprised, she said, i looked younger, i told her i have a young mind, then we went our separate ways but i can't help wondering about her.

Last night i watched a tv show about the way children are being brought up in australia, a crowd of young parents and specialists, therapists and physiologist all chatting about what good parenting is, and how to be one. There was some really valid points made but the one point i thought of that was lacking in the conversation was how these parents can teach their children all about morality and how to behave yet never once point out that most of the people in positions of power or authority, in fact even most people in the world are corrupt or would be given the oppurtunity, in fact the adult world is a sad reflection of bad parenting, i mean its all very well to tell children that violence is wrong and then expect them to understand when their countries army is at war. It's the same with stealing, i mean jesus the govt. steal from me every day, just becuase it's under the guise of tax don't mean its not stealing. I mean Rupert Murdoch don't pay any tax, why should i, and i don't endorse where my tax is spent either, most of it is directed towards supporting a govt. i don't like, the pennies may go to a few hospitals and schools but most of it goes to the keeping an ineffecient beaurocracy running. Corruption is an issue that can't be stopped in a classroom, its not always huge and noticable, it needs to be addressed as a species, adults need to take the challenge and face their own sense of honour, there's no other way.
The baghvad gita, describes a war, arjuna is visited just before the battle by krishna, only to hear how to escape this cycle of death and rebirth and sufferring. The war is the war within. The struggle every person has with themselves, there are many ways outta the battlefield but how many people are disiplined enough to take them. Talk is cheap, action speaks louder than words, all the people on tv last night debating missed the point. Fill your childrens heads with lies and delusions about the world, and they will never trust ya again.
Humanity is corrupt, if you can struggle with your own demons and face them, stare them down and be their master/mistress then you may stand a chance against being corrupt, but don't preach to the next gen, set the example.

if ya like your books gritty, realistic, violent, thrilling, edgey, tense, filled with anti heros, sex, drugs and just loads of information on americas incvolvement with drugs in mexico and south america then pick up a copy of Power of the Dog, i'm 2 thirds of the way through and it's really captured me. Winslows style of writing is excellent, its pacey, his dialouge is excellent, the charachters are complex four dimentional beings travelling along their velocities intersecting and you can feel the tension eminate from each page.

well its a crispy monday morn here in sunny mission control, the glorious sun streams through the windows, my plants are looking healthy since i gave them a trim, and pansy is sleeping and dreaming on the lounge after a long run. Emilie has been calling me a lot, wanting to see me, have coffee, go to the gym, go to a party, a surf, the other night she called becuase she was having some trouble with her flatmate, although i gave her sound advice i feel kind detached, unenthusiastic. The reality that i created with her has disappaited now, we travel in seperate ones and mine has drawn further away from hers, it's weird how that happens but it's the way i move through things in life. i guess with commitment its different.


while messing about in the virtual world i chanced upon this bit of info from one of my fave writers Mr. William Burroughs

Captain Mission and the Liberal Revolution

“The liberal principles embodied in the French and American revolutions and later in the liberal revolutions of 1848 had already been codified and put into practice by pirate communes a hundred years earlier. Here is a quote form Under the Black Flag by Don C. Seitz:
Captain Mission was one of the forbears of the French Revolution. He was one hundred years in advance of his time, for his career was based upon an initial desire to better adjust the affairs of mankind, which ended as is quite usual in the more liberal adjustment of his own fortunes. It is related how Captain Mission, having led his ship to victory against an English man-of-war, called a meeting of the crew. Those who wished to follow him he would welcome and treat as brothers; those who did not would be safely set ashore. One and all embraced the New Freedom. Some were for hoisting the Black Flag at once but Mission demurred, saying that they were not pirates but liberty lovers, fighting for equal rights against all nations subject to the tyranny of government, and bespoke a white flag as the more fitting emblem. The ship’s money was put in a chest to be used as common property. Clothes were now distributed to all in need and the republic of the sea was in full operation.
Mission bespoke them to live in strict harmony among themselves; that a misplaced society would adjudge them still as pirates. Self-preservation, therefore, and not a cruel disposition, compelled them to declare war on all nations who should close their ports to them. “I declare such war and at the same time recommend to you a humane and generous behavior towards your prisoners, which will appear by so much more the effects of a noble soul as we are satisfied we should not meet the same treatment should our ill fortune or want of courage give us up to their mercy…” The Nieustadt of Amsterdam was made prize, giving up two thousand pounds and gold dust and seventeen slaves. The slaves were added to the crew and clothed in the Dutchman’s spare garments; Mission made an address denouncing slavery, holding that men who sold others like beasts proved their religion to be no more than a grimace as no man had power of liberty over another…
Mission explored the Madagascar coast and found a bay ten leagues north of Diego-Suarez. It was resolved to establish here the shore quarters of the Republic—erect a town, build docks, and have a place they might call their own. The colony was called Libertatia and was placed under Articles drawn up by Captain Mission. The Articles state, among other things: all decisions with regard to the colony to be submitted to vote by the colonists; the abolition of slavery for any reason including debt; the abolition of the death penalty; and freedom to follow any religious beliefs or practices without sanction or molestation.
Captain Mission’s colony, which numbered about three hundred was wiped out by a surprise attack from the natives, and Captain Mission was killed shortly afterwards in a sea battle. There were other such colonies in the West Indies and in Central and South America, but they were not able to maintain themselves since they were not sufficiently populous to withstand attack. Had they been able to do so, the history of the world could have been altered. Imagine a number of such fortified positions all through South America and the West Indies, stretching from Africa and Madagascar and Malaya and the East Indies, all offering refuge to fugitives from slavery and oppression: “Come to us and live under the Articles.”
At once we have allies in all those who are enslaved and oppressed throughout the world, from the cotton plantations of the American South to the sugar plantations of the West Indies, the whole Indian population of the American continent peonized and degraded by the Spanish into subhuman poverty and ignorance, exterminated by the Americans, infected with their vices and diseases, the natives of Africa and Asia—all these are potential allies. Fortified positions supported by and supporting guerilla hit-and-run bands; supplied with soldiers, weapons, medicines and information by the local populations … such a combination would be unbeatable. If the whole American army couldn’t beat the Viet Cong at a time when fortified positions were rendered obsolete by artillery and air strikes, certainly the armies of Europe, operating in unfamiliar territory and susceptible to all the disabling diseases of tropical countries, could not have beaten guerilla tactics plus fortified positions. Consider the difficulties which such and invading army would face: continual harassment from the guerillas, a totally hostile population always ready with poison, misdirection, snakes and spiders in the general’s bed, armadillos carrying the deadly earth-eating disease rooting under the barracks and adopted as mascots by the regiment as dysentery and malaria take their toll. The sieges could not but present a series of military disasters. There is no stopping the Articulated. The white man is retroactively relieved of his burden. Whites will be welcomed as workers, settlers, teachers, and technicians, but not as colonists or masters. No man may violate the Articles.
Imagine such a movement on a world-wide scale. Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words. The disastrous results of uncontrolled industrialization would also be curtailed, since factory workers and slum dwellers from the cities would seek refuge in Articulated areas. Any man would have the right to settle in any area of his choosing. The land would belong to those who used it. No white-man boss, no Pukka Sahib, no Patrons, no colonists. The escalation of mass production and concentration of population in urban areas would be halted, for who would work in their factories and buy their products when he could live from the fields and sea and the lakes and rivers in areas of unbelievable plenty? And living from the land, he would be motivated to preserve its resources.
I cite this example of retroactive Utopia since it actually could have happened in terms of the techniques and human resources available at the time. Had Captain Mission lived long enough to set an example for others to follow, mankind might have stepped free from the deadly impasse of insoluble problems in which we now find ourselves.
The chance was there. The chance was missed. The principles of the French and American revolutions became windy lies in the mouths of politicians. The liberal revolutions of 1848 created the so-called republics of Central and South America, with a dreary history of dictatorship, oppression, graft and bureaucracy, thus closing this vast underpopulated continent to any possibility of communes along the lines set forth by Captain Mission. In any case South America will soon be crisscrossed by highways and motels. In England, Western Europe, and America, the overpopulation made possible by the Industrial Revolution leaves scant room for communes, which are commonly subject to state and federal law and frequently harassed by the local inhabitants. There is simply no room left for “freedom from the tyranny of government” since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.”
—William S. Burroughs

Other news is I recieved a letter from Martin Von Donaldson, my old guitar player, he's in Berlin, teaching guitar. It was fantastic to hear from him, as you know its been 20 years, but his letter was filled with a similar universe to mine, he's really become emeresed in Kabbalah and the training of ego, he mentioned how the ego is 'a bad master and a good servant' words i relate to, he spoke about how he played in a band called 'Jinn' with members of Nico's band, reminised about our old days in London and Berlin. It's funny how reading a hand written letter from an old freind makes you feel, all warm and fuzzy. I hope that one day we can get together and record. I am going to send him a few songs anyways.

a few lifetimes ago i was smoking some high quality opium with a dodgy looking mercenary in budapest, he was dressed in these wonderful leather boots that i looked at enviously, a long leather trenchcoat, underneath which was a long barreled pistol, all of which i stole from him after i killed him 3 nights later, on the battlefield.
we had been fighting one another in hills for a couple of days, our men were tired and thirsty, they were a long way from home, we had been fighting so long we had forgottern who the enemy was. one evening, after looking at the wounded and the dead, he marched over waving a white flag and suggested a 48 hour truce, thus we found ourselves in the chinese quarter, induldging in some narcotic pleasure.
anyways he says to me, 'so what exactly are you the captain off?'
'i am captain of my own ship, the one that has no name.'
He just smiled, acknowledging me, looking at my gaze as the opium hit.
i smiled back, he laughed.

that was a long time ago when men repected honour, a time when men were islands, a time when men sought their destiny by going of to war, battle, journeys, adventures. to seek your fortune is to seek your soul, it's always been a metaphor, it's the journey not the destination.

nowadays people don't even look in your eyes, there is no acknowlegement of the brotherhood of men, there is no brotherhood, unless you been divorced, lost your kids, paying huge amounts of cash to the child support agency for kids you never see, yeah it's not quite cynisism, it's a defeated exchange, i see it all the time, hollow men, broken, eyes floating in tears, i see the hard and arbitory wear and tear time and experience plays upon men and i see how they let go of their dream, they give up, they cry in silence alone, becuase they can't reach the destination, never knowing that they have.
i guess what i am trying to say is that life does and will beat you, it will fuck you over, you will be battered and defeated, the scars and bruises will be interior, no one can see them unless you know how to look, no one will talk about it, it just lies in the soul. these men surround me, their words are empty, void of freedom, they are trapped in prisons without bars, they are wounded and hurt, bitter and twisted, unable to believe in anything, unable to believe in themselves.
i was one of these men, i was cast adift, landscape unfamiliar, surrounded by fear, sourrounded by death. everyman needs to look into his own eyes, face his own mortality, face death and laugh. Laugh at death and you are free to live.
how many men can say they are free, its a tall order, even in these democratic daze, the promise of liberty, freedom has brought us a new type of slavery.
Are you free?

driving home from work listening to old richard ashcroft, the beautiful morning light filtering through the parkway, trees alive with energy, you can see their auras, see them growing, spreading out, past the tropical pockets where it looks like jungle, gradually the foilage eases out and you catch glimpses of the lake, crystal water, reflecting sunlight, glass surface, a pelican floats, one skims in from above, your mind drifting, expansive, and song for the lovers comes on and you breath in, feels good to be alive you think, ironically notcing the fresh carnage, roadkill, every morning it accumulates, horrific metal death, the beautiful perfect creations reassembled, squashed, turned inside out, no longer beautiful, no longer functional, death is not the end little ones, its the beginning. i feel sorry for all the animals killed, i drive past them every morning sometimes and i think, i am the cause, i drive a car. often i say a blessing if the animal is dying, or recently deceased, i send its soul on its journey. i don't know why, i have always done this, even if there is no soul, no journey, the doing of it makes me feel easier.
i actually send them back through time, in my mind, they are given life when a car reverses over them at a high speed, they stand there looking a bit dazed, then they hop away back into the bush, back to their loving families who miss them and wonder where they are.

okay so its pay day today, which means rent, bills, debts and outstanding credit needs fixing but prioritize, so first on the list its the surf.
today we are greeted with the promise of near perfection, standing at the shore i watch each wave form, they are small but significant, they emerge from nowhere, out of stillness, they flow towards and i watch them break, consistant and beautful. the water is clean, its almost clear, its sharp, slightly cold but my body acclimatizes quickly, i take a quick lungful and throw myself in, theres no struggle, no wash, just a nice easy access out the back, my fin cuts through. after a while the waves are increasing in size, they become perfect, i ride them, mustta caught about 30 and each time they get bigger and bigger. eventually its the cold water (no wet suit yet) that motivates me towards the shore. i look at the clouds, i do some breathing excersises, i smile and think how grateful i am, i feel love and i feel loved.

later im invited for lunch at sam
'whats on the menu?' i say.
'me'
'i'm kinda hungry.'
'good.'

more love in the afternoon, i am actually starving...

crime fiction is a genre of writing often thought of as trashy, throw away or pulp, yet there's something fundamentally profound about a good crime book, it's not the actual crime, its the dectectives relationship to it, the single heartedness pursuit for truth becomes a philosophical inquiry into reality, the nature of truth, making the unknown known. my fave dectective fictions are the ones that have evolved from deduction and logical inquiry, sherlock holmes was a fave when i was younger but as i evolved my tastes did to, and i found myself reading the more unusual dectective stories, ones where the protagonists are stunted by the logic, where rational deduction ceases and the solution or clues appear in the unconscious, dreams, synchronizing events or perhaps intuition. one of the best tv shows i ever saw was twin peaks, a long drawn out autopsy of a murder in a small american town, where the character's were all multi dimentional, facets of freud and jung penetrated the evening viewing as in weekly installments agent coopers investigation became more and more bizarre. At one point i recall he went into a field with a list of suspects, his assistant in tow.
''what you doing with that list agent cooper?'
'well i'm not really sure were to start, its a long list so sometimes you have to use other methods.'
agent cooper asks his assistant to place a bottle on a fence and move back.
with the bottle perched precariously on the wooden beam, agent cooper searches for a pile of rocks, when he has sufficient he asks his bemused assistant to read of the names on the list, throwing a rock at the bottle for every name, when eventually he hits the bottle, he goes of to interrogate the corresponding name.
this type of surrender to choas is almost quite metaphysical, in the sense that implications abound beyond sensory evaluation, it's almost as if the brain is short circuited and bypassed, now, the series of suspects is under random scrutiny. the psychic censor is smashed. i think that if one invests trust within the universe, this can be god / goddess/ doa / vishnu / christ whatever your chosen belief at the time, and your body and mind is in league with your belief the truth always surfaces. one can argue this is an external issue that involves powers beyond human or one can say that the unconcious does sterr your reality, or one can deny these and call it luck. i don't believe in luck any more, everything happens becuase it happens, people don't die unless you are concious they are dead. for example my grandmother was alive for me until my mother rang me to tell me she had died. this can be seen as ignorance or denial but it corallates to the shrodingers cat theory, it's the observers reality, ignorance would be to disbelieve my mother and continue as if my grandmother is alive. truth is connecting the dots, seeing the patterns, reading the map that is not a map, see the poem in the mundane, seeing the micro in the macro and macro in micro, its the way the shaman take, its the way the magickian take, it's the way of gods.
anyways my fave dectective film is 'blade runner'
a brilliant execution of a great book, the film that shows the point where the human looses its humanity and the machine gains its own. pure brillance, there's an amazing twist on the directors cut, the only directors version that's shorter than the origional.
other revelutionary dectective films, well angel heart touches something close to genus. robert de niro plays the ultimate villan in a truely origional way.

one the way to work i am driving along the parkway, halfway there a white vertical zip/ streak of light flashes across the sky, a shooting star, make a wish, its beautiful.

Occasionally i like to dip into hedonistic pursuits and the last few evenings have been quite excessive, but now its time to reboot, its a glorious morning, the surf is beautiful, crystal clarity, cloudlessness and an old classic church song plays, 'to be in your eyes,' taking me back to the first time i ever bought that album, the guy in our price records commented on the cover art, he said, ' i wondered what they sound like.' i said, 'man they sound like the only band that matters.' that was a long time ago.
today that song plays and i am drifting along with it, steves voice so detached, like a ghost haunting the airwaves. a ghost that really cares, so much longing in that voice it still sends a shiver down me spine, still the only band that really matters.
so yeah a few nice sublime excursions over the last few evenings has left me feeling lighter, sexual healing, i guess.
i'm contemplating reclusiveness for a few months, lots of reading and art, i need to complete unfinished projects, pay debts, consolidation but i can't seem to commit to anything to concrete, at the moment information just passes through me and i am happy to watch what it does to my neurology, on a physical level my body is changing, excess weight is falling off, i feel taller, faster, somewhat more efficient. (i wish i had a long tail though)
it's funny i was thinking about the way girls and relationships manifest, always in dualities for me, the destructive individual offering danger and excitement, or the more balanced saner individual who can actually contribute something to my quality of life without taking from me.
throughout my relationship history i have always been attracted to the damaged goods, not sure why exactly but i would hazard a guess it feeds my need to have something to write about. also the challenge is immense, usually testing my resolve, patience and will, which always needs a good work out. a few months ago i mentioned an exercise in unconditional love, from which i manifested emilie and sam, again both polarities, in emile was potentiality, i went down a tangent where i saw our lives unveiled and it was a good union, in sam i don't see anything but the moment, and that has equal value because the moments have all been good.
unconditional love produces potentiality, navigating my way through emilie was easy but i was aware there were a few hidden mines, and it seems they were all detonated to blow when i got to close, perhaps that why i never slept with her, i don't want to be on a list of debrie, ex partners and unfulfilled promise. Me, I know my worth.
so adventures in love continue, skin shed, games played out, the rules re written, its a beautiful day here in mission control, it's a beautiful day here in babylon, its a beautiful way my heart just gets lighter inversly proportionally to my soul.

so i am thinking about a short trip somewhere, maybe london/paris, catch the church paly in europe, see my folks, spend time wandering around in the europian summer evenings, i dunno, it's all there right now waiting to be plucked. picked and pickled. anyway my emotions are calibrated, reading the terrain, picking up all sorts of transmissions and sending out waves of love to my brothers and sisters, and not forgetting our furry friends.

Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when Zhuangzi said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"

Huizi said, "You're not a fish — how do you know what fish enjoy?"

Zhuangzi said, "You're not I, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"

Huizi said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish — so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"

Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy — so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."

Food For Thought.
I nicked this from the Golden Dawn, they are one of the more traditional magickal orders, i have no affilliacion to them, being a choas magickian, however i think the Dawn have a lot to offer the above average mystic, and here are some intresting choice cuts covering a variety of esoteric information.

Qabalah:

"The Qabalah, or traditional science of the Hebrews, might be called the mathematics of human thought. It is the algebra of faith. It solves all problems of the soul as equations, by isolating the unknowns. It gives to ideas the clarity and rigorous exactitude of numbers; its results, for the mind, are infallibility (always relative, however, to the sphere of human knowledge) and for the heart, profound peace."

-- Eliphas Levi, The Book of Splendours, page 27

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"Speaking of the method of the Qabalah, one of the ancient Rabbis says that an angel coming down to earth would have to take on human form in order to converse with men. The curious symbol-system known to us as the Tree of Life is an attempt to reduce to diagrammatic form every form and factor in the manifest universe and the soul of man; to correlate them one to another and reveal them spread out as on a map so that the relative positions of each unit can be seen and the relations between them traced. In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology."

-- Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah, page 13

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"If we would know the inner nature of man by his outer nature; if we would understand his inner heaven by his outward aspect; if we know the inner nature of trees, herbs, roots, stones by their outward aspect, we must pursue our exploration of nature on the foundation of the Qabalah. For the Qabalah opens up access to the occult, to the mysteries; it enables us to read sealed epistles and books and likewise the inner nature of men."

--Paracelsus, Selected Writings

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"The Qabalah, is a trustworthy guide, leading to a comprehension of both the Universe and one's own Self.[…] But the Qabalah is more. It also lays the foundation on which rests another archaic science-Magic. […] The Qabalah reveals the nature of certain physical and psychological phenomena. Once these are apprehended, understood and correlated, the student can use the principles of Magic to exercise control over life's conditions and circumstances not otherwise possible. In short, Magic provides the practical application of the theories supplied by the Qabalah."

-- Israel Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates, pages i-iii

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Magic

"Magic may be defined as the use of some form of ceremonial, ranging from the simple mantram or spell to elaborate rituals of which the Mass of the Church and the ceremonies of the Freemason are examples. These are two representative types of magic, whatever their exponents may like to say to the contrary."

-- Dion Fortune, The Training & Work of an Initiate, page 85

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"Nature is a magician, every plant, animal, and every man is a magician, who uses his powers unconsciously and instinctively to build up his own organism; or, in other words, every living being is an organism in which the magical power of the spirit in nature acts; and if a man should attain the knowledge how to control this power of life, and to employ it consciously, instead of merely submitting unconsciously to its influence, then he would be a magician, and could control the processes of life in his own organism, and perhaps in that of other beings."

-- Franz Hartmann, M.D. Magic: White and Black, page 24

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"…of all hindrances to Magical action, the very greatest and most fatal is unbelief, for it checks and stops the action of the Will. Even in the commonest natural operations we see this. No child could learn to walk, no student could assimilate the formulas of any science, were the impracticability of so doing the first thing in his mind."

-- MacGregor Mathers, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, p. xxiv

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"Magic is the art of manipulating the unseen forces of nature […] A white magician is one who is laboring to gain the confidence of the powers that be, and to prove, through the purity of his life and the sincerity of his motive, his worthiness to be entrusted with the great arcana […] A black magician is one who seeks to gain authority over spiritual powers by means of force rather than by merit. In other words, he is trying to storm the gates of heaven; he is one who is seeking spiritual power and occult dominion with an ulterior motive. […] The black magician's motto is "might is right (survival of the fittest.) The white magician's motto is: "right is might" (survival of all.)

-- Manly P. Hall, Magic, pages 14-15

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"By means of the traditional Theurgic techniques it is possible to contact consciously this (astral) plane, to experience its life and influence, converse with its elemental and angelic inhabitants so-called, and return here to normal consciousness with complete awareness and memory of that experience. This, naturally requires training. But so does every department of science. Intensive preparation is demanded to fit one for critical observation, to provide one with the researches of one's predecessors in that realm. No less should be expected of Magic…"

-- Israel Regardie, The Art and Meaning of Magic, page 19

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"What would be a world without the magic power of love of beauty and harmony? How would a world look if made after a pattern furnished by modern science? A world in which the universal truth were not recognised could be nothing else but a world full of maniacs and filled with hallucinations. In such a world art and poetry could not exist, justice would become a convenience, honesty be equivalent with imbecility, to be truthful would be to be foolish, and the idol of "Self" the only god worthy of any consideration."

-- Franz Hartmann, M.D. Magic: White and Black, page 28

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"The path of knowledge is that of the occultist and the sage; that of love is that of the mystic and the saint. The head or heart approach is not dependent upon the ray, for both ways must be known; the mystic must become the occultist; the white occultists has been the saintly mystic. True knowledge is intelligent love, for it is the blending of the intellect and the devotion. Unity is sensed in the heart; its intelligent application to life has to be worked out through knowledge."

-- Alice A. Bailey, A Treatise on White Magic, page 120

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"…when I speak here of Magic I have reference to the Divine Theurgy praised and reverenced by antiquity. It is of a quest spiritual and divine that I write; a task of self-creation and reintegration, the bringing into human life of something eternal and enduring.[…] The result which the Magician above all else desires to accomplish is a spiritual reconstruction of his own conscious universe and incidentally that of all mankind, the greatest of all conceivable changes. The techniques of Magic is one by which the soul flies, straight as an arrow impelled from a taunt bow, to serenity, to a profound and impenetrable repose."

-- Israel Regardie, The Tree of Life, pages 31-32

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Magical Books:

"The literature of the ages is to the beginner in mystical studies by far the safest approach. It is less dramatic than personal contact and less romantic than pseudo-adepts, but the hazards of deceit and misinformation are greatly reduced. […] The average person who pays twenty-five dollars to some charlatan or only partially informed teacher can secure more and better knowledge in his subject by spending a few evenings reading authentic textbooks from his free public library."

-- Manly P. Hall, Words to the Wise, pages 31- 32

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Good Teachers

"Simple, studious groups of intelligent men and women, making no pretensions but doing and living a high standard of personal and collective integrity, without fads or fetishes, and without elaborate political machinery, are the only groups worthy of even passing consideration. There is no question but that such groups exist, but they seldom publicize themselves. Functioning quietly, they are known by their works and not by their words. To the "joiner," one passing thought: Weigh all things, and cling only to that which is simple, good, reasonable, and honest."

-- Manly P. Hall, Words to the Wise, pages 27-28

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"Helping people on a spiritual path develop to the utmost of their capabilities is the rightful duty of a group leader, whether he or she is called Grand Master/Mistress, High Priestess/Priest, Imperator, Hierophant or by another name. Such a position is not one of being all-powerful. Rather it is a position of responsibility and service to the other members of the group. The duty of the leader should include helping each member to improve on his or her path."

-- Donald Michael Kraig, "The Spiritual Necessity of Hierarchy, Mezlim, Vol. IV, Issue # 4, Samhain 1994

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Bad Teachers

"So many times the follies and indiscretions of senior members, particularly in esoteric orders, go unchecked because there is no datum mark by which judgements can be made. This serious problem occurs so many times in esoteric groups that the ever-growing list of licentious 'Business Gurus' appearing in the press is growing so fast it is embarrassing. The public expects politicians to tell lies and business corporations to be devious and cheat, and scientists to be two-faced and deny responsibility, but it is still not publicly acceptable for those claiming to have transcended their lower nature to misbehave."

-- Rev. Allan Armstrong, The Order of Dionysis & Paul, an address given at the 1997 Golden Dawn Conference in London

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"Students of a mind to affiliate with an occult organization should examine with the greatest of care the merits and demerits of the movement. It is the height of folly to impulsively link oneself with any organization which has not been thoroughly examined and analyzed with all discrimination. Fantastically named organizations should, of course, be entirely avoided. Any group claiming to be the only possessor of most ancient and profound secrets should be avoided at all costs."

-- Manly P. Hall, Words to the Wise, page 27.

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"Charismatic leaders have long been able to take advantage of their followers. Some charge huge sums of money for "initiations" and dues. Some use initiations as a way of obtaining sex under the guise of spirituality. In short, an abusive leader may bully, abuse and coerce followers into providing money, sex, obedience, work, adulation, etc., all in the guise of--or preparation for--initiation."

-- Donald Michael Kraig, "The Darker Side of Initiation," Mezlim, Vol. IV, Issue # 1, Candlemas 1993

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"…teachers must keep their hands off students' wallets and bodies. After all, if a person cannot rise above their appetites then they have no business instructing anyone, not even themselves."

-- Rev. Allan Armstrong, The Order of Dionysis & Paul, an address given at the 1997 Golden Dawn Conference in London

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Initiation

"It is well known that like attracts like, and that sooner or later we tend to drift into the society of our fellows. Especially is this true of those who have contacted the Divine; the great mental currents which play through the cosmos, just as the invisible magnetic currents play around the earth, bear him to his appropriate place. This is why the esoteric science never goes out to seek its pupils."

-- Dion Fortune, The Training and Work of an Initiate, page 30

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"'When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with wisdom.'"

-- Three Initiates, The Kybalion, page 12

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Self-Initiation

"All spiritual development comes from within the individual, arising from discipline and self-improvement. No man can increase the spirituality of another. To attempt to do so is to disregard one of the most fundamental laws of nature--the law of Karma. Man earns wisdom by right thought and right action. The legitimate schools of the ancient wisdom, and the legitimate teachers of the doctrine offer spirituality to no one. They merely indicate a path of action, which, if followed with consecration and intelligence over a long period of years, will result in certain improvement of character and knowledge."

-- Manly P. Hall, Words to the Wise, page 30

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"Remember that God alone is our Light and the Bestower of Perfect Wisdom, and that no mortal power can do more than bring you to the Pathway of that Wisdom…"

-- from the Neophyte Ritual of the Golden Dawn

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"We cannot remind our readers too often that the Great Initiator comes in the Silence to the higher consciousness, and is never a human being, however supernatural and secluded. All that can be done by the Servants of the Masters on the physical plane is the preparation of the candidate."

-- Dion Fortune, The Training and Work of an Initiate, page 52

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"In stating that that the isolated student could now be his own initiator, one important phrase is rendered imperative. And that is he must be persistent and as thoroughgoing and exacting as if he were an initiator in a regularly constituted Golden Dawn temple under the constant scrutiny of officialdom and higher adept authorities. The responsibility for progress is thus placed inexorably on the student or candidate himself."

--Israel Regardie, The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, page 9

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"Here you prove that you have truly attained thus far of your own strength, and after, you may progress by the higher Soul within you."

-- from the Portal Ritual of the Golden Dawn

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"The solitary worker is to some extent hoisting himself by his own boot straps. But not entirely, for inner help is always at hand--and aspiration, sincerely, and constantly held, will bring inner help and guidance….the actual presence and cooperation of inner beings, built up generally over time, as faith, familiarity, and knowledge increase, can bring about considerable progress, even for individuals who may be spiritually and psychologically uplifted, their auras cleansed, informed, and changed, by a higher presence acting in any of the ways or the levels that pertain for a magical group."

--Gareth Knight, "Images of Growth in the Hermetic Arts," The Golden Dawn Journal: Book III, The Art of Hermes, page 218

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"…just because self-initiation is possible, that doesn't make it easy. Nor should it be done lightly. This path requires you to be your own task master, and have your wits about you enough to see when you're cheating yourself, being lazy, or in other ways compromising your discipline. Personally I think it beats worrying about whether your teacher is an egomaniac, is leading you astray, or leeching money off of you. It's all a matter of where you turn your attention: To the teacher outside or within."

-- Richard Kaczynski, "Self-Initiation," Mezlim, Vol. IV, Issue # 1, Candlemas 1993

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Alchemy

"Alchemy is also called Hermeticism. Hermes, from the mythical standpoint, is the Egyptian God both of Wisdom and Magic--which concepts include therapeutics and physical science as then it was known. All these subjects may, therefore claim just inclusion within the scope of the significance of the terms Alchemy and Hermetic subjects."

-- Israel Regardie, The Philosopher's Stone, page 14

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"...the study of alchemy, above all other branches of Occult science, demonstrates the value of Analogy in our search after the real meaning of the mysteries of man and his relation to the Universe. "

-- MacGregor Mathers, An Introduction to Alchemy

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"There is more to be gained in Alchemy than vain glory. In fact, vain glory cannot be obtained in Alchemy. It has nothing to do with it and is as far from it as the day separates the night. It comes back to the simple statement […] 'Alchemy is the raising of vibrations.'"

-- Frater Albertus, The Alchemist's Handbook, page 10

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"Therefore learn from Alchemy, which is otherwise called Spagyria. This teaches you to discern between the true and the false. Such a light of Nature is it that it is a mode of proof in all things, and walks in light. From this light of Nature we ought to know and speak, not from mere phantasy, whence nothing is begotten save the four humours and their compounds, augmentation, stagnation and decrease, with other trifles of this kind. These proceed not from the clear intellect, that full treasure house of a good man, but rather are based on a fictitious and insecure foundation. […] Alchemy is, so to speak, a kind of lower heaven, by which the sun is separated from the moon, day from night, medicine from poison, what is useful from what is refuse."

-- Paracelsus, "Paramirum" Lib. I c.3, et "De Colica"

a while back in blogsville i was writing about beliefs and the idea these are mostly based upon some form of dogma, usually untrue and quite meaningless. this morning i was watching some people from opus dei talk about the da vinci code, cos there is a certain amount of hysteria as the film is getting so much exposure, when questioned about their concerns they said, 'the film is a based upon real people ie jesus and mary, but it is fiction and therefore a lie.' i am curious as to their arguement, the presentor just accepted their point as valid, but i would have liked to have asked, 'what makes it any different from any other representation of events.'
you see where i am going here? dogma.
dogma asks that you not use your intellect to question the information you are being presented with. belief is a tool, if you have followed these posts regularly, you may notice that i occassionally smash any fixed ideas i have, sometimes to the point where even though i do not eat meat, i will eat meat, purely to not be attached to the idea that i don't have to eat meat. it was Dr. Hyatt that first set the example by smoking ciggarettes just so he could quit every now and then to test his will. RAW suggests that his students believe in arbitory extremist ideologies for a few months, suscribe to magazines they would not normally read ect, this is a process that one should keep alive, fixed thinking can only cause stagnation, gradually a point is reached where there is little truth, random beliefs connect the dots, peoples arguments and constructs fall away, even my own.
nothing is real everything is possible
for years i saw the meaningless futility of all human endevour, yet meaninglessness in my personal life the microcopism reflected, until i took the magickians path, the secret patterns, the unwritten codes, the language that cannot be spoken or written but only expressed symbolically in life tides. these patterns are mine, they are not yours, you have your own, look for meaning in meaningless, follow the yellow sphered sun, watch the reflection of the moon upon water, dance with the firefies, eat the lotus and suck the marrow outta life, gamble everything for love, risk it for the risk not the prize, mess with the cosmos and let it mess with you. beleve in nothing and put faith in everything. if you choose some weird fundamental religious belief like opus dei, lizard theory, fascism, science, democracy, then be prepared to let it overtake your intellect, eat your heart and take over your brain like a interstellar virus.
one of my own fave beliefs is the idea that there are two main emotional states, love and fear, fear being the energy that takes you and your world into areas that are destructive, reductionist, without beauty, if you look in an old man or womans face and see nothing but an old person, you live in fear, if you see potentiality and wisdom, beauty dignity and grace then you live in love. if you love your enemy, man that's love, if you heart is filled with hate, then brother sister, you are in fear.
me i am mortal, a poor simple slave to the human condition as well, but i make it my mission to strive, struggle and work towards love. the more i do, the easier it comes.
sorry to come over all depak chopera on ya but this is elementary stuff and it's best we get it out the way early on. there's a lot of mis information about magick and magickians, why the other day a collegue called my work black magick. yeah really, in this day and age. magick is not black or white in the same way landscape is not. it is the heart that is balck or white, and often the black is white and the white is black, there is no duality in magick, a magickian has left all of that behind, yeah even fear is love. the idea of a black magickian is a construct left over from the dark ages, inquisitions, witch finder generals and religious institutions.

in tales of the egyptian underworld, the deceased mortals spirit is taken to the pair of golden scales and judged by the 72 magistrates while his / her heart is plucked from their ribs and placed upon the scales, weighed against the feather of maat, if the heart is lighter than the feather the mortal will continue their journey towards heaven or if the heart is heavy with impurity, judgement and dishounour the mortal can expect to pass on to hell.
how's your heart? which way do the scales tip, i often ponder this having lived a life where my my good intentions pave a way to personal hell, it's the paradox of duality i guess, ones mans good intent can often be misconstrude. At the end of the day, my heart will be measured and it won't be an unknown anymore.

ps i use heaven and hell as metaphors, please do not take literally.

stopped of at the organic markets where i always pick up my walnuts, tea, herbs and chocolate and random bites of conspiracy theories from the middle classes, the latest one being that a race of lizards are taking over the earth, yeah that one always makes me smile. I mean the latest guy to jump on the Lizard bandwagon is Credo Muteo the famous african mystic. These clowns need to get a dmt hit, take a leap into the Lizard Kingdom.
I was having a chat with these guys about the fact that as soon as a group, starts to peddle conspiracy theories, if there is any mis information within, facts that are not accurate, information that is not true, then the whole group looses credibility, in my opinion the biggest threat to the truth is groups like this spreading another very dangerous meme.However people have to make their own minds up, if you think there's a conspiracy other than a bunch of idiots are running the planet, well that's your buisness, show me the proof.

Later over to sams for a cuppa tea, some sofa time and easy afternoon sex, with the sun streaming down on our nakid bodies, all that heat and intensity, very sensual afternoon.

i finished reading The Time Travelers Wife, by Audrey Niffengger, and it's well worth reading if you like a romantic story with an edge, i particularly enjoyed the conclusion, it was heartbreaking, as every romance novel needs to be.A good idea, well executed, going to make a good movie i am sure.

Later sam and i watched the film 'love actually'its a sort of feelgood, english romantic comedy with hugh grant and some other actors, it's quaint, funny with a good dose of sadness but really cheesy, not my idea of film, was okay on tv.

I am driving to work, it's near 11pm, the roads are wet, i have taken the parkway, driving well within limits, ever mindful for the wildlife, i ease off the parkway into a smaller road and follow the curves, while a sheet of heavey rain hits my windscreen and there frozen in the headlight in the centre of the road is a furry creature, standing upright, staring straight at me, possibly dazzled by the lights. i swerve and just manage to miss the little critter, it was a sort of squirrel, only four times the size. very cute. I smile, feeling good about myself, an awful metal death avoided, 'go forth and multiply little one,' i say.

early morning and the suns back, lighting up my way, evertything feels back to normal, although i am slightly tired, a bit jaded. driving home i see the usual carnage at the side of the road, it's amazing the impact one road has upon an environment, roads to nowhere really.
i play with pan for an hour then drive to Babylon to meet up with kate, a friend from canberra.
i met kate at a party she crashed about 5-6 years ago, she marched up to me with the original line of, 'Hi Im kate, i have a renegade armpit and lactating nipples.'
and we been friends ever since.
so here she is looking beautiful, we do our usual thing, have coffee, wander around the bookshops and laugh at the general babylon sociological phenomenon.
we part ways after a couple of hours and on the way to find my car i bump into jake, he's on his way to work and i give him a ride, he's got his i pod, says he loves it. i drop him off and head back to Mission Control, where i listen to Richard Ashcroft again and fall asleep.

after major cleanup at mission control, i took my new song down to sams to play her, and i showed her my song writing process in action. she offerered a couple of suggestions and we went through the amazingly fast techniques i have for writing, intretingly i discovered several involved paradox of incongruous words together ie. terrible beauty. then she fed me spinach and ricotta canilloni and we watched the simpsons.
life feels good
i feel strong and resiliant
came away with another excellent song called 'adventures in love.'



Adventure’s in Love

You think she tastes of heaven
You think she is so sweet
You think there’s an angel
Fallen at your feet
But now you’re not so certain
You’ve had a little taste
Standing in her doorway
About to meet your fate

If you marry her beauty
To all your earthly ties
All the truth that you longed for
Are just a pack of lies
And your heart starts beating
With fear on your tongue
Thinking about all tears
And the damage that she’s done

Looking for adventures in love

Seeking out the extremes
The highs and the lows
Till she gets to a point
Where there’s no where else to go
Give her sex and danger
At the razors edge
Winners quickly lose
Once you place your bets

Now you want her badly
But not enough that you betray
The one thing that makes you
The person you are today
So you drive across the border
Following the sun
Start a new life in a new town
Hope you meet someone

Looking for adventures in Love

disaster is to small a word to describe last nights events, catastrophic may more apt. my beautiful salmon presented with an exquisite salad and Moroccan pumpkin, sat on the table waiting while emilie finished her phone calls, one of which put her in a filthy mood, however the meal was pretty good, even cold, my bueberry rums were not suited to emilies tastes, however my high grade organic green goddess weed was well appreciated as was a bottle of kaluha i found which we added the blueberries to and while they exploded in our mouth, we got smashed and mashed, listening to richard ashcrofts brilliant first solo album playing on repeat.
for some reason emilie wanted a list of all my previous lovers, i think cos, i was telling her i had just got my bloot tests back and they were all good. she did the same list herself, although i am indifferent to peoples pasts, everyone has a history, it certainly bears upon them to an extent but i don't see the person as their history. it was strange to write such a thing, waves of joy as i recalled, Nicole, Marnee, Genie and various situations that surrounded us, times places circumstances, everyone identified by some sexual uniqueness. in total on my list 40 to emilies 80, mine lasting much longer than emilies who seemed to have a 4 week average. anyways i am not sure what the experiment was all about, but emilie took to her calculations like i imagine einstien did in his post office, revelation after revelations as she revealed statistics and comparisons, i was certain that at some point she would discover the unifying therory of relationships and the world would be better off, however there was some thing not quite right about it, the numbers didn't crunch and emilie looked a bit depressed, i obviously was lacking in something somewhere in my sexual history, anyway it was all down hill from there although i did fall asleep next to her, my heart beating faster than a pounding tom tom, i thought it was going to explode, reverted to doaist breathing stratagies, laying there i was not sure what to do, it was like being stuck in an awkward moment, suddenly over come with indiscisiveness i was frozen, if i attempted anything i could be stepping over some line, if i didn't i wouldn't be stepping over a line, fuck it was as if all the philisophical moral and ethical choices were parading through my brain, and my arm, awkward, where does it go, why is her back to me, is she sleeping, will she be angry if i wake her, what am i going to do with this hard on, yeah i was having a meltdown and my brain siezed up and fell asleep. emilie left the room due to snoring, i can't imagine myself snoring but it must be a awful thing.
so in the morning i make breakfast and she checks her e mails, she's angry and upset about some family thing, writes back, a vitrolic message to her younger sister, curses at the weather, no wind for the weekend = no money for her, and i just look at her and know she is lost to me.

nice start to the day, despite the hazy grey atmosphere hovering over the waking city, emilie and i met for a quick coffee then off to work, which flew by like a strange dream. clients all happy and relazed, the whole day seemed slightly unreal, i don't know why. later emilie sent me a few texts and found myself getting slightly fragile, i guess it's the night we actually discuss our situation and work out what exactly we have, or don't have, consequently, i am pacing around like a tiger, not sure if i can resist her anymore, not sure if she actually wants me to, not sure about what she wants apart from sex but sure about one thing, mmm, emilie.

the gorgeous emile arrived back yesterday and was so excited to see me she cancelled her shifts and met me down at dy, looking like a ranch hand in her straw hat, tanned and sexy, seeing her face was like being poured into a vat of treacle, i was slightly melting and it felt very much like i was where i need to be, we both are, it's a known fact, if there is a fundamental truth or intelligence in the universe which i know there is, then it has brought us both together for the correct reasons, i have known emile would manifest for 30 odd years, however she did not see me coming being slightly outta whack i guess. i helped her move into her new home, turned out i know her flat mate, the crystal woman, and the guy who owns the house turned out to be a really interesting person, so generally there was a nice vibe in the air.
we sat in the kitchen chatting and emilie asked me, 'would you like to have a baby?'
i was surprised and said yes almost immediately, after which i received a baileys cocktail, mmm, must have misread her.
i noticed emilie had a book called, 'how to make men fall in love with you' i started to flick through it and warned her that most of the strategies in it would not work. I helped put her clothes away, a range of dresses and skirts, no specific styles or themes, just a lot of clothes, we assembled her futon and set up the ambiance in the room, very nice, i know she's going to be happy there.
later we had a meal down at the beach, where finally we spoke about us, the state of play being emilie does not find me sexually attractive, she has quite a distorted perception of me, i am not bad enough, slim enough, sexy enough and quite probably rich enough although that was not spoken, yeah it's true i am none of those things in an obvious way, more subltle i guess, other women do find me attractive, but i concede it's all about pheremones.
emilie asked, 'when did you know you were in love with me?'
'well it started many many years ago, but if you're asking for a specific point it was when we went for the sushi dinner on our second date.
'it was not love at first sight?' she enquires.
'well it was love at second sight'. i answer.

i mean how do you explain to some one that you created them and manifested them. the poor girl has no idea that i plucked her from the universe of potentiality and she answered because we are perfect. here it is, love and non locality.

Love and Non-locality
by
Capt. Mission

The same suit I got married in, that’s the one I wore to court the day I
Wait, sorry, we
No lets get this bit right, she divorced me.
(It was my dumb sense of irony that she was attracted to in the first place.)
Black, silk, loose, dishevelled and crumpled, the kind of suit Sean Penn wears in a film where he wakes up drunk at the end of a bar and gets beaten up by a gang of bikers all because he woke up. That’s kind of how I felt, getting beaten up because I just woke up in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong planet.
The only noticeable difference in the space between marriage to divorce is a few years on my face and gravity taking its toll, taking me places I don’t want to go, leaving traces I don’t want to know.
Gravity according to Newton is a force that pulls towards the centre of the Earth but for me it is also a force that pulls all subjective experience together. Thus creating an unquantifiable mass, intangible and immeasurable somewhere in the mind or maybe even the soul, the specifics don’t matter only the gut wrenching feeling it leaves because its like a hole that cannot ever be filled, it has substantiality but no weight.
It is not exactly a measurement but it is there, residing somewhere, feeding like a strange vampire from an incorporeal dimension, draining this one, sucking the life from the lonely and defeated.
I feel its presence everyday, heavy and sad, like an old painful necessary memory. Perhaps it is measured in pain.
She still looked beautiful, no sign of stress, tension or age. No signs of wear and tear etched on her pristine aquiline face. No sign of life, full stop. She was the walking dead or was that me? It’s hard to be objective.
I wouldn’t say she was cold but there was a definite lack of warmth emanating my way from her dark soulless eyes, eyes that I couldn’t meet for fear of being trapped in a gaze from a Jungian myth, they never really looked my way anyway, just beyond me. Even time itself seems frozen around her, held at bay by her icy stare and clinical indifference.
The woman I had married had turned into a shark, her dorsal fin had cut the calm surface of the tranquil ocean that I had swam in for years and now I was being torn in shreds by razor sharp solicitors and a complex ritual of courtroom drama and dialogue. There was a pack of them, predators, slicing me up in a frenzy, ripping into reason, balance and all that I thought was decent and honourable.
They wore sharp black Armani suits, tight and slick, almost like wet suits sprayed straight from a can. Together the collective swarm, operated and controlled by the queen shark, showed little mercy.
They had my life in files in front of them. Information, gossip, hearsay, they had every shred of useless trivia at their disposal in non–threatening beige manila folders. It is this type of beige coloured threat that helps them win their small victory, the lies, the manipulation of truth, the savage inquisition, question after question into a maze of no return, my mind disengaged from every piece of their pathetic theatre.
They would tell me what I had for breakfast this morning and with the money that she was paying them they could probably divulge what I would be having tomorrow.
Truth and justice does not enter into courtrooms, as long as every one gets paid, truth is of no consequence. The law is for sale like everything else, it’s the economics of the illusion of truth.
Trapped in the labyrinth of questions, relentlessly following a continuity I cannot fathom, knowing that each time I speak they roll their eyes and mutter amongst themselves, conspiring in monotone shark whispers, the hidden language of false laws. I am lost.
Pressure builds in my head. Like a black hole has just engulfed my mind and sucked my body into it, almost cartoon quality, I see the coyote flash by, road runner ‘beep beeps’ me.
All is surreal. The magistrate looking at me like he is just about to scrape me from his shoe. And opposite me her lawyers conferred, whispered to the queen shark who had held us all in her court room ritual. I caught her thin fragment of a smile as she issued instructions, she licked her lips, must be the smell of blood hanging in the air, they moved in for the kill, one swift blow to the heart, that useless organ that offered no resistance, no fight, nothing. Just a fucking broken useless lump of throbbing meat on autopilot.
Words were spoken. The hammer falls. The legality somehow legitimised everything although from my side of the fence nothing had changed. Everything had changed. It was over.
Later I stand outside. It’s raining. On a second attempt to light my cigarette she glides passed me, entourage in tow, all holding umbrellas out, above her head, like she’s some fucking princess. God forbid if her hair should get wet. I don’t even know if she noticed me, she’s to efficient to notice anything that doesn't matter. She slides into the back of a car and is gone. Gone into the soft watery evening.
There is a strange blue tinge to Sydney. It’s the time when car headlights begin to turn on, it’s the time of evening when some people leave the office, other people begin to arrive home, to girlfriends, husbands, wives, kids and faithful dogs.
The evening is an underwater dream. I smoke my cigarette, my head feels sluggish, thoughts seem far to grey to assemble, they don’t have any substance to them, they come apart in the rain, floating off in fragments they just don’t seem to add up to much.
I’ve just been assaulted, violated by some invisible force, something that I don’t quite understand but will change my life profoundly. I throw the butt away and walk out into the closing darkness with my water-logged trauma.

I didn’t mean to find a bar, it kind of found me, dragging me in a magnetic pull, its warm glow an anaesthetic proposition. It seems appropriate to drink whisky tonight. I handed the bartender some change and knocked back the amber fluid burning my throat and rushing straight into my bloodstream. The next one was more contemplative. The space between the sips are places that thoughts seemed to come together, patterns start to form and a numb force field materialised around me. It was all to overwhelming to make sense but at least that was a start.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and was shocked at the dramatic change in my appearance. I looked harder, worn in, weary like an old blues singer standing at the crossroads after a bad deal with the devil. A thin slow crack forced it’s way across my face, a hollow self-pity smile that I was very self- conscious about. In the distance, somewhere in the background a piano played a slow blues.
I was unsure how I felt. Anxious about a future I was unprepared for, nervous about being alone, watching my reflection staring back at me, wondering if a human being falls in this city would any one hear it, frightened because I already knew the answer.
Consumed by strange apocalyptic existential fear, a state of dread creeping along my spine and eating its way into my head.
Fear has a moment, the decisive moment when it hovers between recognition, reaction or response. Fear comes in many guises but when it’s the face of the familiar another dimension comes into play. The complication of conflicting emotions, betrayed by the one who says she loves you, a snipers promise to his victim, the thin cross hairs meeting somewhere deep in the heart, finger on the trigger, one gentle squeeze, she loves you, yeah yeah yeah. She loves you NOT.
Didn’t see that coming?
Emotional assassins get away with murder.
Why would someone that once loved you, someone that shared 8 years of their life with you, someone that married you for better or for worse suddenly for no apparent reason turn so bitter, so cold hearted and cruel, so unexpectedly?
There are no answers and I certainly wouldn’t find them here in the narcotic flavoured atmosphere of this bar. It was out there in life that answers lie.
Everything that had gone on before this moment, every cumulative event, experience and situation was distant, like a lost country on the other side of the horizon, a myth, I was connected to somehow but not.
I made a decision, then and there to start again, to forget the past and just look forwards, to whatever that may be, but that’s the universe for you, if you want to make it laugh, just tell it your plans.
I turned to leave when I caught a glimpse of the girl besides me. She looked strikingly familiar, but I couldn’t place her, maybe from some television show. She certainly had the glamour and style of an actress. Maybe she was waiting for her date. She looked at me and smiled, ‘Mind if I join you?’
I wasn’t in a particular social mood, didn’t really want to chew the fat with anyone, no matter how glamorous in appearance. But I was fragile, she had disarmed me completely. I was a push over for anyone with a smile and a sparkle in their eye.
‘I guess not.’
She moved closer, sort of slid across, with the grace and mystery of a tame gazelle. I scanned her, looking for clues. No jewellery around that beautiful pristine neck, but an elegant gold watch around her wrist, a hint of expensive perfume. She was wearing a sheer black dress, had electric blue eyes and short black hair cut in a zen type of oriental style. She wore dark lipstick and her face was kind of interesting and it was just a matter of seconds before we were engaged in conversation. A few drinks later and we were up close, personal and talking intimately like long lost lovers, hanging around for one last fuck. I could smell her soft seduction, exotic and sensual drawing us closer and warmer and I realized how hungry and desperate I was.
She laughed, pulling away from me and suddenly we both became self-conscious, stuck for words, caught in the fork in the road, not knowing where it may lead or what possibilities lay ahead.
I fiddled around in my pocket for a cigarette, and with perfect timing she brought her lighter up. The flame danced in front of my face, an invitation.
I asked her what she had planned. She gave me a pained look and I rephrased the question.
I asked her if she wanted to meet me in the morning for a coffee. I told her that I liked talking to her and that I would like to see her again, keeping it all civil and clean and embarrassingly English. She nodded her head as if carefully considering my proposition. She was biting her bottom lip, in an appealing way, looking upwards following the trail of smoke that left my cigarette. I waited for her fixation to end.
It finished when I put my cigarette out.
‘Okay. I’ll give you a number. It’s my mobile, call me anytime after 9 am. But if you say you are going to call, you better call, I don’t like being disappointed. ’She scrawled out a number on the back of a coaster. I promised her that I would call.
It was to late when I realised that I didn’t know her name.

The next morning I woke up and checked the time. 6.30am. I lay on the mattress staring at the ceiling smoked my first cigarette. I tried to think of something profound being the first day of my life as a divorced man but I could only see those beautiful eyes and the echo of soft jazz and blues in the background. I lay there for a while, smoked another cigarette then rolled a joint and figured that my day would have to start later.
Shower, dress in my crumpled suit again, eat porridge, drink herb tea but really need coffee, sit, contemplate my navel, stare out the window at clouds, scratch, rub face, stretch, a pathetic attempt at yoga, fall back on the mattress and smoke half a joint.
The room was bare. One mattress, a few books, a camera case, a CD player, some CDs and a photograph of her that I had taken a long time ago. It was in the early days, she was smiling naturally, holding on to her sun hat with one hand, waving at the camera with the other. Behind her the blue Mediterranean sprawled out to the horizon. It was a honeymoon shot. Taken at a moment in the happiness that blessed me for a few years, a happiness that I thought would last infinitely, it was a photograph of a 500th of a second of our life together. I reached for my cigarettes and matches lit the tobacco and with the same match set the photograph alight. A blue flame curled up around my wrist, I twisted the photograph around so the flame stopped licking my hands and watched the image of the woman that I had loved so purposefully for 6 years turn to carbon.
‘Okay bitch, it’s over,’ I mumbled to myself, Clint Eastwood style. ‘This is divorce, my way.’
Lloyd Cole was singing about, ‘pulling stars out from the sky,’ I felt kind of sick inside.
I stuck what was left of the burning image into the ashtray. It was 8.30am when I found myself staring at the phone number on the back of the coaster. Her handwriting was a curvy sort of flow that matched her seductiveness, I might have smiled, it would have been fleeting and you probably would not have noticed.
I watched the clock for 30 minutes, smoked three cigarettes.
‘Charlotte speaking.’
‘Charlotte.’ I lingered on such an apt name. ‘It’s Max. I met you last night. We had a few drinks together,’ as an afterthought I added, ‘You remember?’
‘Yes. Yes I remember. Max. How are you? What time is it?’
‘Well, I guess I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine and it’s just past 9.’
‘Oh well I should get out of bed.’
There was a moments silence but not long enough for it to be awkward.
‘Well last night I suggested coffee, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and to be honest I’m really keen to see you again, however, if you have other plans, I’m kind of understanding like that?’
‘No, no. I don’t have plans but I should tell you that my life is, kind of complicated.’
Here we go I thought, what’s this all about. ‘Is that some kind of warning?’
‘Yes,’ she laughed, ‘it’s a warning.’
‘So what’s complicated about you and I having coffee together.’
‘Okay. Where?’

I was reading the Herald when she sat down and joined me at the table. She looked slightly immaculate compared to myself, who must have appeared shabby and unshaven.
I ordered her a coffee.
‘Did you sleep in your suit?’
‘I’m kind of low on clothes right now, my life is kind of complex to.’
‘Hmmm complex. Is that a warning Max?’
I smiled a big smile. ‘No. Not at all.’
‘An invitation then?’
‘Maybe.’
I called the waiter over and he took her order, coffee and toast with vegimite. I folded the paper and stuck it under the table.
‘What’s happening in the world?’ She asked lighting up a cigarette.
‘Oh you know, corruption, wars, famine, exploitation, television stars telling us who to vote for, reality TV creating television stars who tell us who to vote for. It’s just business as usual on planet earth.’
‘Oh I see. Mr. Cynical.’
‘Hey if it’s in the paper it must be true, right?’ Charlotte shrugged indifferently.

‘I never read the paper except for the stars.’
‘The stars!’ I laughed, ‘You mean you believe that a bunch of rocks floating in space have some sort of influence upon you?’
‘Yeah absolutely although I wouldn’t put it like that. What are you?’
‘Star sign? Guess?’
‘You’re a, Piscean.’
‘How did you do that?’ I said surprised.
‘It’s easy, you’re more spiritual than political, you’re a dreamer, a romantic, sensitive, literate type, you like the idea of unconditional love but I think you find that hard to aspire to, so you kind of hover in a non-committal state somewhere in the middle. You have a distant look in your eyes as though you see another dimension. You think like a poet, you like abstracts not details, and let’s see, you have an innocence that you have nearly but not quite lost, because being cynical doesn’t suit you. You love all art and watching clouds and you take photographs of people.’
I looked slightly nervous, maybe unsettled, she had me pinned. Picking up on my obvious surprise she added, ‘Actually you did tell me all this stuff last night.’
I relaxed. ‘Beautiful and smart. That’s why I wanted to have breakfast with you.’
She smiled. And it was quite a smile I can tell you.
‘So what’s complicated Charlotte? Is there a man in your life?’
Charlotte gave me a coy look but she didn’t reveal anything. Women are great at this, they have mastered the art of manipulating men, twisting them around their little fingers without even moving a muscle and we let them do it to us because at the end of the day we fear beauty. I saved Charlotte from herself by embarrassing her further.
‘I’m just being friendly. It’s a clique I know, and you, maybe you get loads of guys coming up to you and saying that all the time, but what’s the point of being friends when you can’t be completely honest. No one does that any more. We can at least start our friendship by being honest with one another, so it’s your call. Whatever you feel comfortable with, it’s going to be fine by me Charlotte.’
‘You think you can be my friend?’
‘Yes. I think I can be your friend.’
‘And that’s all you want?’
‘Well what do you mean?’
‘Do you want to have sex with me?
‘Absolutely. Yes.’
She smiled.
So did I.
Coffee came, we skimmed the surface around some small talk then back to important matters.
‘Look I do have an unusual lifestyle. It’s pretty difficult to have a relationship at the same time.’
‘I don’t want to mess up your lifestyle Charlotte. I have a life as well. Look I’m just a friend, a new kind of friend.’
‘A friend who wants to sleep with me.’
‘Yeah. I’m a friend who wants to sleep with you on a regular basis.’
‘You don’t even know me. You met me in a bar. We had a few drinks together.’
‘Yeah okay, it’s true. I don’t know you, but that should not be a reason for me not to get to know you. What is life if you don’t take risks and chances, getting to know people, to sleep with them.’ I added as an afterthought.
She smiled again, ‘But I could be married.’
‘Well then I will have to concede that your husband is a very lucky man and bow out gracefully.’
‘Anyways I am not married but we did only just meet.’
‘And I am just getting to know you.’
‘But you still want to sleep with me.’
‘Yes, that’s not meant to be an insult.’
Another coy look, some processing behind her eyes. ‘Yeah, I guess it isn’t.’
‘What I am saying is, in the short time I’ve spent with you I see something, a kind of, future.’
‘A future. Now Max you’re beginning to scare me and as your friend I should say, right now, seeing as we are being honest, you will get your heart broken.’
I looked at her beautiful eyes. I nodded. I could only agree.
Charlotte leaned forwards and sized me up in a very obvious way,
‘I’m a Mistress. Do you know what a Mistress does Max?’
‘Yeah. I know what a Mistress does.’
‘I am a sort of prostitute Max. Do you still want to sleep with me?’
‘Yeah. Absolutely, it doesn’t matter what you do. Do I have to pay though? Do you take Visa?’
‘She laughed. ‘Yes as a matter of fact. It doesn’t bother you that I am a prostitute?’
‘We’re all prostitutes Charlotte. We all sell our bodies one way or the other, usually to the highest bidder. At least you are honest about it. I admire that in a strange kind of way. The important thing is not to sell our souls and that’s what I am interested in.’
‘My soul is not for sale but a lot of men they start out saying that they can handle it and sooner or later it gets to them, but it’s my life not theirs, mine.’
‘Well then why should it bother me. I’m nothing like other men.’
A slow smile and a sparkle behind the eyes, she relaxes back into her seat as she looks at me with a new found curiosity.
‘Lets go some place, any place, I want to find out more about you Max, my mysterious new friend.’
We ended up in my favourite place in Sydney, the aquarium. It was my suggestion and Charlotte seemed quite excited when we walked through the sliding doors.
‘Oh fantastic, more fish,’ she giggled having a joke at my star sign.
‘Yeah we can have fish for lunch if you want.’
‘What is it with all the fish?’
‘I just feel more at ease with my own kind.’
Charlotte looked pretty stunning even in the strange underwater light, new colours bounced of her face as she walked beside me, pastels, purples, indigoes and violets, shades of turquoise and blues rich and deep with a hint of mystery.
We were both staring at the octopus, captivated. Time had slipped away beyond us and everything was still. It was an immaculate moment where it all just made perfect uncomplicated sense. I don’t know how long we stood in front of that tank, gazing into a shared space silently connected by a sense of wonder and something else, the hint of possibility.
‘They change colour. With each emotional state.’
‘Yeah. They also have eight legs.’
‘How do you know they are legs? They could be hands.’
We laughed, our hands met and I clasped mine into hers and squeezed. She squeezed back. It was a good feeling. I think we both blushed with a new emotional state.
Outside eyes adjusted to the Darling Harbour sunlight and Charlotte suddenly became all self-conscious, like a nervous schoolgirl. She ran her hands through her hair and bit her lip in a seductive kind of way. ‘I have to go to work.’
‘Okay then.
‘I’ll call you later.’
I smiled and whispered, more for myself than her, because I had seen a future and it was good, it was a word that caught me by surprise as much as her, ‘Promise.’
She smiled back, but it was restrained this time, a hint of uncertainty. She spun around and left. I sat on the steps and watched her disappear into the crowd. I had nothing better to do, could not think of anything better.


The rest of the day passed in a swirling movement of inactivity, frenetic energy all around me, I could feel it at the edge of my fingers and the tip of my tongue. The world suddenly seemed so focused as I slipped through slightly out of whack, blurred and not quite part of it all. I can’t even remember what I did, maybe walked around, smoked a few cigarettes, had a coffee and somehow made my way home.
I must have fallen asleep for a few hours and dreamt about the shark queen. She was like a ghost walking through my sleep. I woke up suddenly, sweating a deep heat but really cold.
Get the hell out of my head I thought. But she was lodged in like a splinter.
It had only been yesterday our lives together were officially annulled.
The shark had destroyed my whole identity in a matter of hours and I still had these strange confused feelings towards her. Loss and grief can be substantial emotions, they have their own insidious nature and they can be unfathomable and confusing to the point where they overwhelm and possess, despite all attempts to resist, the emotion defies the logic. I was at war with myself.
I was going for the future, attempting optimism and the past was trying to fuck with me. My stomach began to tie itself in knots as I rummaged around for my phone and checked my messages.
There were two. The first was from a gallery who was interested in some of my photographs, they were talking percentages and opening nights and their enthusiasm felt good under the circumstances, but right now work was far from my mind.
Charlotte’s voice took me by surprise. She sounded vibrant and sexy, her enthusiasm made me forget any residual angst.
‘Hi Max. I just wanted to thank you for a fantastic morning. It was great. Just what I needed, something real. I thought you may want to have dinner with me tonight, my treat. Call me soon.’
It took me twenty minuets to find the coaster with her number but I eventually found it, under the mattress of all places. This time I programmed it into my phone.
‘Charlotte speaking.’
‘Hey, It’s me, Max.’
‘Hi. Did you get my message?’
‘Yeah, I’d love to have dinner with you. You just say where and when and I’ll be there.’
Later after a shower I lay back on my mattress and listened to her soft sweet voice again and again.
I showered, cleaned my teeth obsessively and put on my still crumpled suit.

I was early. Newtown throbbed with its vibrant energy and street culture down one end, while the other was a fluorescent almost complete development just in time for the oncoming Olympics. As I walked into the cocktail bar on the corner I bumped in to an old friend and a new enemy all in one nasty coincidental package.
‘Jesus! What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can take that smile off your face you idiot.’
‘What are you doing here?’
She gave me a cold glare, ‘I am having a fucking cocktail. What’s your excuse?’
‘I’m having dinner with someone. A friend,’ I shuffled uncomfortably, nervously caught of guard, ‘I’m a bit early.’
I scratched my head, fumbled for a smoke with one hand, a light with the other. It was a shock seeing her like this, so soon, so unexpectedly.
She had changed her image completely leaving behind her past life, new hair style, new shoes, new kind of everything.
‘Well don’t just stand there, blocking the passage.’ I stepped out of the way, she gave me a pitiful look, ‘Get a drink and come and sit down.’
Like a lost sheep I followed, part of me not wanting to but another just running on auto piolet. The bar was still quite empty, there was a couple of advertising people posing as rock stars, maybe they were rock stars posing as advertising people, these days it’s hard to tell. They were drinking primary coloured cocktails and looked like they were having some sort of fun that had been denied to me through some error in my genetic programming. We sat at a table hidden away in an alcove.
‘You were outrageous yesterday.’ Was all i could mutter as I knocked back the scotch.
‘Look it was really just business. You shouldn’t take it so personally.’
‘So personally! We were married for Gods sake. How the fuck do I not take it personally?’
‘Christ Max! You really need to just accept that things change and people change. We agreed that if either one of us felt unhappy about being in this relationship we were free to do what ever we needed to, to make it work.’
‘Yeah but you should have said something to me, we could have talked it over at least. Why did you have to be so nasty about everything?’
‘Nasty! Me! Christ what is it with men?’ She looked at me as if talking to a small child, ‘It’s reality Max. You adapt to things a lot slower than I do. I have to accept that you are not part of my life any more, so I do. It’s nature, evolution.’
‘Yeah well it’s not my nature.’
‘Nature is cruel. It’s eat or be eaten, beat or be beaten. You just are to fucking safe Max, a woman needs adventure and excitement occasionally. You’re just sweet and sentimental.’
‘To nice! I'm to fucking nice, how can anyone be to nice?’
‘Look I don’t want to fight with you. Do you want another drink?’
‘Fuck, yeah, make it a double.’
I knock that back fast, just to numb me out and maybe offer me that extra confidence I lacked around her, it had leaked out from my aura, displaced by anxiety and a nervous delirium.
‘Look just tell me. Was there some one else in your life?’
She gave me the shark look, ‘That’s none of your business.’
I shook my head. ‘A simple yes or no would have been enough Dom. I’m not the jealous type, you know that, but I need to know, I need to understand what the fuck happened.’
She smiled but her lips remained sealed.
There was a cold moment’s silence. I could hear my ice melting. The scotch raced around my head like a swirling heat wave, my legs began to feel strange and I was certain I could hear a helicopter somewhere close, maybe in-between my ears.
We sat there in a frozen moment, time ceasing and then almost like a wave time started again on it’s linear flow. For an eternity our eyes locked yet it was a fraction of a second. If the eyes are the key to the soul then hers were empty and I knew it no longer mattered, if there were someone else then he was welcome to her.
She was right about one thing. I just have to accept that my life with her was over. I felt as if my emotions were trapped in a vortex inside my chest, spinning outwards, ripping open my ribs and exposing my dumb heart for the world to see.
She composed herself, sipped her drink and gave me a stern look, ‘I have to go. I’d prefer it if you no longer had any contact with me. If you have to, do so through the solicitor, you know how it is Max. That’s the way it has to be.’
I must have looked pretty stupid slumped there dumbfounded when Charlotte appeared. She nuzzled up by my side and gave me a cheeky elfish look and fished for a smile. It was easy to smile around her but she had seen the look in my eyes and could tell I was disturbed.
‘What’s up?’
‘Oh, I just bumped into a skeleton from a closet. I’m okay, really, it’s nothing.’
‘Do you want to talk?’
‘No. No it’s fine, really.’
‘I understand, even though I’m not convinced, let’s just have a drink together, darling,’ She whispered the last word under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
We drank the primary coloured cocktails. They went down easy. We completely forgot about dinner, lost in our conversation, now both smashed, attempting to converse about important things, the bigger picture, life the universe and everything else that eludes us, yet we always come back to question. Philosophy I guess.
At the moment the talk was around quantum physics. I was explaining to Charlotte this theory I had read about, it had stuck in my mind and it seemed somehow romantic.
Every photon of light has a partner somewhere in the universe and if anything alters in one, at exactly the same time the partner will alter, no matter how far apart the photons are from one another. There is a force that eventually draws them together. Yet when they meet there is a paradox as both photons cannot exist in the same space/time and are cast in separate directions again only to repeat their attraction.
Charlotte looked bemused. ‘I wonder what the force that separates them is? It is very sad that the two photons cannot exist together.’
‘Ah. You like happy endings.’
‘I like them Max but I don’t believe in them. It’s luck not love, that’s the force I believe in.’
Her statement made me feel sad but I tried not to show it.
We talked about our lives the way people do these days, we talked, new physics, eastern philosophy, spiritual beliefs, personnel experiences and synchronistic events.
Charlotte had such a beautiful way with words, her voice deep and seductive, stopping and starting, pausing for thought, smiling at some private memory that danced on the tip of her tongue, hovering in the space between us, never quite making it to me.
The bar was less crowded now, people had settled in for the night in their respective pockets, a warm intimacy prevailed. The active ingredients in the red cocktails had kicked in, everyone’s drugs rapidly absorbed into central nervous systems and everyone was relaxed and comfortably spilling their heart and souls out to whom ever was near and dear. The room was heavy with our dreams and desires, secrets thoughts and fantasies.
I listened.
‘When I was first starting out, learning the ropes so to speak, how to be a Mistress....’
‘Was this at Mistress University then?’
‘No,’ she laughed, it was actually a seedy B and D parlour in Redfern if you must know. Anyway, I had a client, a woman. She was really beautiful, kind of, well, elegant. And clever, really clever, and I began to enjoy our sessions together, look forward to her coming and that is very unusual. Very unusual because in my type of work it’s best to be as detached from your clients as possible. She had the most amazing eyes, they were so fierce and such a good body, you know, Amazonian. Her name was Theresa, not her real name, no-one uses their real name of course.’
Charlotte had paused, a long pause, her memory cast, an exquisite look crossed over her, as if she had found some sort of bliss. She smiled to herself in a Mona Lisa type of way, then continued, ‘She had a specific request, it was very, bizarre, certainly unique and although I get a lot of strange requests this was different, it was really quite, well ha. Anyway we crossed a line, I mean a real line Max, it’s never happened to me before…’
‘This sounds interesting,’ I said somehow managing to become all attentive through my alcoholic glamour and male ego.
‘...it will never happen again but I kissed her and then we made love. Made love, really, really, made love. It was very tender and gentle. It was not part of the session at all, not part of anything we planned, it just happened. Afterwards she began to open up and tell me a bit about herself. Personal stuff, very personal. Now, Max, here is where it does get interesting. She was born on the same date as me, exactly, day, month and year. Her mother died when she was seven, same as me, her father was a military man, same as mine. She had been expelled from private school, same as me, she had finished a degree in Arts same as me, she had an allergy to strawberries, same as me. That’s just the beginning Max, we both had the same tastes in music, films, books, flowers, people, everything under the sun. It was like we had lived parallel lives. We had travelled to the same places at the same times, same countries, towns, cities, beaches. But to top it all we even had the same tattoo on the same place.’
‘That’s incredible, that’s absolutely incredible.’ It was incredible. ‘What happened?’
‘After that, nothing. I never saw her again.’
‘Wow. Would you like to?’
‘Yes. I would. Very much so. I think we may have the same relationship as those photons you mentioned.’
Charlotte looked sad. ‘I think I was in love with her, well as close as being in love as I will ever be, you know. You understand what I am saying.’
The talk finished and there was a long silence, I took the question as rhetorical and I couldn’t think of anything to say anyway. Somehow I felt kind of sad and empty.
‘What was the tattoo?’
Charlotte looked at me as if I had asked the only question that I was not allowed to ask. She sighed, ‘It’s a small yin yang symbol with red and yellow triangles going up and down the spine. It’s on my lower back.’
I was momentarily stunned. Something had struck me in the face with the force of a missile. It had nothing to do with alcohol. ‘Show me.’
Charlotte pulled up her top and bent over the table. It was the same, exactly the same as hers. I could feel the blood race through my head, ‘Date of birth?’
‘What!’
Your date of birth?’
‘April 3rd 1969.’
‘Jesus Fucking Christ!’
My brain was going ballistic, slowly it was coming together but there were substantial gaps, but not enough to keep synapses from making the right connections.
Strawberries, mother died, father in the military, a degree in Arts. It had to be her, it had to be, date of birth, the tattoo confirmed it.
The room started to spin. The primary colours had leaked into my brain, and my eyes started to hurt, blinded with the violence of truth.
‘What’s wrong Max?’ I heard Charlotte ask, distorted, warped soundwaves, slowed down to an almost incomprehensible strange new language.
I could see her leaning over me, her lips moving, like some sort of exotic fish, then I must have blacked out.

I was falling up. It was the opposite of falling down. I regained consciousness. My soul came rushing back into myself and searched for something familiar, some ethereal anchor to tether me, to keep me fixed and stable but everything was slipping well beyond my grasp.
The room was dark, filled with incomplete shadows and the bed was incredibly hard. Above me hanging down from the ceiling, chains, rope bindings and leather straps and a huge square cage directly over my head. Things fell into place in a series of big heavy loud CHUNKS. The mechanics of my brain were slow and clumsy, but they worked.
I was at Charlotte’s.
‘Charlotte,’ I yelled, my voice hoarse with a raw edge, failed. ‘Charlotte,’ I rasped.
‘I’m here,’ a voice whispered from the shadows.
Stepping forwards into a soft light I could see Charlotte, dressed in her Mistress gear, just like she had stepped out from the glossy shiny pages of an adult magazine, my vision fixated on her lips and then to her boots, she looked stunning and dangerous but I was defiantly not in the mood for sex games.
I coughed, my head pounded. ‘What the fuck happened?’
‘You passed out. I just brought you back to my place. It took two men to carry you into the taxi and getting you down here the driver nearly fainted himself. You should be careful when you drink. How do you feel?’
I shook my head as if to disagree. It hurt.
‘I think it’s about time you see what I do in my other life Max.’
‘Charlotte. I feel like shit, my head feels like it’s been worked over from the inside. This is defiantly not the time for play.’
‘Max. Mistress Charlotte commands you. Stand up slave.’
A silent rage surged though my blood but I couldn’t move, could not even feel my legs.
‘That woman, the one you fell in love with, even though you don’t believe in love, that was my wife. Theresa. Only her name is really Dominique. The woman with the tattoo is my wife.’
Charlotte moved closer, a panther in shiny latex, a strange looked crossed her, calm and in control. ‘A wife, you never mentioned a wife.’
‘Ex. My ex-wife. The night I met you, that was the day I got divorced.’
A moment of surprise and the hint of a small smile, ‘A coincidence within a coincidence. How coincidental. Or perhaps it is just luck.’
A tear escaped, fell from my cheek like a stolen jewel. I didn’t want Charlotte to see me like this and a trace of shame echoed somewhere in my heart.
‘Look,’ I stood up slowly, my legs felt like they would give way, it took a moment to find my centre of gravity. Pulling up my shirt and pulling down my pants to reveal the tattoo Dominique had made me get one evening. I remember her saying so clearly that if I really loved her then I should get the tattoo. It was proof and evidence that we were connected.
I felt stupid. The floodgates had opened and I think I started to sob, more through relief than anything else.
Cupping my face in both her hands Charlotte kissed away the tears, she held me closer to her. I surrendered falling into the warmth of her embrace. It must have looked pretty weird, me weeping, being held by a woman in a shiny cat suit in a room full of whips and chains.
Charlotte kissed me on the forehead. She smiled at me and stroked my cheek. Eventually I had the courage to look into her eyes.
‘What did she do, in the sessions I mean?’
‘I can’t tell Max. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Right! What the hell is right in a situation like this? There is no right Charlotte.’
‘You know what I mean. Don’t put me in a position.’
I thought about it, it seemed reasonable, after all she was a professional and I think part of me did not really want to know, ‘Okay. I can respect that.’
We sat there together in a silence that wrapped around us like a magic cloak that didn’t make us invisible but mute.
After some time passed I broke the spell by laughing aloud.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘This is. It’s absurd. You and I. And Dominique to. That we should converge under these circumstances, it’s extraordinary. It’s as if we have been directed by something other than ourselves. We really should go and find her, the three of us should sit down together and have a little reunion. It’s such a coincidence, it can’t be a coincidence.’
‘It must be fate.’
‘You don’t believe in fate.’
‘Fate or luck, maybe they are just the same after all. Two sides of the same coin.’
‘Charlotte, with me it’s just a one sided coin, and it’s all bad luck as far as Dom is concerned.’
I told Charlotte about the sudden divorce, the radical shift from content wife to angry bitch from hell.
It was the first time I had really talked about it to anyone and once I started I found I couldn’t stop myself, the words poured out from the void, that black empty space, the unfathomable trench of pointlessness and meaninglessness, not really making much sense, feelings confused, mixed up and scattered filled with holes so overwhelming I thought I would disappear into one of them.
But Charlotte listened patiently, she held my hand and smiled when I needed reassurance. For the human touch there is no substitute.
As I spoke I felt this incredible pain and longing for Dominique yet I also felt this strange love for Charlotte revealing itself, it was not a sexual kind of urge, it was different, in the heart, filled with hope and a sense of wonder. These extremes polarised around two women who were connected in a way neither understood.
Charlotte eased me back onto the rack, she sat down in front of me and told me that for her it was not love at first sight. Her feelings had developed in absence. It was a romantic love that was based on the idea that there was some mystical connection between them. She was certain that the universe had brought them together for some as yet unknown reason convinced that Dominique would reappear in her life, she was waiting for that moment and it seemed like the universe had led her to me.
Selfishly, I thought to myself, maybe the universe had brought Charlotte to me.
It didn’t matter either way soon the puzzle would be completed. It seemed only reasonable to agree that all of us would benefit from some form of encounter although I was not really sure if seeing after Dominique I would come out victorious.
Charlotte eased out off her boots, the latex glimmering in the darkness. Stretched out on her back unlacing them on the floor, a sexy panther rolling on her back. Instinctively I moved over to her like an animal, she smiled, misunderstanding my intentions as I whispered, my voice with an unusual edge to it, ‘Get up.’
Startled and looking somewhat shocked, she stood. One boot on, the other lay on the floor. I moved towards her, we were equal height now. Her dominant posture diminished as she stepped back against the wall, vulnerable, with one boot on and one laying on the floor, she flinched momentarily recognising what she sought to avoid in her life as a Mistress. I looked into her eyes and something melted as our souls kissed, although we never touched physically I felt as if we could not be any closer.
I guess at the end of the day all dominant women want secretly to be dominated, all wild women to be tamed, all submissives yearn to be dominant.

Later we drove into the city, I carried my camera, it was to perfect a day not to take a few photos and Charlotte was in a playful mood. I was clicking away as she posed for me, like an Italian model on holiday. She drove a yellow convertible Volkswagen, the older type. It suited her well.
Sitting in the back smoking I lay my head back and watched the wispy clouds roll by. I took a shot of the cirrus clouds catching the back of her head, with her scarf flowing behind like a banner for beauty. On the radio they played some funky trumpet music. Charlotte did look beautiful, like an angel. I could see her lips in the rear view mirror and her profile in the side mirror. She looked as if she were surrounded by a circle of light. She was radiant, glowing like the sun.
I wondered if Dominique was glowing. I thought about the Yin Yang tattoo, about photons, about the hidden patterns in life and about the nature of chance and coincidence, luck and probability, about love and non-locality about the rules of attraction and repulsion and about Charlotte Dominique and myself.
Had the universe conspired to bring them together, twin entities of light, sharing the same soul, completed together, and then cruelly thrown apart by more mysterious forces.
Is the Universe that poetic?
It certainly seems cruel enough.
There was a flaw to this concept that I had not considered before. Why had Charlotte become a prostitute and Dominique hadn’t.
I sat with this for a few minuets and all points of thought focused on one point, there was no escaping the conclusion no matter how hard I tried, the truth seemed just to bizarre to be true. And the bizzare seemed to be truth.
We flowed with the city traffic. Charlotte in a private tranquillity and looking bright, like a new born star, me just soaking her in.
We parked a few streets away and walked the rest of the journey, basking in the sunlight like two butterflies.
Predicably there was trouble at reception, a security guard listened to instructions from a telephone while giving me increasingly menacing looks. The receptionist looked nervous, she had a fake smile to match the rest of her. I glared back at everyone while Charlotte just looked beautiful and relaxed. She glowed, filling the room with some weird radiance.
Eventually we were escorted to the elevator and after a few seconds we were in Dom’s office, she didn’t look happy about it either.
‘This had better be good,’ she said, ‘Who the hell is this?’
‘Charlotte this is Dominique. Dom, Charlotte. Actually you two have met before. On a more intimate level.’
I pulled Charlotte towards the sofa, may as well get comfortable but I also knew it would piss Dom off.
Dominique’s initial reaction to the both of us was genuine puzzlement.
She displayed her traditional temperament by remaining cold and aloof yet suddenly there was a slight fracture in her impenetrable demur, it lasted a split second after which she composed herself, I caught it at 1/25th.
In quick strides she locked the door of her office and told her secretary to cancel her next appointment. She paced around while we sat watching her personal entropy. However if she felt any embarrassment she never showed it, she was stone, she was ice to my scorching melting soul.
‘I think about you a lot,’ Dom said suddenly, ‘I think about you quite obsessively. It’s sometimes quite a distraction,’ she smiled, surprised me by adding, ‘a pleasant one.’ Her voice became softer, ‘After our time together nothing would ever touch me the same way as that moment we shared. Nothing, not sex, drugs, alcohol and even power seemed to have lost its thrill. And marriage. I rather be alone than live that kind of lie. I mean we were so alike, down to the final secret details.’
Conformation. She flashed me a look of pity, it was so unexpected and possibly the only form of emotional warmth I would get, if you can call it warmth.
Speaking of warmth, the room was becoming warmer, actually very warmer. Dom moved closer to Charlotte, they were looking at one another in a way I could never hope to describe. I brought the viewfinder to my eye and took a quick shot, both of them together, looking at one another, and at me, three pairs of eyes in a relationship that defies the boundaries of language.
‘I think about you as well. I thought that you would return, call me at least, but you just vanished as if it meant nothing. Our connection. It meant something to me.’
‘It meant everything, but there would be no point in seeing one another again, nothing could compare to that moment. It was a perfect moment. Everything else would be a supreme disappointment. It has been. My life since has been a complete anti climax.’
‘We are meant to be together. It is obvious to me.’
‘We are together.’
‘No together together.’
‘I think we will destroy something perfect if we are together. It’s the way things are, nothing is permanent’
‘No Theresa, oh, excuse me, Dominique. We would be perfect.’
Dom looked sad, ‘There is no perfect. Everything is imperfect by its impermanency.’
Typical I thought she has to play the same role over and over. She could never allow herself to be happy. That was her velocity, mine was different, I was going for simple joys. I gave Charlotte a smile but she didn’t notice, she was absorbed in her own thoughts.
As usual I felt awkward and out of place I wondered if I should give them some time together besides I needed to get some fresh air, the energy in the room was changing, it was getting really hot. There was some weird alchemy at work, a chemical change reflected in our entanglements. I could feel it. We could all feel it. My skin felt sticky and I noticed tiny beads of sweat upon Charlotte’s brow, she was now beaming, almost ethereal, an angel. Yes call me romantic and a dreamer but that is what she was slowly becoming, my angel. In the space of a few seconds it had become insanely hot. Even the clock began to melt.
I stood up taking them by surprise, ‘I’m going out for a while. You two should talk in private. I’ll just be outside having a coffee and a smoke, maybe in the park across the way. Take your time, talk, I’ll come back in about two hours.’ Turning to Dom, ‘Tell that Barbie doll at reception not to give me any grief next time.’
I leaned over and kissed Charlotte, ‘Good luck. Don’t take any of her shit,’ I whispered.
She flashed me a nervous smile, part of me that had not yet melted melted.
Turning back to Dominique I said, ‘I don’t think I will ever see you again but I want you to know that I love you. Goodbye.’
I love you goodbye, such strange words to say, they are like a formula, a type of evocation.
Dominique took a sharp breath, I could see the oxygen drawing over her lips. ‘You know why I left you?’
‘Yes Dom. I do now.’
‘Well then you understand why I don’t want you hanging around my office. I need to be very careful that my private life does not get entangled with my professional one,’
‘Or that your professional one doesn’t get entangled with your professional one.’
‘Touche Max.’
I left them to it.
Outside I felt the relief of a moderate climate.
A lot can be accomplished in two hours but I walked to the nearest park and sat under a tree and watched the clouds, smoked a cigarette and listened to the birds chatter in the tree tops.
Dominique was repulsed by me. That kind of emotion must come from somewhere. You don’t just wake up one day and hate someone just for the sake of it. It must have a beginning, a source. I had always known about her bisexual fantasies, she did have a magnetism that seemed attractive to some women. At first she was totally innocent of it but gradually she became more and more aware, flirtatious and sometimes even carefree. Eventually she accepted her nature with the kind of enthusiasm that I just accepted as ‘sexual experimentation.’ Both of us experimented with a few different combinations but the truth is the sex part of our relationship was just supplementary to everything else. I just was into the idea of commitment. I was old fashioned like that. I always have been.
A man could go crazy trying to understand the ways a woman would think. I smoked another cigarette. I felt strangely calm and even happy. It was a relief to have an answer albeit one I didn’t particularly like.
The light was filtering through the trees, streaming in from above and for a fraction of a second I caught a glimpse of myself out of body. A birds eye view from above the tree tops far above the clouds, almost a super fast zoom-in, right back into myself. I stood up.
I glanced over to the building up at the windows to what I assumed was the 7th floor, as I followed them down, floor by floor to the entrance there was Charlotte, stepping out through the sliding doors. Alone. She looked visibly upset, crying. Part of me wanted to race towards her but a larger part was in conflict. I wanted to do the right thing, I wanted to whisk her away and love her supremely for the rest of her life the way she deserved to be loved but was that what she wanted as well. To her, are we those particles of light?
Are we destined for one another with the same intensity?
She looked across into the park, she was looking for me, I could see her desperation, the glimmer of tears in her eyes, the defeat.
I waited till her back was turned then shuffled off into the crowd.
I don’t really understand why I was testing the universe, God, love and non- locality. Maybe I was really testing myself. My ability to let go off that which I most desired and see if it would return, love and non-locality. A hinge upon which all my belief patterns spun. Does the universe operate to a complex arrangement that we are conducted by, unknowingly? Is it fate or luck? Or do we have the kind of power to make our own destinies?
The truth is, it was a desperate act. An act of faith. Fate or luck.
I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and walked towards the main street fumbling for a match. Museum Station was just kind of there and I don’t really know why I walked in, descending the steps. What was going on inside my head was not rational, just an impulse to walk away from the situation, to surrender, escape both the cause and the effect.
The idea of a train ride was the last thing I would normally think of, but there I was, heading around in circles on the circle line, following a crazy loop that was going nowhere, over and over again. In a blank state, unable to even think of anything. It was not until someone nudged me and pointed at a ‘No Smoking’ sign that I really even started to notice that I was in an endless underground orbit.
I swapped trains, moving in automatic pilot mode and 10 minuets later I emerged at Central Station.
I wandered around on the platform following the crowd, it felt safe to be part of a mass of anonymous people. I felt like now I had some purpose to my drifting, that my meaningless wanderings would somehow be engulfed by the rituals of those with structure and routine. I found myself on a platform and jumped on another train. I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing, just killing time and playing out some strange unrealised design.
I ended up in Kings Cross, riding the escalator, up to the surface.
Walking away from the main drag I came to Le Petit Cafe, the French cafe that I liked to hang out in the days before I had met Dom. I sat down and ordered a coffee, lit another cigarette and gazed at the massive faded poster of Beatrice Dalle that had hung there for years. Betty Blue almost fading away with time and sun. It was Zorg that I really liked in that movie, it should have been called Zorg, not Betty Blue. He was the star that didn’t burn out, the movie was about him as much as it was about Betty. And then casually my gaze wandered out through the window.
It was late afternoon and the street was not yet fully crowded, there were a few people leaving work for the day but the street itself was relatively quiet.
She was there, opposite, waiting at a cab rank. I watched her for a moment. She was beautiful in her tragic circumstance. She looked sad and lost and desperately alone.
There was no time to waste.
I yelled out but a cab had already pulled up and she was sliding inside.
I found myself running along the road dodging the on coming traffic like some mad whacked out hooligan, visualising myself leaping into the back seat with her, calculating the time to the very split second. Getting closer and closer my hand reached out to the door handle as the taxi gained momentum, pulling away, her face turning towards me in slow motion, just like a French movie, the door was locked, the car racing off.
‘Fuck!’
Don’t do this to me I thought, wondering if I was talking to her, myself or a God that listens but never intervenes.
I ran after it, pace increasing with each step, adrenalin surging through my body like an on-coming tidal wave. I could feel its energy pulse through my muscles but it was not enough to make a difference. Charlotte and hope receded further away into the city, further away from me.
And there was me, out of breath, alone in a universe that attracts and repels love sometimes both at the same time. There is no way to understand why or what it may signify, it’s just the way it is. Love is loss. You cannot keep it or hold on to it, only treasure it while it is in your life and let it go when it is time.
From my pocket I pulled out my phone and deleted Charlotte’s number. I had let everything go in the last two hours, Charlotte Dominique, my need for them, my attachment to them, my connection, desperation and my loss. Totality. It was a painful act but came from some where in my heart and soul and it felt true to the nature of things.
This was the path to freedom but not happiness. Happiness is the holy grail of relationships, perhaps itself only a myth. We all seek it, God knows I have. I have even deluded myself and others looking for it but perhaps it cannot possibly be found in my partner only somewhere deep in me.
I walked back to the café slowly stopping to gaze at myself reflected in a window. I smoked a cigarette and looked at the Betty Blue poster, slowly sipped my coffee and smiled when Charlotte offered me a light. I held the camera towards uson autofocus and took the picture.