messy morning, i'm locked in to meet the High Priestess but instead i'm on a avalon tangent with my dear friend evan, we are discussing the strange and indecipherable language of women. eventually i make it to the meeting place where i discover the High Priestess has left, leaving me to chat with Jullette and Linda. I tell them about my strange password in the Turkish empire.
The word Yasassin translates as Long Life. I learnt this from a belly dancer in an opium den, she inducted me into the way of turkish seduction which involved us getting wiped out on opium and hash, true turkish delight as she danced her way out of her clothes. anyways the word which must be said with a certain degree of passion if it is to open doors, just seemed to have that persian mystique that all magic words have. i practised saying it aloud, open eyed, often shaking my fist and eventually one night got to use it. i'd been hanging out with the belly dancer and was walking home down the pre sunrise vampire kingdom that was Kreuzberg when suddenly a large flaming object blazed across the sky and exploded at my side. i was always impressed by the seriousness and enthusiasm that these turkish gangs demonstrated. they not only wore next to nothing in minus 40 degrees as a proof of manhood, they actually committed what i would call TV violence with such imagination and conviction that momentarily i was scared. but then as they moved towards me, after i noticed the flash of the blade, the glare of long term madness behind their retinas, the smell of the already dead, i remembered the word.
'YASSASSIN' i screamed, shaking my hand in a fist of protest and power. They froze. I froze and then they just went into what i can only describe as a form of arabic hysteria. YASSASSIN they yelled at me, YASSASSIN! YASSASSIN! YASSASSIN!
This went on for a few minutes then the knives went down and i sighed a breath of relief, they hugged me, kissed my cheeks, jumped up and down and kissed me. I was somewhat more scared now they were kissing me than when i saw the knife. They wrapped their arms around my shoulders and dragged me over to a beaten and worn out heap of a SKODA with one wiper bent at right angles, the drivers door missing and what looked like bullet holes along the passenger side.
drinking east berlin vodka, passing the bottle around my two new friends started to sing Turkish songs of the Dammed and what i think may have been a Turkish revolutionary's Lament. We sang together, me making up the words while my would be pair of assailants just got more and more trashed. eventually i resigned myself that i may be staying the night with them in the Skoda. Fortunately i managed to sneak away when they passed out.
Anyways this magic word got me everywhere, into clubs, bars, restaurants, out of fights and jail. I was a young pseudo turk, running free in West Berlin.
I finished telling Linda and Julliet my story and then said my goodbyes, for i needed to knuckle down and write my book, script, short story, blog, review, songs, when steve arrived. eventually we discussed the usual subjects from global warming to latex masks. eventually i remembered i was to meet the Priestess who as it happens was standing outside the french bakery with a tall thin heroin chic kinda guy whose home we eventually ended up at, nice place on the water, somewhat between an old english railway station and a magical enid blyton land. The High Priestess said the train would rise from the water, while i added instead of smoke bubbles would rise from its funnel. Anyways...
we drank nice healthy teas and sparkling water, talking about the temple idea and the priestess disclosed she would be moving soon to the north, off the grid, whereas i will be staying here in sunny sydney one foot in the grid and one foot out and another pointed at the sky.
later the priestess gave me three beautiful bookcases that i can only say went to the perfect home, as i write they are filled to the brim with my books loveinly sitting in their new home looking smug. the perfect end to a perfect day.