pineal gland envokes, it shoots through the skin, protruding out like an insect antenna. it begins to sense another dimension, the spectrum of forever.
here infinity awaits unclustered and expansive, tomorrow the edge of time halts. here the beings are spectral light wave born, transcendence and illumination.
i wandered the plains of wave form, a fractal pattern within a fractal universe. there infinity was always within reach, my pineal gland stretched into it and all reductionist illusion receded. 
the math was complex, my brain still found difficulty with the basic equations but i understood the process.
i avoided other life forms although the were part of me, such separation kept me alert and focused upon the darkness of the light. 
other sensational realms existed, my flesh transmitted erotic impulses my tactile features read deep within the inherent structures, complex algorithmic pulse.
all the internal organs bleed light, i was filled with holes, pouring some wavelength i never saw but only felt. dreams evaded sleep, they escaped into portals that caused reality.

it's true a certain peace has arrived, i'm so glad to have this moment, a contemplative stillness. 
brilliant blue skies and a warmth like spring flows through the day, even the ocean waves look perfect and inviting, if it was not for the current high shark sightings i'd be down there. but here i am, just contently sliding into obscurity, it's better this way.
i feel happy and relatively content, my son is travelling through turkey, i gave him the code word to become highly respected amongst the turkish people, it's something i learnt in west berlin, i lived in the turkish section, which now apparently is very trendy, and in the nefarious opium dens i met a few turkish people who confided the word to me. it's come in handy when i've used it, it's got me out of a few tight spots and it seems fitting to pass it on to my son.

it came as a flash of blinding white light, and then a face, her face, laughing like a child, she was throwing snow at me, it was making her double over and giggle. i kept falling over, i was standing on ice, 'not fair' i shouted as she laughed. it was pre soft apocalypse, we were in a place called canada, on holiday, jesus it was our honeymoon, i remembered. we had gone out walking and come across the lake where everyone was skating, i was showing off and she stood there throwing snowballs at me. in the background the city stood and i watched the sunlight blaze through the towers, the glass just burnt orange and there in the foreground she stood with that light, it made her skin shine. and then in the tide of knowing i came back to the strange room with the memory man and elektra. she was smiling at me, it had worked.
'i remember your name, it was alice, you were alice.'
she laughed, 'i can't recall being alice.'


later we drank some sweet tea and ate some kind of cake the ishmael had brought for us. ishmael smoked a pipe with some strange smelling tobacco, i liked the smell and tried some, it made me light headed.
'what are you studying, all these maps and charts ishmael?'
'i have spent my life studying these charts, from the library in rome, under the ground, you probably never even heard about it but it's a legendary place amongst schoolers. i study the stars and the cycles of the universe, this universe, ancient knowledge buried deep within lost civilisations, structures, myth, religion and symbols.'
'yeah but why study this...history.'
'because we need to understand the future, we need to know what happened in the soft apocalypse and why. i have to know the answer,' his eyes pleaded with mine, 'what caused it, don't you want to know?'
'maybe i'm not supposed to know, maybe it is what it is, that's why i can't recall the old life, can you?'
'it was chaotic, lots of unrest, the west was on a knife edge, countries that were clearly defined seemed to break down, the power structures were all collapsing due to greed and the dependancy on finite resources, people put value on false things, idolatry, fame, glamour and money. we were lost, a species that needed reigning in.'
'i don't remember, was it that bad?'
elektra flicked through a book of drawings. she smiled at me listening.
the memory man nodded his head, 'yes, it was the ending of a cycle, we were at a transition, you see the universe is cyclic, it follows patterns. there have been many civilisations, some have possessed very powerful technology but never enough to understand itself. that was the realm of the native peoples who left clues for us, they build temples that show the way, structures that represent movements of the heavens, i think i understand it now, as we shift each transition phase heralds a new kind of evolution, a distinct change in consciousness. live evolves.'
'i've heard that theory, i'm familiar with it. it's part of the mayan understanding, the calendar.'
'it's beyond mayan but yes, i can show you something, do you have time?'
'they will be after us, they know i have not carried out my assignment and they probably know why. we don't have much time.'
the old man was fidgeting with some sort of head gear, it was a helmet linked up to some sort of wide ultra band cable, there were two visors that he brought down over my face, the first was a deep blue the second black, no light seemed to penetrate. 
i began to relax, my breathing felt strange, exaggerated, i couldn't hear any sounds but felt my chest rise and lower. suddenly a display lit up, a star chart, superimposed with pyramid looking statistical display, the star chart seemed to be rotating and then one by one the levels of the pyramid filled with text, starting with the creation of this universe and each level up showed a shorter block with a new level of consciousness, and each level had a title and each title had a date and when we came to the current year i could see the title was 'universal consciousness'  with each level the star map seemed to swirl around us, showing the movement of the universe, it was changing and influencing the steps, each full cycle seemed to match the levels beginning, and i could see star charts within star charts, i zoomed in on a local one, and there was our solar system, planets coming out of alignment. the soft apocalypse had been an event, part of a process. i understood, but still had heaps of questions. i could see that the period of the soft apocalypse was shorted that the previous periods apocalypse, which was the second world war according to the information. then there was a new set of information, it was called 8 division sky place. there was an arrow that intersected the other intersections, it appeared stuck as it came out from between my eyes right into the centre of the other lines, intersecting all the calenders, where they met a golden heart emblem seemed to radiate. that was eight division sky place. the scene went blank, i slipped the helm,et off my head, 'what was that?' 
'that,' the memory man whispered, 'is all this,' he waved around the room, 'it's everything, all research, it's the answer.'
'what's eight division sky place, where is it?'
the old man gave me a wry look sipped his tea and muttered something under his breath, and then a burst of blood exploded over his chest. i was sure i could smell strawberries.
elektra ran at me, dragging me down low, she had a weapon in her hand and was firing out of the window, the noise was overwhelming, every sound suddenly exaggerated itself, even visually i could make out details that would normally be lost, elektra's hair follicles, the grim look of determination, the way her lips glowed, the smell of the coffee, the strange heat that filled the room. she dragged me outside and we ran down the steps we had climbed jumping over the crumpled mass of bodies, some seemed dazed and other lay still. when we got to the courtyard we clambered over the wall and ran towards the market place where we could loose ourselves in the maze of streets and crowds. 
'it's the JIN, we're being hunted.'
'we can't keep running, sooner or later we have to make a stand.'
'we need to lay low, think out a strategy.' 
'what was that strawberry smell?'
'it's the post apocalypse shift, the bullets change, they are non lethal.'
'strawberries, some one has a sense of humour.'
a group of men gathered by a huge wall, they were making a loud noise and the flow of the people seemed to drag towards the cacophony. we walked away from the commotion, elektra looked worried, 'things are changing, the bullets are strawberries, and look at that,' she pointed at the guards who stood by the checkpoint near the american section, one by one their uniforms changed into, sergeant peppers uniforms, the guns and pistols changed to flowers, 'it's all speeding up, there's no way of knowing what will happen.'
'we should find this place, 8 division place.'
'maybe it's in the sky.'
'it's beginning to sound familiar, the more i hear it the more i recognise something about it, from the past, from before.'
'was it a place you knew.'
suddenly the mobile phones started falling from the skies, it was raining mobiles, each one ringing. i picked one up, 'music.'
setting it to the speaker option we heard the strange music, 'fear is the mind killer, love the liberator.'
around us the city began to crumble, towers seemed to change shape, angles became curved, walls started to adjust their tone and texture, the narrow cobble stone street became grass and wild flowers started popping up everywhere, some people screamed in panic, others stood around looking bemused and confused. 
elektra seemed to suddenly morph into a bird, a huge great big macaw, her feathers were a deep blue and purple but her eyes were the same pale eyes, reflecting me, my feathers a regal purple. 
we flew high above the city, we soared and glided along the thermals that took us higher and higher until the landscape below us transformed from a densely populated city into an old growth rainforest, there were some buildings left untouched, but covered with vines and creepers, teeming with life, there were no humans left, lots of insects, birds and small furry creatures, all quietly adjusting to a new life. 
soon things passed from my mind, the past passed, for both of us, all we knew was one another. peace had come, the kingdom of heaven on earth, thy will be done.
we flew north, following an instinctive pull, we knew no pain, no sorrow, we knew nothing save for our love and the need to live fully and joyfully, we were together and that was all that mattered and we were part of something grand we didn't need to understand, a creation so vast and magnificent and loving, so infinitely  complex all names and labels are wasted in attempts to capture it, so we sang and made music, and the universe listened. 
   
    

executioners come in all shapes and forms, but i never thought mine would be this beautiful, her eyes were deep blue, the kind of blue that comes from somewhere so cold you can freeze in their gaze, she was pale skinned with white bleached hair, short and swept back across her scalp, and her lips were ruby red. i smiled, it was a natural response, for there was a vague glimmer that death would come quick and i would be released from this strange new world so imagine when my surprise when she smiled back.
'captain mission, you're captain mission from the old world, i know you, we've met.'
'i am captain mission, i'm not sure who or what i was in the old world, before the soft apocalypse, i can't remember anything.'
'do i look familiar?'
'no,' i whispered, adding, 'you just look beautiful.'
she lowered the sword, and pulled me upright, she stood about the same height as me, slim and healthy like an extreme athlete from a winter olympics. 
'you and i we...knew one another in the old world, we were...close,' she said. 
i stood near her, assessing, reading her body, scanning with my abilities, could feel her breath, cold and icy like her eyes. she was some sort of ice maiden, a calculating killing machine, her mind was a razor blade, she could kill with extreme efficiency, she didn't seem to be real, almost from some weird fairy tale or myth, she came from an ice palace far north, her father was a king, her childhood traumatically swept from idyllic to traumatic and now she was just ruthless. i looked at the sword, a black blade, it sucked all light, it had one single red jewel in its hilt embedded, some sort of precious stone, ruby like, instead of gleaming it glistened.
the savage ice maiden felt my scan, she relaxed and for a moment i could feel her innocence, it was fleeting as she composed herself quickly, and flashed me her teeth.
'who are you?'
'the executioner, that's who you know me as in this world, but we go back mission, back into the old world, i wish you could remember.'
i shook my head, nothing, all i knew was i was an ambergris man, i lived in this place, an outpost near the ocean and i travelled the lands finding whales. i was quite infamous, respected, for my skills in the trade were legendary, i had several contacts and various networks to trade in but the market was always under threat from JIN and i'd always known the executioner would be on my heels. apart from that i couldn't recall much else, it was all just lost, i knew it was there somewhere, it felt right but it seemed so unimportant, like a fading dream.
she sat at the table while i made some tea, she inspected my gun with her hands, 'i've never seen anything like it before, how does it work?'
i don't know how i knew, earlier i didn't, now i did, 'it's a moon powered zap gun, lunar charge, it's got several settings, from a stimulating creative charge to a lethal one. i think there's one where it sends the unfortunate victim insane. lately i wonder if i charged myself with it accidentally.'
she smiled, 'no you didn't, it's the split, the soft apocalypse changed us all, i was never an assassin, you were never an ambergris man, everything just kinda distorted and shifted, we are in a new reality and being part of it makes you forget the old one.'
'but you remember it don't you?'
'yes, i do, i made myself remember one thing above all else as i adjusted to the shift. i seared it into my brain and it's been there from day one.'
i poured out some spice tea into a large mug and sat with her, listening to her story.
she couldn't recall her name in the old world, here she was known as elektra, she found herself in a palace, daughter of the emperor of the ice kingdoms in the north, she was orphaned by war and had been working freelance as an assassin since then, that was the new history, she knew fighting skills, was expertly trained in all manner of dispatch, weapons, hand to hand, explosives, she even knew poisons and technology. on this side of the soft apocalypse technology was all different, but neither of us remembered what it was exactly like before, we had just been given the means to use it. she had been hired by governments and corporations, the first column, cartels of extremely powerful elites, elektra currently worked for JIN hunting down competitors in the whale trade and i was her new target. but when she climbed through the window, something instinctive seemed to take over her, a feeling and then she found me, she recognised me as the one person she had chosen to remember from her life pre soft apocalypse, her husband.
i found this hard to believe, for all i recalled i was alone, i had never had a wife, i could not remember her one bit although her eyes did reflect something, a portal of significance, some kind of doorway or opening into some lost landscape, one that was just out of reach but lingered like a reincarnated memory, i wondered if i should invest belief in such a thing.
alternatively now would be a good time to aim my zap gun and end her existence as the executioner. 
outside the night had fallen, my security perimeter was still active, the place was secure, i'm not sure how she had breached it but it showed she was a class act. i smiled at her, 'you're welcome to stay for dinner.'
'you need to remember me mission, it's very important.'
i breathed out, a long breath, 'everything from before, it's gone, this world is more familiar, it's real to me.'
'there's a way i can make you remember, a man, a memory man, he lives in the turkish quarter. we can be there in the morning.'
i felt uncertain, i needed convincing, i'd never heard of a memory man. i played with the zap gun in my hands, i slid the radar umbrella open and shut, my fingers traced the word ZAP and then i put it down on the table.
'okay, i guess i have nothing to loose.'


i slept for a few hours, dreaming of ice capped peaks, somewhere else, a wilderness, some sort of trek through a mountain valley, clambering with ice picks, an ascent with ice picks in each hand, upwards i rose, each muscle aching, i moved above clouds, looking across the summits at the ice kingdom. my skin was burning from the wind, my face felt like a million pinpricks were being stuck into its surface, i pulled myself up towards a shelf of rock. breathing the thin air, i wanted to close my eyes, but i knew that if i closed them i could never open them again, and i knew i had to get to the kingdom, to the king, to his daughter?


in the morning we set off for the turkish quarter, elektra had changed her appearance, she blended in as as a civilian, we both looked like citizens. 


to get to the turkish quarter you had to move through the american section and that would be particularly dangerous due to the high level of security, but our paperwork was all in order and we looked so inconspicuous no one seemed bothered by us, although elektra turned a few heads with her exotic looks. she had dyed her hair black now, and her face looked much more angular, her eyes darker but they still had that coldness deep within. she was frozen deep inside.
some children were playing baseball, she suddenly raised her arm catching a ball in mid flight, she threw it back in a perfect arc, flashed me a smile and led me through the gate into the turkish section where we were greeted with the smell of strong coffee and hash.
the streets here were narrow, crowded with families out and about, the walls were all sandstone and the noise much louder, above the cacophony was the muezzin 
and the cry of a few lone men, arabic calls to prayer.
a number of men stopped to gaze at elektra, she was most definitely out of place, unveiled and attracting attention, but she weaved through the crowds into a dark corridor that seemed to take us underground, through some sort of deserted courtyard and then we climbed up a narrow set of steps, they went on for a very long time and stopped at a large wooden doorway.
she knocked, it was code, some sort of elementary one but i could tell it was a code. the door opened and an old wizard type of man let us through into a very large room filled with charts and papers. 
i looked around me, the room was like a chamber, there was a desk piled high with maps, astrological charts and what looked like an old computer being powered by a solar panel which was on the rooftop. the walls were covered in posters of some sort of astrological maps and equations, there was some hint of alchemical process embedded within and then a huge sanskrit chart of tables and sigils. the only light came from the screen of the old computer and a few candles.
'mission this is ishmael the memory man, he can help you.'
we shook hands, ishmael was ancient, he looked like he was over one hundred years old, with his walnut crinkled face and white beard trailing down, his hands were frail and his voice broken and quiet, he murmured quietly, 'yes yes, i can help, come i'll make some coffee.'
he pottered over to the pot and lit the stove it sat upon, i flicked through some of the papers on the desk, there was no way i could understand anything written upon them, but there were drawings i recognised, the sun and planets, a map of the earth and points where all the pyramids lay, there were constellations and tables filled with dates and numbers.
'the universe is not clockwork but it's a good analogy, we can learn from history that it's patterns repeat, we can dive into the past and see the future, memory is just an ocean of treasure lost, sunken and buried treasure, just like your profession, you work with whales mr. mission, whales and ambergris, a treasure hidden within the whale.'
'in the stomach, it's whale vomit really, not the most attractive substance.'
'yes but it transforms into an attractive substance does it not?'
'yes it does, but i only deal in the raw materials?'
'like wise captain mission. sit down and i will trawl your history and see what sunken treasure i can bring to the surface.'
he passed me the coffee, it was hot and strong. elektra sat to my side, he held my hand as ishmael put his hands on my temples, he muttered some arabic words, rocked my head from side to side and then took out a pendulum. it was a clock on a long chain, a transparent clock and it had words inscribed upon it.
'TIME CONQUERS ALL'
that was the last thing i recalled.

by now every man and his dog had taken what they could, all that was left this morning was a rotting lump of residual flesh that the sharks couldn't reach, it lay up the shoreline stinking the whole town up, there was some blood and guts but the rest was bone, even the eyes were gone, stolen by officials under subterfuge, you could already buy one eye on e bay, 'single genuine optic organ from the newport blue' it said in large print. 
after coffee i plugged into the net and downloaded some sort of potable code that determines market price, fortune was favouring me, i rang the paris office and accepted their generous bid, no doubt the god forsaken stuff would find its way onto the highest of the shelves in top notch department stores retailing at some exorbitant price and smelling much nicer.
being an ambergris hunter means a lot of physical work, wheeling and dealing, you need many faces, have to keep abreast of the market, know when to sell and when to hold but most of all you have to evade the executioner.
it had only been a few days after the soft apocalypse, we were all still acclimatising, no one had rejected the new reality but there was what i would call separation anxiety, only for us ambergris men it would take the form of the executioner. i'm not sure why, there was no obvious answer but i could feel the fear and that was real. the executioner was said to be a man of considerable means, although he was a mercenary  he generally worked for the japanese, icelandic and norwegian conglomerate known as JIN, a group who seemed to want to be the sole traders in whale product. the executioner used various methods to scare or intimidate, none of which spring to mind, but i knew they were to be feared. 
in the new reality i had quite a nice place, fitted with a few security protocols but even without them it would be safe to assume the executioner had already intercepted my transaction, he would be on his way. 
i shipped the ambergris out via a proxy, three packages of australian bush honey direct to three parisian addresses, all three addresses where fake, but they were in the same arrondissement serviced by one postal outlet whom came complete with a corruptible delivery man. the scam had been tried and tested and the parisian dealers approved. i sent them off registered and insured, no need for me to miss the opportunity. 
from the basement i picked up a weapon, it looked like a science fiction type space gun, it had the words, ZAP on the side and had a conical nozzle with a point, a sort of radar like device. 
there were massive gaps in my memory, the new reality was like a tidal force spilling over the old one, fragments from the past surfaced, my life as captain mission seemed to be almost incomprehensible, what was i doing in the old days, i don't really know, i recalled having a completely different life, but none of it was clear, it was being submerged by this new one. 
the weapon looked familiar, i trusted it even if i didn't know exactly what it was. i seem to remember something about the moon. i folded down the radar part and stuck it under my belt, it would be night soon, that's when the executioner would be here. 
i made the new mission control as fortress like as possible and waited, i locked down the laboratory and the communications areas, i sealed off the basement and activated the security protocols despite not knowing exactly what they entail. 
on my mobile phone i accessed the encrypted website we ambergris people use, i wanted to see if he had left a message for me, there was no doubt he would be letting everyone know i was now top of his hit list. there it was in a new post, the captains mission is to stay alive, he had started a new thread, a thousand ways to die and had encouraged people to add to the list, jesus i thought, people are creative, as i scanned down a page of about fifty horrific ways. the one with the most votes would win, which meant he was going to skin me alive or tear out my heart and make me eat it, both were tying at 40 votes each. 
i posted my response, it was expected and i didn't want to let my supporters down, 'love him to death perhaps.'
when he burt into the perimeter it was not what i expected, she was female for starters, all the mythology was wrong, she was quite beautiful, obviously nordic, her tall warrior like features stopped me in my tracks, she moved like a gazelle, leaping over the walls, dodging the lights, rolling with the agility of a gymnast, i was slightly mesmerised but survival mechanism kicked in, i turned the screen off and prepared for a confrontation.
she came in threw the window, i'd made it accessible as i wanted to trap her before she trapped me, i watched her jimmy it open and slide through, she lay low to the floor, dressed in some sort of black lycra mesh, and wearing a black cloak like a superhero, she moved silently, i couldn't see any weapons. 
the air was cold, my breathing slowed down, silence wrapped us, the dusk light fading, soon it would be black, that's when i would surprise her.
i sat there, waiting, she would be searching for a door way down to the basement or up to the attic, but the room was sealed, there were no exits save for the way she entered, only one of us would be able to leave. the new reality was harsher than the old, it was unforgiving and brutal, i was beginning to miss the old one, i wanted the old one and in longing closed my eyes and tried to find something from it i could hold on to, something i could attach myself to that would always be there so that i would differentiate that i had once lived in a pre soft apocalyptic world that was different to this one i found myself in, did i have a family? did i have friends? did i have a dog? nothing seemed to come to me, everything was fading fast, being replaced by ambergris and whale culture. what about a career? i must have been something before, maybe i worked in an office, or a factory? everything was gone.
when i opened my eyes she was there, the point of her sword at my neck.

so tired, the battle wages everywhere, fresh blood is spilled, in these battles everyone is stained, you either kill or be killed, it's the way massive bureaucracies work, they crush and destroy passion, pulling us in to vortex of bleak houses and sleepless nights. everything reduces to just two components in the human game, power and control. one persons power and control issue effects hundreds of others, one psychotic episode casts ripples across the whole and the ripples manifest waves and waves have force, and force is energy, and energy is the substance of the universe and creation so wield energy with thought, conciousness, whatever that means, do no harm unless you have to, harm to heal, it's a massive responsibility but some one has to do it, i mean how does that work?
a just war?
there have been just wars, there's very dangerous people in the world, to ignore them is perilous but the just need to be aware they stay just because it's a thin line, a thin line. 
i don't like conflict, i will avoid it like the best of them, i've been called a coward, by cowards, i been in situations where i keep my lips closed. sometimes though you gotta speak out, you gotta know when you're 'just' and know when to slip back into obscurity, that's a fucking strength.
so choose your battles, make em just.
i guess you gotta know your own power and control issues first, that's what i do, identify my own peculiar traits, they are simple, i don't like being controlled so i have a secret weapon, contra control. it's like urban warfare man, i'm a guerilla in my combat zones, wearing fake fur boots and a tiger hat, carrying a moon powered zap gun, pow! ka- pow!
the knights of old seemed to have this kind of chivalry, a lost art, the warriors are really kind and gentle, they look clumsy and awkward most of the time, until it's 'just.'
gore vidal died, i never really liked him, he saw the future as a bad thing, a poisonous infection, whereas it really should be celebrated, our folly, our ridiculousness, washington dc is not the human spirit, he was as nationalistic as his enemies, he took a left wing approach while he lived in opulence and luxury, he could afford to. he was clever and witty but mailer was by far the superior mind. yeah well have you read 'ancient evenings.'
you won't make it past chapter one, you will hate it and throw it down as vile and disgusting as your mind is fragmented by the souls transmigrations, by the divisions, by the dying light of history, gore vidal knew how to critique, he wrote the script for ben hur but mailer wrote the 'naked and the dead.' 
gore vidal lived on the amalifi coast with his boyfriend while mailer lived in brooklyn, hanging out at the ring, going a few rounds with some clowns from the streets, he could kill for a just cause making history alive, while vidal pondered history dead. 
anyway's i am rambling, my words are just words, they spurt out like a one night stand, leaving some sort of white stain on black sheets. 
who knows anything, what do i know, i wake up and there's a dead blue whale at the end of my street floating in the swimming pool. that's a strange thing, i mean it's surreal. that's the way it is most days, dead whales, dead friends, sex and death, i guess that's the formula for the trip i'm on, what happened to sex and life, i guess that's when you're on the other side of fifty, the vital side. mmm, my old friend ross the artist is dying, he has a few days left. dementia has hit him hard, he's already dead really, the ross i knew has gone. i don't need to say goodbye, i never felt like that was important, goodbyes. death and sex have arrived halfway through the year. do they cancel each other out, i mean sex is good right, death bad?
i guess sex and death always share some magnetic force, le petit mort. these two forces seem to be a visiting, it's enough to make me philosophical.

it's an olympic nightmare, cities waste away into dust and dereliction, windows shatter, door frames blasted, catastrophe came and went, some sort of soft apocalypse. it was like we had all slept deeply one night, all shared the same dream, a strange wave of refraction, distorting reality, twisting it up, churning through kitchens and car yards, leaving a dawn just out of reach as we awoke, everything like a bass relief, slightly out of whack. 
the zeroes were threes, the ones were sevens, even the words changed into some sort of james joyce linguistics.
i wandered down to the beach to collect the bones of a dead blue whale, it smelt of flowers as the crowd gathered, a child in a skool uniform was jumping around the tail, clambering over it with her friends watching.
the beast had been dead a long time, you could see the rot setting in, like an enamel sheen creeping over the flesh. along it's belly was a huge tear, guts spilling out onto the sand. i clambered in with my tools, a long pincer type implement and some cutters with extenders. these seemed to be the tools of my trade.
a police man in a nurses uniform approached, 'hey what's your game?'
i flash him my pass, it's a red emblem, a heart bursting with light on a black background. 
'oh err, i see, well go ahead then sir.'
i lifted myself up, on it's soft body, avoiding the decomposed bits, when i got close to the rip i peered in getting a grip with its stomach.
my tools opened a section of stomach, a gas seemed to wheeze out, black and filthy, the slimey entrails like a bag of eels in jelly spilled further out and the skool girls all shrieked in joy. 
the cutters tore into the main piece of digestive tract, as i moved in further i grabbed hold of a binding to keep myself from falling off.
it was cold, an ice wind blew across the ocean, in the distance i could see huge clouds forming. 
the cutting seemed to get easier as i snipped away, and then looking through the contents, amongst the black slime and fish stink, i could see the lump. it was pitch black, exposed to the atmosphere it begun to harden, solidification beginning.
the skool girls were being reprimanded by a parent, they were late for skool. i noticed a crowd of people had gathered now, watching me work. 
some one passed me a bucket of water, in chain i splashed the water across the ambergris until it was exposed. it was a large piece, gleaming in the morning light.
i grabbed the lump with my pincers and placed it in my bag, it was heavy, the size of a large paperback. 
i lugged the thing across the beach back home, some people asked me what i was going to do with it. a woman in a big anorak asked if i wanted to buy some whale teeth. 
there was a sudden tremor, an aftershock, i saw the sky shift and the earth seemed to shake. over in the distance the surf club seemed to slant on one side, and it changed colour from a sandy light mustard to orange. the windows all shifted.
'it's an aftershock, take shelter inside.'
it was the police man in the nurses outfit, he was running past me, the children and parents behind him.
one of the kids fell over and sunk into the sand. i saw her tiny hand disappear under.
the skies shifted, changing from deep blue to blood red, like a martian landscape. 
this is what it was like, the post soft apocalypse, it wasn't the event everyone expected, society just moved sideways, and life seemed to carry on, despite adversity. stock markets didn't have the same sort of significance, no one really turned up to work in those fields anymore, banking and finance just dissipated, morphed into more esoteric careers. there were plenty of artists, everyone seemed to be in touch with their creative side, and the past was like a forgotten song, we hummed it but did not know the words.
i took the ambergris home, cleaned it up in my processing tanks, the basement was now a sort of make shift lab, i was never familiar with the equipment but running on auto pilot i seemed to know my way around the system. 
i left the piece in a vat of chemicals, i would have to soak it for a few days and then i'd start braking it up into smaller pieces. 
i went upstairs to make some eggs and coffee, the phone rang non stop from various dealers, all wanting a slice of the piece, i had not worked out a price, it was a good piece, i did some referencing and investigated the markets, i could make a few hundred thousand credits from this lump. there was a buyer in paris who was begging me for a few kilos, i suggested they ring back in the morning. 
wandering through the house i noticed the books had changed, they were all different books, strange, not a familiar title amongst them.
my arms hurt, muscles i had never had before seemed to demand attention, my face looked slightly harder, i'd less teeth, my eyes were green.
this is how it was in the soft apocalypse. 

wake up this morning, get myself a coffee, down at the beach there's a lot of activity, lot's of cars pulled up, people staring at something, pan and i investigate although my desire for coffee is strong and won't be ignored. the surf is outrageous, its wild and furious, it beats the beach pounding in crashes and crunches, no surfers dare ride these waves, unpredictability everywhere. i think about the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, unpredictability button, how the missile turned in to a whale and there in the pool it lays, the beached blue whale. 
it's not a sight i'd want to inflict upon anyone, it's a tragedy, the crowd of locals know this because they all weep and feel the sense of loss, the catastrophe of nature ways we will never really understand. submarine sonar someone whispers, i look around, emergency crews arrive, police, uniforms, hard men walk with authority, they do not share the emotion, instead they take control, pushing people away as they salvage the whale. the local council will claim the teeth, any ambergris, they will chop it up and extract what they can for their bank balance, agenda 21 right.
i wander to the coffee shop, somewhat shocked by the brutality of the days start.

you took your steps over the edge, verified by many, rumours and lies only travel so far whereas truth always rises. exposed in your glory, i saw the truth, right into your heartless cruelty and absurd birth. i must have been the only one to nail you to your cross and force you to gaze at the force that rules you, it's ugly and brutal and it just got worse, i am so glad i was not around to see it take you over completely, and the stories don't surprise me although they must embarrass you and put you to shame. wedding reception nightmare, the social workers blues, your dangerous friends can't save you, your truth exposed and raw, your pet monkey does your bidding, i should have thrown him a banana, and you...
in a one horse town called redemption, desert wind blows, the cactus gods abandoned this place and never returned, it's a simple equation, your on your own, smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka with ghosts, you sometimes feel lonely, where did the past go, you burnt it down long ago. 

comedown weekend, chilled out with my friend 'next' who comes a visiting from newcastle, we sink into incubation zones and deep relaxation, staying up at strange hours, watching the moon hang in its black blanket, watching waves cross the horizon, lounging around on sofas, watching dvds, eating bananas and sipping aloe vera drinks, i start to wind down, start to feel my cells regeneration, my heart beats with a little more certainty. it's amazing what sex and herbs offer the body, in its infinite glory the universe has given us it's beautiful plant spirit marijuana for healing and insight, and sex for a little bliss interval and sharing and caring warm fuzzy stuff.
i am in healing mode, the wounded healer, chiron shell shocked from his friends death, from work crisis, from the fall of man, from the media streams, from the internet chitter chatter, from paranoia and madness, from sanity and divinity, from  the zombie horde, from the enlightenment, from the fall out, from the burden from the ego, from my selfishness, from my generosity, from hubris, from event management people, from banks and insurance, superannuation funds and newspaper polls, from dumb tv, opium sports and the general wear of age. it's healing time and my rewards are sex and some peace. both of which i advocate as good things, necessary, a man needs sex, sex is good, it heals and is nurturing and feels oh so very good, i don't know why people got so hung up on sex, it's the natural drive, the base charkra instinct that reminds us we connect with one another, it's good for the body and brain and can be very unselfish if done correctly. tantra flows through my body, energy increases, no depletion as aura fields glow bright, slow dazzle.
so in my strange way, i feel lighter than before, unburdened by responsibility for a change, it's good to feel free and uncomplicated, in the moment and without future weighing down like a bag of bricks and some greek sword hanging over my head waiting for its moment.
the day is hot the nights cold, my body enjoys the sensation of sunlight, solar powered but quickly depleted as the sun sets... lookout i'm a heat seeking vampire, i'm a thermal sucking fiend, i'm thermodynamically legal, a biological anomaly, squeezing the heat from 'next' like some stephen king beast, wandering the alaskan plains, a drifter in a check shirt, a strange beard and dark eyes, a man on the run from the ice demons, hot upon his heels, slipping into lives for a moment, a bowl of soup with strangers, extracting warmth from the kindness of friendly women, yeah will do anything for heat. it get's like that until i begin to radiate, then i just generate my own heat, like a sun, but in these cold nights i really do begin to burn out and take my recharge where i can find it. next and i watch some movies smoke a little haze, find a cocoon to inhabit. 
next wears a punk tee shirt and shorts, she looks like a punk rocker anarchist but she's living the good life, juicing it up, a midshipman by trade, she's a nautical creature a captains mate, i guess, although i know nothing great about seamanship, next knows her knots from her maybe's and her starboard from her bow, whereas me i'm just old captain mission, sailor on the seas of fate.

okay, david brins book 'existence' does a complete number on me, a man who put me off reading his work after seeing the awful movie version of 'postman' with kevin costner. i just put him on the ever increasing pile of terrible science fiction writers and i think i made a mistake.
approaching 'existence' with this type of mindset was unhealthy, i slugged away through the various narratives until about a third of the way through, i liked some of the ideas and scenarios imagined, there were some brilliant ideas in there. slowly i cracked the mindset and broke through, discovering a rich tapestry of ideas and creativity. each page reveals some new future, on an earth post apocalypse, where things were nowhere near as bad as we imagined an apocalypse could be, brin throws in a fist contact idea. 
i like the imaginary books excerpts brin uses as a thread, the way an autistic plague has effected millions of individuals, the way dolphins teach humans to speak dolphin by rewarding them with fish, the way events are hinted at but never revealed, the science fiction genre is all about ideas and 'existence' is jam packed loaded with ideas.
at it's core is the discovery of space junk and debris collector gerald who discovers the object, an orb like crystal containing the uploaded consciousness of extra terrestrial intelligence, and it communicates the words, 'JOIN US.'
while at the same time in the submerged and flooded environments of shanghi a young man peng xiang bin finds a second orb that claims the first orb inhabitants are 'LIARS'
in between the narratives are the many diverse characters and threads that may or may not come together, it really is a collection of ideas, some of which cancel others out, it's a highly intelligent and literate book and i have to confess has me curious about his other novels. the novel converges about two thirds of the way through but like all great things it is the journy not the destination, and despite the bumpy start, it's smooth running all the way to the end. a great novel indeed.

stupid politics, it's a distraction, a complete fabricated lie held together with bits and bytes, string and sticky tape. i don't care about it, just vote sex party, they seem to have nice policies and wear cool tee shirts.


i'm reading 'existance' david brin, mmm, it's my first david brin, it's wearing me down, although every now and then there's a narrative i really like, but there are just to many strands, it's confusing for me as my brain feels sluggish, i will keep pursuing this big chunky brick of a book and keep you posted.


i sent my father some stuff today, costs a fortune to post and customs will probably burn it. lots of herbal tea i made up, some oils and creams and some plant nutrients. i had to send it sea mail as air mail would have cost $60, more than the parcel is really worth. 


olympics starts soon, i'm bored already, such a waste of time and resources, they should build a hospital or school, put the money into arts, i think it's very sad that sports are now the opium of the masses, oh well, people need their fix but i rather see the cash build a massive new library in every city or some sort of medical research centre. 

from the australian, a very good piece from political cartoonist bill leak who really comes to the conclusion i think most sensible and reasonable australians should arrive at given the last few years of government. he's brave as it goes against all trends and fashions but none the less one can appreciate and respect his convictions. note: he mentions patrick cook who i have to acknowledge as being the best australian political satirist, unfortunately unrecognised by 
most mainstream  especially the abc and the smh.

MY FALL FROM GRACE BUT I'M FREE TO OFFEND BY BILL LEAK


WHILE trawling through a number of popular left-wing blogs recently, I realised I had to accept a painful reality: I have become a rabid right-winger and a Murdoch toady.

It seems widely accepted that this terrible turn of events is attributable to the fact that I recently had an accident, after which I had to undergo brain surgery.

Apparently this has also been the fate of Patrick Cook who also, after surviving brain surgery, suddenly took to poking fun at "greenies living in yurts". One contributor helpfully explained by saying, "It's sad, but if you lose a quarter of your brain you'll emerge a conservative." Another went so far as to call for "an inquiry into the quality of the nation's cartoonists".

Naturally, I was very worried. Were they right?

Remember we're talking nice, compassionate left-wingers here, not insensitive types who'd make politically incorrect remarks about a poor old brain-damaged man with special needs, like me. So, was it really my brain injury that had turned me into a Hitlerian monster, or was there a more sinister explanation? Perhaps the diabolical Rupert Murdoch, on hearing I was in an operating theatre with the top of my head lying next to me like a fruit bowl, had summoned one of his operatives at Holt Street and dispatched him to the hospital. There he'd bribed the surgeon to allow him to slip a microchip into my brain that would enable Murdoch to control my thoughts, thereby making me just another one of his servile minions working towards the realisation of his ultimate aim of world domination which, of course, would culminate in the eradication of left-wing activism.

I started by looking back through my cartoons for the first signs of the dead hand of conservatism, expecting to see it manifesting itself soon after I'd lost "a quarter of my brain".

It seemed as plausible a conspiracy theory as any of the others I'd read about the inner workings of Murdoch's Evil Empire, so I did a bit of detective work myself.

No, it hadn't happened then. My fall from that balcony had not been responsible for my fall from left-wing grace.

After searching through another year's worth of cartoons I was finally able to pin it down to the exact moment: it was in the last week of November 2007.

Now, what on earth had caused this momentous change? I checked with my doctor who assured me that, no, I hadn't suffered an earlier serious brain injury that I'd forgotten about.

So what was it that had turned me into a right-wing shill?

Thanks to the miracle that is Google, I was eventually able to find the answer: Kevin Bloody Rudd had won the election by defeating John Howard and becoming our first Labor prime minister for 11 years.

And me? I'd turned into a fascist overnight.

There I was, a darling of the Left, a man who'd fought the good fight against Howard's oppressive regime for all those years, suddenly having the gall to draw cartoons critical of the hero who'd deposed him. Worse still, here I am, more than four years later, still at it, banging away at Julia Gillard's government and her merry band of social engineers who, to be fair, only want to make the world a better place by telling us what to think, what to read and what to write, what to eat, what to drink, not to smoke, to respect Aboriginal culture and to ensure that by enshrining racism in our Constitution we will eliminate the scourge of racism.

No wonder the self-appointed moral guardians of our society have dropped me like third period French!

Oh well, salvation might be only an election away.

If, as is widely anticipated, we soon see the advent of an Abbott government, it won't be long before I'm accused of having switched sides again. The moment I start knocking out cartoons that display an acceptable level of hostility towards the Mad Monk, the luvvies on the Left will welcome me back into the fold like some sort of prodigal son.

But for now, such a Murdoch arse-licker have I become that I even saw fit to have a go at Robert Manne when he wrote that splendid Quarterly Essay about how The Australian is destroying public debate in the country.

In hindsight, I see now that I really should have just dropped to my knees in awe of the comic genius Australia's Leading Public Intellectual had shown when he'd flicked the switch to parody, writing an impassioned plea for the suppression of free speech mocked up to look like a defence of it.

The Weekend Australian's editor Nick Cater asked him at the Byron Bay Writers Festival why he'd never accepted any of Cater's requests to have his views published in The Australian, and Manne responded by saying he didn't want to give that squalid rag "legitimacy" by writing for it.

I witnessed that little exchange and, fascist that am, misinterpreted his answer as pompous and sanctimonious, when I really should have considered myself lucky to be there, able to gaze on admiringly while the great Manne put that Murdoch lickspittle in his place.

Only a couple of weeks after my nasty cartoon about Manne appeared I was at it again, this time apparently taking sides with that enemy of all virtuous, decent people everywhere, Andrew Bolt.

Now, I don't always agree with Andrew, but I do agree with Voltaire, who said back in the 18th century, "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." And I, for one, would defend to the death Andrew's right to say whatever he likes, even if it does occasionally constitute what Justice Bromberg decried as "irresponsible journalism". When I read Bromberg's decision, I naively expected to hear howls of outrage emanating from the anti-censorship brigade on the Left. You'd think they'd be the first to jump up and down and scream, "Irresponsible? And just who's going to decide what's irresponsible and what's not?"

But no, barely a voice was raised in anger. Presumably, given this was a judgment that went against that loathsome right-winger Bolt, it must also have been, by definition, a bloody good thing.

Freedom of speech is the freedom to offend, and that means the freedom to offend anyone.

Neither cartoonists nor journalists should be required to exempt certain groups within society from this general rule when expressing their views. I don't want to be protected from anybody's views, especially not from those I find personally repugnant, because it's often when finding yourself in violent disagreement with certain ideas that you're best able to clarify your own.

It seems ironic that those who are the first to rail against perceived social injustice are, these days, the ones most vehemently determined to silence those with whom they disagree.

Their dictum appears to be a slightly modified version of Voltaire's: I do not agree with what you say, and I'll fight to the death to stop you from saying it.

Then again, perhaps this shouldn't strike me as ironic at all. When, in 1994, I left my job at Fairfax to take up a position at News Limited, a lot of my colleagues were offended and dismayed.

It was as though I'd made a conscious decision to reject the company of angels and go over to the Dark Side, a seething cesspit of amorality ruled over by the devil incarnate himself, Rupert Murdoch.

"How could you possibly go and work for an organisation controlled by him?" one indignant friend howled in the pub after my last day of work at The Sydney Morning Herald.

"It's no wonder you feel morally superior," I conceded, "working as you do for an organisation run by Conrad Black."

Now, how long has that bastard been in jail? Seems like an awfully long time. Don't tell me he did something unethical!

machines came out from the orb, they appeared as a cloud, a swarm of flies or wasps, but they were not born of nature. the black cloud moved silently, it was indeed eerie. i ran down the steps with the camera, it was counter intuitive to the rest of the crowd who were running away, but i was a photographer, a photojournalist and my instincts kicked in. i had to push my way through the panic, getting jostled around by the motion of panic, the look of terror on peoples faces, as mothers grabbed children dragging them to safety.
a blind woman had fallen down, i helped her stand and she asked me what was happening, she said the screaming was deafening, i could only agree, i escorted her to the railing and told her to walk down, that everything would be fine once she reached the bottom, i told her the police would keep her safe and not to panic like those around her, she nodded relief and then descended, i lost sight of her almost immediately as the entropy set in.
chaos, i took a few frames and continued up the steps, trying to block out the screaming and the sight of faces, twisted, gritted teeth, lips salivating, eyes spilling over with the brute will of survival, the ground seemed to move but it was an illusion, the kind that happens on trains. i was nearly there, as i too the last section the crowd passed me, i dared no longer look down, i needed the picture, it was hardwired into my dna, war does that, i'd seen action in the middle east, the jungles of south america, the sudan,, southern africa, in the glasgow riots, in the la revolution and in the mexican drug wars, taking the photograph was more than just a job, it was my work, my duty. 
when i came over the final step i stopped in my tracks, this is certain death in a war zone, you always keep moving unless your in safe zones like shelters bunkers or foxholes, but here faced with what lay before me i stopped and caught my breath. sydney sprawled out in the summer sunshine, the magnificent waterways, the landmarks all gleaming in the languid sun, and there next to the harbour bridge hovered the egg, a black opaque shaped structure and out from it's undercarriage bled the swarm. the craft had not arrived from deep space, it had not landed or made an announcement, it had just appeared, four years ago, we were only just becoming used to it, the mysterious egg science and research had given up with, decades of research and we had not learnt a thing about it, it was not of earth, that's all we knew. humans had no technology to even guess, that's where the psychics came in, and then the millions of theories. i thought it was a government trick, some sort of surveillance device, but the governments of the world didn't have a clue what it was, no one did, no one knew why it had appeared or what was inside, it was a mystery in plain sight, so we carried on as normal. and then this, twenty minites ago the thing starts leaking a gas some one had said, but it wasn't a gas, it was a swarm of tiny black cubes, billions of them. they were just pouring out and swarming around the egg itself, a mass of silent black objects ever moving, almost like black thick smoke but it was contained, they seemed to be flying formation, growing as more and more emerged. i took a few pictures and then something changed, it was a sound, aircraft. two fighter planes ripped through the skyline, they were F1-11s or 12's, doing a recon sweep, they were fast but the swarm was faster. a tiny black dot, maybe a few hundred cubes maybe just one seemed to detach itself from the main bloom and shoot after the planes, looking through the telephoto lenses i saw that the smaller cloud of cubes split into two each one targeting a plane. they began to overtake the plane and then seemed to attach itself to the wing. the planes started flying out past the southern suburbs, i watched them disappear over the horizon. 
by now the skies were blackened with these things, i took some more pictures and ran to see if i could get a better position, maybe up the harbour bridge would be a turret i could get as close to the egg as possible. 
the cloud mass stopped emerging, that was it they were hovering there momentarily, must have been a few billion of them. even the egg was difficult to distinguish from the mass if it's cubes. 
another plane flew over, slower, some sort of fat chubby aircraft, military colours, it was a dash eight.
the cubes suddenly, almost instantaneously shifted into a wall, a huge wall and then they rotated and changed colour from black to silver mirrored, catching the sunlight a wall of light reflected across them. 
i couldn't look at it, as if a huge magnifying glass had been burning a fly the beam of sunlight just frazzled the dash, it just fried up and fell into the water. then the wall moved again, this time it seemed to be organising itself into a tentacled mass as it began ripping into the cities power supply, it tore up the road near george street and drilled down into the earth.
a jeep pulled up, 'are you a civilian?'
i pulled out a press card, 'hey i'm captain mission photojournalist.' 
i offered a hand.
'i'm group commander jones, the aliens have started a war mission, you should get of the streets.'
'i'll stay, how do you know they want a war?'
'because they attacked us.'
'are you certain they want war with the humans?'
we watched the swarm churning up the city as buildings crumbled and fell, cars were thrown up into the air and fell where they may. we could see people in buildings, offices and homes all looking from the windows. 
the skies were filled with them now, just like being in a sandstorm, jones and i ducked for cover, i noticed he grabbed his rifle and then as we headed towards a service door i saw the revolver on his hip, i almost laughed, these weapons won't do anything but jones was holding the door for me, a gentleman solider, i spared him humiliation. 
safe inside i asked him, what the army planed to do, i was surprised by his answer.
'i think they will surrender, i mean what are we going to do up against this technology, really it's far to advanced.'
suddenly the door just crumpled into a small ball of metal and disappeared into nothing. a single tiny cube sat hovering before us, it then attached itself to jones and i watched as jones body started to enter some sort of bond, i started taking slight quiet steps backwards, i needed to get out, but i did take the picture. as i cued the image in the view finder jones head just seemed to flop, the light in his eyes blazed and then went out, he fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, dead.
the cube came for me.


i don't know, i don't know what happened next, it just attached itself to my head and suddenly i became aware of the vast void of space, the size of it, the space of space itself. this was a hive mind, from a far place, the furthest and oldest in the universe, actually it was not really the universe, not this one anyway, it's what we would call a different dimension. so far away it sits on top of this dimension yet it is completely different. 
it's a vast universe in all directions, a hall of mirrors reflecting infinity.
these are machines, made by watchers of worlds, gods. it's an inhibiting machine, travelling the multiverse, one of billions.
the download starts flowing.
void gods, void god creates us to inspect the qualities of life in all probables. quality determined by growth, individuality sustainable, human society hive cannot sustain, mono think equates to finality and stagnation. earth minds stagnating, decay, watchers jump start the collective...
there were terrible scenes, i see this in my minds eye, planets, cities, vast hexagon hives, uniforms, mind control, group think, these are the decaying elements. i watched the cultures shrink, and destroy themselves, some were very expansive spanning solar systems others planet bound, capitalists, socialists, democracy, dictatorships, all were restricting an ultimate purpose at some point as they grew, i can't fathom what it is, it's like deciphering a tarot deck knowing there's a central message there, a warning but not knowing the detail, my mind strains as i force it to continue, the cube is drilling deeper inside my consciousness, giving me the detail, filling the gaps. 
it's diversity, all prime species must promote diversity in life forms, in culture, in all mental, spiritual, political memes the dominant life force must enhance diversity upon the planet, not restriction. if the point is reached where diversity is at odds with the planet the inhibiting mechanism of the gods manifest to correct the imbalance. 
'who created you' i ask, although it's not in words, just a question formed in my mind. i see images of shadows, disembodied intelligence, the movement of tentacles, the eye, i see the eye, it's surrounded by bright yellow flames and red, leaping high arching around the curve, it's the eye of intelligence, looking right into my heart, into my mind, it reads me, knows me, i feel myself opening up and the barriers of space and time fragment and loose themselves, i feel the information enter me like soft liquid and then when i open my eyes the cube removes itself and flies away. on the floor jones lay immobile. i look out at the city, its quiet, the cloud of black cubes has left, they pour back into the egg, the sea looks different, the air feels clear and fresh, there's slight traces of ruin, a few upturned cars, some road ripped up, a little damage to buildings and the monorail. i can see the people wandering around and on the harbour a few sail boats, there's a lot of dead people laying all over though. there's an unnatural silence, no sirens, no aircraft, i scan the bridge, it's looking magnificent, the egg hangs next to it as it has for many years and then right as i stare at its black surface it just pops right out of existance. gone. i almost step backwards.


the answers are there, all civilisations need adjustments, its like a divine intervention only it's not god, he or she just sends a repair kit, millions of cubes in an egg. i don't know why it just waited there for so many years before doing its job, maybe it gave us a chance, a chance to do it alone. we were on a downwards spiral, decline of man, it was obvious, everyone was in denial. how could we ever figure it out. the whole universe requires diversity, life in all it's forms must thrive and variations on the theme must be allowed to flourish but humanity had begun to control this in life, wiping out species, destroying environments, the seas, the skies, the jungles even the icecaps diversity. we destroyed the mind, ideas became scarce, philosophies all seemed to be reduced, we dumbed down everything, even our political memes were now just two, spiritual frameworks dumbed down by controlling authorities, any original thought needed approval from a council of experts, globalisation of everything reduced diversity and then the egg came. that was it, the puzzle complete, i walked out into the bright day, it was good to be alive.