fuck me, how strange life is. it really is absurd and surprising. okay about two years ago after much nagging from my son about the terrible sate of my finances and my struggle with cash i sought the advice of a financial service. i met with a guy i really liked, we hit it off instantly and although he was a suit and spoke in numbers we connected on music. anyway he convinced me he would be the person to look after my affairs, which to be honest i really did need. so i handed over my super and he loaded it into some investments, he tweaked a few things and started educating me on basics about the markets. look, it's fucking roulette okay, it goes up and down and an astrologer stands just as much chance of making money by consulting stars. worse than that, it's a gamble. a roulette wheel.

so chance, fate and i being good friends all jumped into bed, so to speak.

my main man put my investments in some safe spots and everyday i read the markets and followed the news, i tapped into the fucking markets, it's like me travelling to jupiter. another world. but i began to understand it's all about data, global information aligns itself in the nexus of the markets. everything on earth plays a part in the markets, natural disasters, politics, technology, economies all flutter around the light of the stock exchange. its a joke we build a system like this, it's almost insane but thats the sun finance revolves around and seeing as though superannuation is compulsory here in australia, i may as well get involved. 

so pre financial advice my cash was in some govt. health fund, it's now in some huge broker where i am in control. 

so i let my advisor deal with it but over a period of time i began to notice certain companies i liked looking for investors. now i kinda did the opposite of most people and avoided the big mining companies, i like the more innovative ones, alternative tech, more experimental companies. so i started ringing up my man, 'buy buy sell sell,' yeah i get him to look into some of my suggestions and he, being all skilled up, advises me. 

we have both agreed i am on the pulse, i've become very acute at investing in companies at a low price and selling when they are higher. this is the key, warren buffett says this is all you need to know about stocks and shares and captain mission says he's right. the problem is most people are greedy and want large profits, the secret is small profits but lots of them. anyway's i'm in the fucking market now, who would have thought i'd be good at it. today i even attended a seminar run by my broker attended by about 30 people. the talk was about the volatility in the next few years, man it's going to be a bumpy ride, not much growth anywhere and i was surprised that the guest speakers ideas about the future were exactly the same as mine. 

well it's very strange being in this new place, learning new things that i never thought i would ever learn let alone be interested in.   

    

chop at terrible beach, strange waves as i watch the ocean and keep a line on the horizon where three whales swim by. for a moment i am cast back thousands of years to times when aboriginals hunted whales. i see them at the lookout across the bay but then time skids back to now.
it's cold, i dunno what happened by somewhere along the line the temperature just plummeted and i'm wrapped up in faux tiger skins and fur like a wild creature from an ice planet, there's no warmth to be found even in the sun. 
i discovered a food i like, it's called pocky. japanese packet so i have no idea what ingredients constitute a pocky but i can tell by eating it's a cross between a thin biscuit   half coated in green tea that tastes like chocolate. i eat the packet and later look up the website to see if i've eaten anything i may regret. oh yeah, chemical city. however there is something to be said for these pocky, even as a simple food delivery system the design is flawless. if only they were natural flavours. the only english apart form pocky are the words 'share happiness.'
seems like a good idea.

took me a few days but i put together a  neuro - imaging attachment to my zap gun, it looks like a small lizard frill around the end of the nozzle, just line up and pull down the spring mechanism will snap in and affix it. obviously it's a prototype and if i had to make a criticism is it's noticeably slow to scan but once i get the quantum chip cooling it will be instantaneous.

i've put myself on an internet dating site, e harmony and zapped a few dates. i 've run the scans on my software, mapped their brains. the dates i liked were healthy brains with an interesting cortex that had accessibility and a nice shape. my plan was to hook up the willing subject should we ever fall in love and then start inducing an amalgamation of dream states. it's easily done with sound but i have a simple electrical device that is sub sonic and attaches to our sleeping heads via small pairs of pads. these resonate at a matched frequency and when we enter rem state a side effect is the merger of both our subconscious dreams into one single event. that's how it works in theory but i need to test it. the problem is a simple one of finding the right individual. sharing dreams can be dangerous and i certainly don't wish to be unduly reckless.
the neuro imaging scan will offer me an accurate map of a potential brain. i'm not that interested in her hobbies and what she does on the weekend but i have to trawl through various profiles and read this mundane stuff until i find someone who would be suitable to meet. 
the problem with modern dating is it is like shopping, everything matters when it comes to packaging but no one reads the label. so i meticulously attempt to narrow the field down to a few interesting people who write back with certain qualities. i'm not interested in accuracy of spellings and grammar. to be honest i find the grammar nazi's extremely unimaginative. the photographs don't interest me except if they have alcohol in their hands i ignore them and at least 70% do, however i take it they are all photographs that are at least 10 years old. the single byte of information that catches my eye if if there is any humour in their reply. that is my indication of a good brain worth scanning. 
so far i have had no results worthy of investigation. most want to know how much i earn. if i own my own home. what is my profession. 
most of these e girls have only read two books, a shade of grey and the da vinci code. 
the project may have to be suspended until i find a suitable partner in dreams. i will start dismantling the neuro- imaging attachment. it's hard to find a girl with a sense of humour in this city these days.

salutation to dawn, winter daze and haze. i was amongst the living now, slow rituals and ceremony, our leader was a witch called raven, our technology, twigs and tea. 
her circle was closed to us, unless you were bird clan, but her words guided the tribe. once she looked my way, her dark eyes saw through my skin, i wondered what secrets she stole as i looked away.
the bird clans amongst us were crow, rook and raven, but there were various other animal clans, the bat, the bee, butterfly, coyote, deer, we had one single dolphin member a woman with pale blue eyes. there were many others, the dragonfly, the frog, horse, lizard, owl, salmon, wolf and a collection of individuals whom belonged to no clan. 
we were treated well, obeyed the laws of the raven and respected her authority but there was a growing personal dissent within me as i watched the bird clans impose restrictions on movement or others. 
we were kept within the confines of the boundaries marked by them, unable to go further than a few miles from our site and yet as i gazed down into the valley i could see the ocean calling me. it started as the signal inside my head, a soft siren singing out no one else could hear. even at night i was serenaded and longed to feel the strange movements of currents and tides. 
it was a song as well as a yearning. 
after dawn there was a meeting of the bird tribes within the circle, i would be expected to be preparing teas for the circle and i found myself adding some extra herbs to the mixture, a little extra strength valerian i had created in hybrid with some narcolepsy magick.
as i carried the pot towards the circle i watched the poor tribes slave away under ignorance and fear. never would they think to explore outside the area, never would they need to have freedom. it had either been conditioned out of them or it was just not present. i felt the conflict of envy, the idea of ignorance as bliss had an appeal but the song was stronger. 
they allowed me to pour them their tea and then the rest of the community would drink, soon i would be able to escape.
when sleep came it was powerful and deep, i could see them falling, sitting down to make themselves comfortable, some snored like wild beasts others just closed their eyes and drifted of, but all slept. 
the cold sky above weighed heavy as i slipped out, for the first time stepping beyond the perimeter into forbidden areas. that in itself made me feel a strange new sensation, a complex sort of achievement and shame. i followed the song. 
down into the valley, through the jungle and wild growth, the gnarled vines and trees, the savage bushland, it's strange insect life ever present, the glorious flowers exploding in colours so rich i could spend them, so large i could crawl into them and hide. i walked down, there was no obvious trail but i moved fast and confidence built as the song became louder. 
eventually i came to level ground, covered in sweat and breathing heavily i walked along until i reached the clearing and then a golden sand. my feet of course instantly found this texture to its pleasure, my toes sunk in and curled downwards, i made shapes with my feet but the song, the song led me further down, towards the water.
it's hard to know what feelings overwhelmed me, a strange embrace of familiar territory, a past life flashes before my eyes, was i ever a child. memory makes a strange tapestry, stitched together experiences, sometimes you can't trust them. but now, i felt as though i were truly alive. squid clan, i was home.

when i was younger and lived with my family in hertfordshire i was surprised to find a small village called letchmore heath not so far away. it was accessible by driving along some quintessential english country roads, a lovely sleepy little hamlet which also happened to be home of the hare krsna movement. in fact george harrison had bought them a massive mansion which was open to the public every sunday morning for a free meal and as a passionate vegetarian i was often visiting. 
over the years i met a few local people whom i befriended only to find out they were hare krsna's and at the same time either ex cons or on the run. i thus built up this idea in my head that the whole movement was a front for criminals to move around the globe undetected, however this was shadowed by the teachings of krsna which i always found myself drawn to. i mean it's such a cosmic belief system, it's kinda psychedelic and i loved the fact wherever i travelled in the world i would always bump into the krsna's dancing, singing and chanting. i liked that mantra, i loved the food and the girls were sexy. what else can you ask from a religious / spiritual system. 
over the years i investigated the whole hindu philosophy and found everything so rich and fascinating but i kinda always dug the krsna movement as they seemed happy and free. plus i always ate in their restaurants no matter what city i was in. 
even my weed smoking driving instructor turned out to be a hare krsna and he eventually explained the movement was a good place to travel through if you were on the run. i always thought i would keep that in mind if ever i got in trouble with the law.
now reading a fantastic book called 'purushamedha' by rudra das goswami i discover this,

'the vaisnava path saints, lovers, criminals and heretics, krsna embraces all equally. the greatest devotees of krsna include the terrible demons such as vitra, ravana, bali maharaj and mayasura. durga and kali are his handmaidens and the harlot fortune herself his beloved mistress. taking lord krsna as our spiritual master and beloved, we follow his supreme example above all others. krsna defies all cultural norms, all taboos, he kills, he wishes, he enjoys sex, as he wishes, he plays and sports as he wishes, and he teaches us, his friends and disciples to do the same. through his incredible mercy, the most terrible sins and taboos become transformed into acts of pious devotion. 
to make progress one does not need to fast or pray or observe vigils or worship at temples. one needs to love krsna madly, passionately and to enjoy this world as part of his pastimes. everything we do creates karma, unless we do it for krsn, in which case there is only liberation.
so if we eat meat it is bad karma, but if we offer it to krsna it is devotion....'

'    

i'm not sure how these things sometimes happen and i find myself inside my own stories. i've heard of writers doing this, songwriters, novelists and journalists and it would be stupid for me to dismiss this as coincidence chance or luck. burroughs explored this a lot in many essays he wrote and interviews he gave, burroughs was the most magickally experienced writer of them all. he not only understood the process but e used it as a meta program.
me, i'm driving back from work at an ungodly hour after a 16 hour shift and very little sleep, my brain is probably a bit delirious and misfiring, it's in that between zone, the one where strange things happen. 
i get a text from a girl i met once, she wants me to pop in for tea and i'm almost driving past her road, a place i have never visited before. a girl i hardly know but she seems keen on seeing me. it's not like i'm attracted to her, or in anyway in need of her friendship, she is almost a stranger but in my strange dimwitted zombie like narcosis i turn into her road and slow down looking for her house, number 7b. 
the street is so dark i have to park and then walk along looking at the letter boxes for the numbers, but they are quite random and 1 does not follow 2 or 3 but 9 so i have to walk quite a distance until i discover the strange old house at 7b. it's falling apart, sofas scatter the front lawn, there's a tv on and it casts a strange light show through the window. for some reason it feels as though i am underwater as the light shimmers and distorts. the garden is a mess, overgrown and random, it screams don't come in and i listen and text a message as the house i'm looking at is 7a.
i request she come out to the front and meet me. she does.
she's dressed in black, somewhat skinny and tall and much narrower features than i recall. she lives around the back of this house and as i walk behind her following the overgrown path we pass strange abandoned things, stuffed toys, empty cages, broken furniture, boxes and what looked like an assortment of junk.
we turn a corner and walk through a tiny doorway, she whispers, 'its a bit of a mess,' as i step through.
okay, mess is not quite the word i would use. i am in the realm of serious hoarding, although here in this zone there is no order, no method to the madness. it is basically a derelict tiny living area crammed with...things.
by things i mean, household things but just everywhere, on the floor, piled up to the ceiling, in the sink, on a sofa, there is no space left. i find a small kitchen chair and she clears it so as i can utilise it.
she makes me a tea from a micro kitchen area that looks as if a hurricane has gone through every atom of it, spilling out cutlery, mugs, cds, books, shoes, bits of string, it's everywhere, boxes falling apart overspilling with clothes, bottles, containers, hairbrushes, it's really not my place to comment or say anything but it's impossible not to. 
'wow, this is amazing, it's so chaotic, i like a little bit of chaos but this is so pure.'
'yeah, i have to get out of here soon, move somewhere else, maybe newcastle or the south coast.'
i make some small talk about property prices, she's renting this place but it amazes me anyone would charge her for it. she should be getting paid by her greedy landlords to live in it.
as she talks i think, you are not going to move anywhere, you are trapped inside your own mind. this is just a projection of where you are at.
her conversation takes her all over the place, it don't stop, it's relentless, words tumble out from her tiny mouth filling the tiny vacuum that's left in her living area. i peek into a bedroom and see it's no different. there is no space in this home, just her junk. 
of course for her it is not junk, but for me, it belongs upon a pyre. she's talking non stop now, voice change, i detect three different sources, one the girl i met, she's okay, a reasonable sort of woman that i had a conversation with, i can't recall how she got my phone number but she did. this one is intelligent and sort of interesting, open minded and has great taste in music. but there's this other voice, the one that answers her own questions, the one that self degrades her, undermines her and takes her out every chance it gets. it's also very bitter, angry, hopeless and disillusioned. 
the other is a child. seeking help and this is the one i suspect invited me.
'are you a witch?' i ask out of the blue.
she says no but then adds, 'i am a woman, aren't all women?'
i smile, that's a good answer.
she offers me some tea, it's surprisingly good. then she has a moment of honesty, and confesses her unhappiness and self loathing. she's obviously very lonely and alienated.
i don't know what i can say, i'm uncertain why i am here, my eyes won't stay open, my head is just focused upon going home, sleeping.
i sip my tea and offer some advice, i talk a little about the girl in western australia who got badly burnt and somehow manages to life an amazing life. positive and overcoming overwhelming odds at taking control over something which would have defeated me. i tell her about some of the clients i worked with whom managed to wake up smiling even though they were in a wheelchair, i talk to her about finding that spirit inside yourself and just taking each moment as it comes, meeting adversity in small steps and lessening expectations when it comes to others.
i don't really know what i am saying, words are drifting out from my mouth as i think my way out from this crazy situation, she puts on nick cave and we listen to 'the boatmans call.'
people just aint no good.
i get this feeling she wants me to stay the night but there is no way i could stay another second. so i make some excuse and leave arriving home two hours later than i should have. two hours of my life in a strange woman's chaotic mind, like some awful enchantment with good tea and music, when all i want to do is be in my own bed warm and dreaming about waves.
witches sometimes get trapped in their own spells, fucking with the cosmos, things backfire, its a powerful energy to play with and you really need to know what your doing, not just intellectually but by being spiritually sound. the same thing for magickians and writers, as delmore shwartz wrote, in dreams begin responsibilities. 

i was living in la la land, west hollywood with some distant relations. they set me up with a girl who was stunningly attractive, she was taking me out for dinner and wore a white dress. we sat next to some one called george peppard and  george segal who was wearing his pjs and smoking a cigar. i was dressed in tight black jeans and an andy warhol's bad t shirt i bought with me from london.

later she drove me around the city, showed me the sights. those days were good, i liked being a stranger in a big new city, i liked america but then something weird happened.

the family i stayed with lived in a residential area and often the kids would play on the streets outside. because kidnapping of children was so common i would be asked to sit outside on the wall and keep an eye on the local kids. adults would take turns to do this, and although i was not really an adult i found it quite disturbing that this could be the norm.

later as i considered my plans i decided i would travel down to south america via mexico city. 

when i told my american friends my plan they all said, 'no, don't go, it's far to dangerous.'

it was a chorus of responses, the same mantra and the more i heard it the more my resolve to go. mexico for some reason was the badlands but i figured it couldn't be any worse than a society where children are kidnapped off the streets in front of their own homes on a regular basis.

i heard lecture after lecture on the dangers of travelling alone into mexico, it was endless and up until i purchased my ticket and clambered aboard the bus i could hear their voices. i guess being 18 and somewhat a contrarian i found myself heading south. 

a mistake had been made, the bus i had booked was not the normal bus that delivers you straight to mexico city, it was not the american bus it was the mexican bus. jammed packed with farmers, workers and old women the journey took three days and because we had left during a long weekend and public holidays my travellers cheques could not be cashed. i was stone cold broke and trapped between a very large woman who spoke no english and carried a chicken and a goat on an overcrowded bus filled with mexican workers who i gathered were returning to mexico after working in the usa illegally. 

the bus left tijuana and spluttered its way along the high way until it turned off at a dirt track and i found myself in the middle of nowhere. outside small shanty towns passed me by, poor brown faced children stared at the bus, some ran along side it, occasionally when we stopped at some random spot to take on a passenger children would stand outside offering bracelets and trinkets to buy, some had slices of fruit and coke cans but i was now equally as poor as my fellow passengers. 

about three hours south we went through what is the real border into mexico, most think tijuana is the border but it's not really. the official checkpoint i endured was a small shack which we all had to disembark and then attend an inspection. it was in reality the place where the returning mexican workers pay the border police cash so they can return into mexico and visit their families. i was asked a few questions, they couldn't quite understand why i would be on this bus and not the express. my naivety and english accent amused them and i guess they found me somewhat of a novelty, they laughed and muttered in spanish, passed around my passport and then let me back on the bus.

fortunately i had a book, john fowles 'the magus' which i stuck my head into hoping the time would pass.

around about the second day the passengers all started to take an interest in me, where was i from, why was i here, where was i going. i spoke through an english speaking man who translated for me to the amused crowd. when they realised i was from england they all seemed very impressed and the women all started to offer me food, boiled eggs, bits of fruit and some milk, someone poured nuts into my hand from a huge bag of mixed nuts they carried. to be honest i was somewhat overwhelmed by everyones generosity. 

eventually i made it to mexico city, an amazingly artistic and beautiful city. i stayed right in the centre and travelled around the underground train system exploring the place but my fave spot was the art gallery, the best i have ever seem, it was magnificent. these people took art seriously.

in the centre i was in awe of the wonderful architecture of zocalo built upon the aztec city of tenochtitlan. i didn't know it at the time but this was the largest square in the world and as i stood there i could hear it's history whispering to me. but what i did not hear was the future.

mexico, i found, my mexico was brilliant, friendly people, poor and generous, over hospitable and filled with a rich culture and tradition. it was clean and safe and not what it was about to become at all. i never saw anything to indicate in a few years mexico would shift gears and turn into a kind of hellish inferno of drug cartels and terrible corruption and crime. 

i got as far south as mexico city on my travels and then had to return back to the usa as i needed to get back to the uk. another crazy adventure for another time. but mexico stayed with me, i brought something off it back deep inside me. and when i read about the el narco culture that exists it feels so sad that such a rich vibrant country and people could decent into this type of exploitative evil all because the american middle classes like a little white powder up their noses. 

imagine if drugs were legal, mexico would be a free country again.

the next instalment of art keller and adan barrera incorporates the later stages of the narco wars, and the birth of the cartels. be warned there's a massive increase in violence, brutality and horror. the first two pages before the novel starts are a list of the journalists murdered for reporting what was going down mexico way, fuck it's a long list and a lot of names. i read them.
some of the scenes were hard for me to read but winslow writes the facts, he don't glorify it, it's very gritty stuff. 
i have not read a book as fast paced as this for years, it's gripping and surreal. it's not the mexico i knew but the one where journalists are murdered, hundreds of women missing in juarez, police politicians all on the take, corruption is the natural state. 
you wonder how absurd the war on drugs is, how it all exists, the weed, the coke, the smack, the crystal all because there's a massive demand for it across the border. 
'power of the dog' and 'cartel' should be read by everyone. it's not just a novel but history of man, it's a lesson in economics, power and terror that sucks everyone into its vortex. your either taking the silver or the lead, there's no way out.

crazy nights with val and olga in some strange and dodgy turkish restaurant i eat some psychedelic salad that's loaded up with pomegranates and tastes so sweet i can't get past a mouthful. i order a drink that never arrives, the hash cookie kicks in and i'm firing on all cylinders. a chaotic evening ensures, random people drift into my aura, drams everywhere, girls flirting indiscriminately, king street assaults my finely tuned senses and my mind juggles billions of thoughts as i negotiate my way around.
i meet a chilean lady on the return journey, she and i start a conversation about revelation and i mention my music. she wants to listen to it so i show her on her i phone how to access the tracks. she listens to about five seconds from each song and says she likes it, but asks who the dead people are buried in the mix. i say i don't know what she's talking about, she says, there are the voices of the dead people buried in the mix. i never heard them i say but remember how the sound basement backed onto a mortuary and during the recording val and i would often see glimpses of people walking around confused only to discover there was no one there at all. val was immune to it as he spent hours in that studio but for me it was quite weird. maybe they somehow ended up on my cd. i'll have to play it again, listen closer.
anyways she was an interesting lady who as a child had been used by a drug company and given experimental medication as had all the young girls from her village. most of them died, she died but was saved, came back and said she had special abilities to see into the spirit world. that's how she heard the voices.
i have no reason to doubt her.

day of the doctors as i haul my sorry ass through the specialists and they do various tests upon my lungs and discover everything is just fine. they have no idea and charge me $400 for it.
the doctor says he is glad to see me smile as he makes his announcement, he's usually offering tissues to people he informs have lung cancer. i like him, can't help but feel grateful i've just paid 400 buck to be told i am not going to die of lung cancer. oh well, i will die of something, that much is known.

well into series three of black sails olde captain mission is in his element, a fantastic show, i love everything about it. i must admit the first series was a bit dodgy and i wondered if i would ever watch the second. in the first we see the pirates at nassau in their factions all attempting to peruse the complex path of holding on to their own self interests. we are introduced to a young john silver who has the map to the spanish treasure in his possession. the urca gold holds the key to the storyline and eventually unites the pirate community against the english. based upon real pirates, rackham, anne bonny, hornigold, charles vane and flint.
it's flint who is the most interesting, from his establishment origins to his eventual rebirth as a pirate. his hatred of the english is sympathetic given his circumstance and he leads the war against them. 
even silver whom starts off as a boyish charming, smooth talker, a surviver transforms by season three into someone darker and real. 
these were brutal times indeed, harsh and cruel but to me there is a sense of adventure, some past life connection so strong i believe it real, the ideals of the pirates are my ideals, the philosophical political architecture is far more robust than where we are now, however obviously now pirates could never replicate those conditions no matter how they feel. they are reduced to armed robbers and murderers. 
the pirate code has honour, i dig it. i miss it.  

wow, that was some storm, battered the land and caused havoc. my garden is a mass of tangled banana palms and ferns, massive tree branches litter the grass and my pond was in need of a clean. the streets are filled with debris, it looks bad but when you drive around at 6am it's like another planet. there are waterfalls everywhere, it's like driving through a vaguely recognisable underwater civilisation. i have to find some food, coffee, my house has no power.

my XV negotiates the terrain, i'm blasting some bowie and have the heat turned up. 

later when the power returns a visitor calls around, she's drenched. i offer her a shower and a towel and a bed. one things leads to another. that's the way i roll these days. she says goodbye and i go back to sleeping, my strange dreams, my nocturnal escape routes where it's dry and the sun shines.

rapid descent in the inelegant rainstorm, the highway to cloud fall, the ignoble wet form of a god enraged, tempest or extra terrestrial mutated form, my weapons are useless, system defenceless, i'm just like king canute on the sea shore. 

the king tide is upon us, the season in hell, misery in the sodden foundations where waterlogged dreams submerged and forgotten like abandoned cities, civilisations unknown. 

sophisticated populations undone by a deluge, planet ark in a void of static and white noise, even angels and unknowns, the beings from above interfere with the flood.

madmen here voices, saner ones sirens, the call is upon us and who will endure?

not i said the ego with my brain so aloof, not i says the proud land dwellers and beasts with out roots fixed and stoic. not i say the indifferent with their tv guides and their signs, not i say the shopping mall dwellers as the stock market falls. 

only the adaptable impulse, the vital spark that drives, many vessels many forms and many lives will survive. 

noah didn't need to built his ark, he was the ark for he is also mankind, and in the ark was stored information, two of each strand of life. 

ever wondered why your dna is almost the same as a banana?

winter's here, the cold came into my bones, made it's way into my home.
winter's here, the birds all changed, from colour to monochrome.
i look across at the ocean waves, i see the darkness in the cloud,
i look so alone, a single man standing in a crowd.
what can you do to me, what words of reassurance whispered.
to halt the season, the stop the deep freeze.
winters here, the nights are lonely, the darkness enfolds me, just like those dreams.
i watch the trees stand so very still, in silence that warps itself around us with out a chance to breath.
i watch the still life come to it's final moment, just like a fairytales sad conclusion, the one that makes you know there are no happy endings.
winters here, it's rigid intention, unyielding and incremental, don't mean to be so temperamental but my blood is frozen in this arctic moment, that once belonged to me, now stolen
what can you do to me, what words of reassurance whispered.
to halt this season and stop the deep freeze. 

khan had been smoking opium as long as he could recall but when he turned up at mission control looking somewhat crazed and paranoid i wondered if the heat were closing in. 
'i need to talk with you sir.'
'khan, what a pleasant surprise, come in.'
i offered him the tea he enjoys and added the extra honey as i never keep sugar in mission control. he enjoyed oriental teas and i was able to brew him some white tea from the far east. he was wandering around the library glancing at my books in a frenzied way. 
khan always dressed in his traditional robes and sandals, kashmiri style looking like an exotic prince in trouble i persuaded him to sit with me as i poured him his tea.
'kahn, come on man, i've known you long enough to see something troubles you.'
'yes, indeed i am troubled sir and i beg your assistance.'
i was not only surprised at khans instance at calling me sir, a formality i found uncomfortable but the fact he felt he needed to plead for my help.
'khan. we are friends. you know i will always help you if it is in within my means so i think you should relax, enjoy your tea and start talking about the nature of your dilemma and when you finish i can offer my perspective.'
nervous smiles, twitch in the corner of his mouth and then i see something, the eyes. not only were they sunken back dramatically, his whole face looked so haggard and devoid of colour, almost grey. his exotic brown tone washed out completely by a sickly silver.
'six months ago i returned to peshawar thinking i would take the cure, my addiction was beginning to take it's toll and i had heard there were many treatments that were effective. the cultivators themselves require short term solutions to opiate addictions and i hoped i would benefit. in hindsight it seems stupid to think the source of my sickness may be the cure, a little homeopathic madness. there's a place there a certain restaurant it's quite famous for its kebabs and  is always filled from dawn to dusk, very difficult to get a seat so i found myself eating a meal next door where i met a scorpion vendor who i spoke with. he said to me, nasha pa nasha khatmege which in english translates as drugs are beaten by other drugs. off course i disagreed he had never travelled outside, he had little knowledge of the world but he was very convincing when he told me he had a cure for opiate addiction. i was weak, foolish and i listened to him, and i wanted to believe.
it was late, the restaurants were emptying out and we drunk a lot of tea and i was feeling withdrawals, my body beginning to crave. he knew certain places i could attain treatments, some varied in method and style but he said he had a cure that i should think about. he was very fatalistic and spoke of how it was fortune that brought me to him, you know how we are about things like this, it's seductive and i was seduced. 
he closed up his shop, it was tiny and i'm not really sure what it sold except for tea and sweet cake. he lit a candle and pulled out a large jar from the darkness. at first i thought it was filled with a black ink and then i noticed the ink moving around never retaining a surface tension, perhaps it was alive, i looked harder. giant cockroaches perhaps, but but on closer inspection it was scorpions.
He plucked one out by the tail, it was huge about 8", hetrometrus is the latin name he informed me. 
the vendor said that he normally dries them in sunlight but he would burn this one on coal. he threw it upon the white hot coals of his grill and we watched it wither and curl as an awful smoke rose and it's body curled and cracked. i have witnessed many strange things sir as i know you have. but this sir, was the strangest. watching it suffer, the preparation, it was quite insane. but in the prison of my addiction the prism of morality distorts and what was insane becomes quite acceptable given the circumstances. i was very sick.
after ten minites of burning the vendor removed the scorpion with a pair of tongs. it was a black lump with it's tail still retaining the shape but fused around the body, the vendor placed it on the bench and began opening it out. the smell was awfully thick and unpleasant. he cut away the tail and then ground it into a powder in a pestle and mortar, very methodically and with great care. i watched his preparation in silence as though in some strange religious ceremony.
the vendor placed the powder in a nacha, a pipe, in a mixture of tobacco and hashish. 
we smoked it together, in darkness and silence and then when it was finished he said, the western world will stop the opium trade eventually but it will be replaced by something much worse. the scorpion cult is ready, it grows, it is everywhere and now it is inside you. did you know, like heroin is used in medicine so is the scorpion, it is used in many western medicines, to combat aids, to treat cancers and tumours. the scorpion in ancient egypt was the symbol of magick. here it is the symbol of death. a certain type of death, the death that comes unsuspecting. if you watch a scorpion hunt it dances around it's prey, it draws the target into thinking the claws are the weapon and then when the target is focused upon the pincers it is stung with the tail. when you return to the west, you will see them panicking from pandemonium, their governments are weakened with fear of an enemy we sent, our pincers. the sting is coming my friend.
sir, i was half hearing his words, my eyes were betraying me so i cannot account for accuracy of what i heard him say, everything danced before me, there were auditory hallucinations and a surge of energy, it was beyond anything i've ever experienced. powerful and terrifying. words seemed to continue even now i hear them, there is no treatment from the scorpion only addiction. 
i left immediately, flew straight home, and to you sir, i know you have some experience in these things being an exterminator.'
'kahn, the scorpion cult are unknown to me, i am aware that there are a few bug cults on this planet but it's impossible to say how far and wide they reach but one thing is clear. this cult means to do us all harm.'
'yes, and i am very sick sir, very sick from withdrawal. i came here, risking my own life to warn people, to warn them all to what is coming.'
i watched him intently, his skin was beginning to crystallise, it was becoming darker, and breaking out into faint patterns. intuitively i knew that this was the end of the line for mr. kahn. 
i had the olmec blade at hand, it would be a simple swift movement to put him out of his misery and stop any transformation that was occurring but i'd still have to deal with the body.
in the warehouse where burroughs worked from and i was trained under his tutelage was an industrial freezer. as far as i knew it was empty but was in working order. 
it didn't take kahn much convincing to accompany me, he was aware time was running to a standstill and as we drove down in the truck he began blabbering. one of the headlights didn't work but we were lucky, using the back streets avoiding the heat i listened to  
kahn as he shivered and shook in a delirious fever. occasionally he would relay parts of the voices in his mind. 'they want me to detonate in a sports arena, in a shopping mall, they want me to become dust floating in the air, breathed into lungs, that is my mission sir and there is no way out for me. i am fighting the compulsion, what's happening? please help me, are we there, we must be close i can't breath' he pleaded before shutting down.
burroughs kept the main gate shut with a big old padlock and as i stuck the key in and turned it kahn's flesh started solidify, strange liquid poured from his mouth and his hands were changing structure. i carried him through and stuck him inside the freezer, it was indeed empty save for some vodka, i opened a bottle and poured it into his mouth hoping it would take the edge of whatever internal chemistry was occurring. there were two milk crates turned upside down. i sat upon one watching him on the other, his body was now completely black and i could see the lateral eyes widen across his face, he fell to the floor and his arms became thick pedepalps as pincers replaced his hands. i watched as legs burst from his torso and his human legs fused together and changed by stages into the tail. the thing was huge, and although we had only been in the ice room for a few minites it was beginning to freeze. i began to pump my three hearts, circulating my blue blood through my body, this would keep me from freezing and allow me a spectators seat at the transformation. 
kahn was gone now, any traces of him obliterated in the metamorphosis. 
the body twitched and then stopped. the black eyes fixed upon me were the last to freeze.

i shut the door sealing him inside and locked up. instead of going home i went to the beach and took off my clothes leaving them in a pile inside the truck. 
it wasn't particularly warm or cold but as soon as i walked into the water the boundaries of my human body shed and i swam in my natural form further out and deeper down, into the darkness. 
the threat of the scorpion cult was clear now, imminent. i was trained in infiltration, my mission was to save the humans. i was undercover in deep, running a business. an integrated member of society, i was blending in and doing my job. exterminator. but even the best spies need support and back up. 
instinct took over, my travelling speed was very fast, i would reach our command centre in a matter of hours. there would be no predators down here, even the sharks know to stay away. the cephalopod council would have received my light message a spectrum of deep reds and purples, they would meet me for a debrief and to update my orders.i required their instruction on the scorpion threat, for they would be a formidable foe.
i shut down my system, all energy rerouted to propulsion as i made my way deeper down.