Out-and-Out Liars, Part 2; Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters; Chapter 2, Part 8

                                                                             8.

Just as Aissur Yadot, the multi-storey steely-knived beast was about to grind Mary Mary, Mitzy and Chovihani into the ice, all froze as a wind picked up from somewhere beyond the frozen shelves of pack ice. Out to sea a procession of what looked to Mary Mary like the horns of unicorns, hundreds, one behind the other forming a gigantic circle. Each horn 10  feet long, nine inches thick at the cork-screwed base spiralling up golden from somewhere beneath the sea and sharply tapering off at right and left-angles, like the arms and elegantly poised fingers of synchronized swimmers. The clock-wise motion of the unicorns, moving ever faster and faster caused the water at the circles’ centre to become turbulent and dip suddenly, collapsing at it were in one deep groaning vortex while the wind above rung like Tebetan Singing-bowls.

Chovihani noticed that the bloated mottled greyish-blue bodies that had strewn the area, staring up through the ice like drowned sailors, had disappeared. Meanwhile, Aissur Yadot was compelled toward the circular golden vision the centre of which was obscured by the prismatic play of light through sea spray. The whirling horns were accompanied by a percussion of clicks, whistles and knocks.
The ripple-effect from the golden sea unicorns caused not only a cold gyre of air to whip and lash around Aissur Yadot whose articulated parts began to jam and freeze, but the wave-machine effect of the dance caused the ice-field to split apart until Mary Mary and company found themselves drifting out of harm’s reach on their own pancake of snow. The articulated Rubik’s Cube that was Aissur Yadot twisted and screeched rusting in the briny onslaught with the din of a thousand working scrap-metal yards. The fragile ledge, upon which it shifted and frantically jammed, tilted and bobbed precariously. Pulled toward the golden ring shot through with iridescent shards, like rainbow banners above an Olympic Stadium, a magical chorus of paralysing chatter concealed its treacherous centre, a conspiratorial song directed the whole.

Mary Mary, Chovihani and Mitzy saw themselves reflected in two giant knives of shiny steel as Aissur Yadot dug in. The rest of his armour rendered useless, its slatternly eyes fixed on Chovihani conveying a final vengeful promise of pogroms as it was dragged closer to the edge of the terrible whirlpool. The clicks, whistles and knocks intensified then, of a sudden the circle of gilt tusks broke rank, obliterating the boundary between Aissur Yadot and the howling vortex as the monster was dashed against the monstrous funnel’s sheer walls.

As the synchronized swimmers disappeared beneath the waves, a mass of water rushed in to fill the yawning chasm and levelling out, the wind abated and the briny sea settled.

Mary Mary, Chovihani and Mitzy drifted in the calm waters on their polar raft wondering how they would make it across the inky black avenues and lanes opening up before them; they were in shock. It was at this point that Mary Mary began to unravel.

Unbeknown to Mary Mary a perpendicular golden horn had broken through the water and had pierced through a loop in one of the outer layers of her knit-ware. Before she could disentangle herself, the aquatic knitting needle was moving beside the raft of ice tugging yards of insulating wool in its wake. Before she could alert Chovihani to her plight, another tapered horn was about to counter- cross the first needles line of flight; behind yet more needles were approaching; Mary Mary realized to her horror that she was about to be crocheted to death!

“Quick, jump on!”  Chovihani shouted as he gently pushed his beloved forward.

Mary Mary, Chovihanis and Mitzy stepped onto the greyish-blue mottled back of the first in a long line of Narwhals heading out along meandering leads towards their summering grounds.

Out-and-Out Liars Part 2, Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters. Chapter 2 Part 7

                                                                            7

Mary Mary and Chovihani, walked a hundred yards apart as they fought through an Arctic blizzard; it is not an uncommon instinct on the initial meeting of soul-mates for those very soul-mates to want to run as far away from one other as possible. In the vastness of the Arctic tundra, with her pet Chihuahua wrapped snug in a muffler of improvised knit-ware, Mary Mary was throwing a charade of tantrums all designed to get herself lost in the general white-out punctuated by the ever-loving yet possessive attentiveness of Chovihani, who reminded her that not only might she die in the 19 degree sub -zero temperatures if her bare-shouldered impressions of Hollywood actresses persisted, but also that if she cheated on him during one of her momentary disappearances, he would strangle her where she stood.

They had recently met in and escaped from the Ice Labyrinth, leaving behind the pernicious and monstrous sirens Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb both of whose imperceptible droning leitmotivs ossified the listener in kow-towing dread. The more defiantly blood-curdling Aissur Yadot, last witnessed clawing its way through the glacial walls of Eyes’ melancholy abode, was, outside in the open, pursuing Mary Mary and Chovihani . Sounds, as of fingernails drawn across classroom blackboards, echoed across the ice-scape pursuing them under-foot, terrifying Mary Mary and setting Mitzy’s teeth permanently on edge.

Between gaps in his terror Chovihani could distinguish greyish-blue forms, as of sailors drowned, their bloated bodies peering, mottled and milky-eyed, from beneath the permafrost. At one moment of lucid terror they froze in each other’s arms looking this way and that as they realized the sheer numbers below the frozen watermark stretching out for miles beneath the soles their feet. In the distance, the myriad claws of Aissur Yadot approached in deafening gyrations of ice.

A gigantic articulated carbuncle of boils, boils in between which pores pocked the beast. Each pore a hole, each hole a prison cell.; floor upon floor, storey upon storey. As the series of independently moving blocks, the rotations of which propelled the edifice forward upon razor sharp claws, Mary Mary could see that the claws belonged to those of gigantic bears rather than those of an eagles.

“This way. Lead it further out onto frozen sea!”. Shouted Chovihani.

Mary Mary followed as Aissur Yadot gained on them. She could see that inside each cell, behind its rows of bars, were not actual living and breathing individuals but, in fact the Talking-, and Skyping-heads of Bedroom Academics.

From the Babel that towered above them, the ranting of a thousand or so incarcerated Western voices treacherously decried their own countries short-comings for £9.000 a Judas Kiss; more angles than a Rubiks’ Cube they failed to discern through the honey-eyed questions the true view from Aissur Yadot’s green-eyed vistas , encouraged in their revolutionary froth through subtle changes in direction cloaked by Aissur Yadot’s chameleon-like skin, its eyes as alluring as a whore in a gulag. It was short wonder that the low-slung gaping mouth of Aissur yadot reminded Mary Mary of the entrance to the Tower of London, Traitors’ Gate, seen through twin fangs, as mesmerizing as smiled whispers between war-time, and peace-time traitors Lord Haw Haw, Max Kaiser, Stacy Herbert and Leni Riefenstahl.

Mary Mary screamed covering her ears. "Somebody make them stop!".

Peering over the edge of the largest of several million new open sewers now manifesting in the middle of every Russian living room, the now exiled French veteran actor Gerard Depardieu turned to Edward Snowdon the exiled NSA employee and asked,

“Tell me something I didn’t know?” They were in the Green Room of Aissure Yadot new lair.

“No, you first”. Returned Mr Snowdon.

“Well…Okay then. I did not leave France, tearing up my passport, for tax reasons”.

“Oh?”

“Non, mon ami, que je suis con! I am an idiot. I left because I knew I should not have taken the role of Alexandre Dumas (Pere).

“Oh". said Edward Snowdon WASPishly. “Hey, can you see plastic party cups and plates down there” he said pointing down the black hole in the centre of Russia's main TV broadcasting building.

“Office party....inauguration…how do you say…opening ceremony?”. Said Depardieu

“Pardon me Gerald. Do go on.”

“Gerard..Ger-rar-d. He, was black, wasn’t he…Ah, que je suis bête! I knew, of course I knew…but my head is bigger than my nose..quoi faire! Que je suis un salaud. There was a public out-cry, seeing that the original Dumas Pere’s authorship of his adventure was completement erased and while he was alive. Je suis un sale blanc…je lui a fait la meme chose. I did the same thing to the Father of Alexandre Dumas author of Les Trois Mousquettaires,The Three Muskateers writer. I am a coward”.

After a pause Mr Snowdon said. “ I wouldn’t be so hard on your self, most of white America doesn’t believe Barrack Obama wrote his own life story.”

“Vraiment!? Did you read that in the data?” ask Monsieur Depardieu.

“Don’t need to." Then almost to himself, Snowdon muttered. "Actors are Soft-Power Poster-boys,"  then snapping out of reverie he coninued. "There’s an almost autistic wall of short-sightedness and dunderhead white supremacy in the US”.

“ En Europe too. Well, That’s why I am here. I am an exile of my vanity”. There was a long pause in which Edward Snowdon pointed out the greyish blue bloated bodies floating in the depth of the sewer.

“The out-going TV Company”. Depardieu said with a shrug. "Look!" the former-French national said leaning dangerously over the rim of the sewer. "An almost full bottle of Vodka. Quel gaspillage!. What a waste!. Isn't that the old liberal anchorman still holding on to it? un vrai poivron, tout comme moi...sante mon pauvre brave! On est tous dans la merde...we are all in the shit."

“You know those guys, those American and European Academics paid to talk against the West?" Edward Snowdon asked suddenly?. "Well, they’re all tracked…every last one of them”.

“C’est entendu…That’s understandable”. Said the French actor looking around aware that their every word was being monitored.

“No but the crazy thing is, they’ve started appearing in the middle of people’s living rooms here in Russia”.

“What?... you mean..?

“Yeah, I do.”

 

Out-and-Out Liars, Part 2 . Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters, Chapter 2 Part 6

                                                                                 6.

MOOGY’S SPLIT HIS FINGERNAIL. BENEFIT BASH AT CLUB...NOW. This was the text that vibrated into the awareness of Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary five minutes into a House of Commons' debate on the rise of Great Britain's dependency on Food-Banks and the increase in famine conditions which had already prompted the Red Cross to launch, for the first time since World War II, a TV appeal for aid for the country's 600,000 starving poor, 20,000 of which, children, will be going hungry this Christmas.

“In the Beatles' song, Eleanor Rigby, Mr Speaker, the first two lines”  said a Labour Party back-bencher, one of a score eager to add to the three hour debate.”Mr Speaker, If I may quote Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles.".The MP's seniority in years demanded a reply. “You may”, said The Speaker of the House. “ ‘ Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been’. I would like to ask the House, why they think the lady in the song needed to pick up rice, at all?”

The Tories suddenly burst out laughing; one of their number had thought it appropriate to shout out something about liking weddings.

“She was starving, Mr Speaker”, continued the Labour back-bencher indignantly. “I am also reminded of an article that recently appeared in a Tory broadsheet on the popularity of job applications to be a barista, that is B.A.R.I.S.T.A , another name for a sales assistant in the capital’s coffee shops; 5000 applications to every vacancy. Without any irony whatsoever the heartless nonentity of a journalist goes on to elaborate on the love of the coffee bean as primary and unique cause for the disproportionate numbers applying. Like the Tories and Lib-Dems, the writer, living in his own callous conservative bubble, failed to grasp the basic point; desperation within current job market.”

The Minster for Work and Pensions rotated his phone in his pocket. He couldn’t quite picture exactly who Moogy was. Married to Cynthia Kenross-Tweedsmuir, something in Nuclear Fuel. He caught the tail-end of the laughter and, ever eager to fit in since the days he was mercilessly bullied by members of Bullingdon Club, he rocked with exaggerated mirth. This sickening response to the plight of those who, while working still found themselves standing, once a week before shelves of food donated to, and collected by the Trussell Trust and various church and charitable organisations - was witnessed not only by the country through their TV sets, but by the dozen or so users of the very same Food Banks who had been bussed in to watch the debate from the gallery; five of whom threw up.

Also caught on camera was the Secretary’s deputy minister, Esther McVey peering down at something Iain Duncan Smith was holding in the general area of his crotch. Miss McVey registered the content of the text also recognising its sender, Owen Patterson the Minister for Food. THE TRUFFLES WON’T KEEP.

It was unfortunate too that she chose this televised moment to lick her lips. Her senior member caught this gesture and found himself caught between two urges, both of which necessitated get a quick get-away.

“Mr Speaker”, another Labour back-bencher stood up. In my constituency of Tunbridge Wells at seven O’clock every evening an unsightly scrum breaks out in front the shelves of reduced produce, food already at the end of its use-by and sell-by dates.

Rumbling jollity could be heard coming from the ruddy-faced Tories.

“Order!, Order!”, The speaker was battling against a mawkish chorus of jeers and general hilarity.

“...It is a case of Tax breaks for the rich and Food Banks for the poor. Mr Speaker...Mr Speaker. Trying to make ends meet on a living wage not fit for purpose the throng, mainly the working middle-class, might I add,…the throng around food not fit to feed to a dog, is such, Mr Speaker…” A crescendo of hilarity rose like a parliment of birds from one side of the House. “…is such, Mr Speaker that security...that security has had to be called in to control those whose only crime is that of trying to feed their children”.

To say there was not weeping in the aisles at this speech would be an out-and-out lie; the Labour MP for Tonbridge Wells failed to see the joke.

There followed a sudden lull in the unbridled mirth coming from the Conservative benches as Esther McVey eager to  be released from her duties and get to Moogy’s  Split Fingernail Benefit Bash at the Club in Saint James, hastily took the floor.

“It seems to me Mr Speaker that the Right Honarable Member for Tonbrige Wells’ time would be better spent at a more high-end supermarket which does not cater to the mob. As for the increasing dependency on Food banks, I remind the House that the 1.5 trillion debt accrued under the Labour government has to be repaid by each and every one of us. We must all breed within our means, and I propose that any surplus be given to banks and not, Mr Speaker, Food banks.” Miss McVey returned to her seat.

The House fell silent for the first time in a century. A Labour back-bencher, whose hand was aloft, announced himself to the Speaker and the House.  “Labour Minister for Ulster”. He turned towards Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey, then to those gathered in the House of Commons and in a rich Northern Irish accent, asked wryly  “And is that the Right Honourable Lady’s modest proposal*”.


* In 1729 the Satirist, Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels anonymously published A Modest Proposal  a pamphlet detailing the solution to the problem of poverty in Ireland by suggesting that the Irish sell their children as comodities, namely as food for the rich...for Christmas.

Out-and-Out Liars. Part 2. Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters,(Chapter 2, Part 5)

                                                                            5

As Mary Mary’s heart melted in front of her Roma man in whose eyes she had not yet materialized. Mitzy her pet Chiuauaha, gifted with Sight beyond the scope of her owner, watched as indeed thousands of thin tendrils emerged from the two beings, each fibre seeking for its opposite strand.; a curious lightshow, noiseless ground lightening in slow motion. Unseen by those waiting in the Mittel Europa Waiting Room, one of the glass doors flew open as by a forceful  gust of wind and in walked a pale translucent replica of the Roma man, asthough late for an appointment; he merged  into his doppelganger. Behind him a ghostly procession of folk of all ages and periods in history.

Behind Mary Mary a blond man in a patterned white and blue Norwegian-style pullover, who entering through the glass door, greeted his opposite number entering behind the Roma man; a woman of similar hair-colouring.  A hollow distant basso-profundo groan heard at the end of a long tunnel released the voices, scenes of lives past.

Snow, a frozen canal, a patio, everywhere white. Their faces, one above the other etched repeatedly in the marble memorial in Dam Square; the swollen warmth of friendships recognized. There, beyond and below, the bridges of Amsterdam in winter.

“Liefde, liefde mejn liefde”.

“Rob! Ik hou van jouw”. Seemed to come from the direction of the woman.

Behind them dressed in striped ragged pyjamas, dirty yellow stars, dirtier pink triangles, thin young men approached the glass doors, timidly. Mitzy heard the distant wind of voices

A dormitory, work outside; labor camp.

Gaunt, stick thin lain-out life broken dolls, parallel, facing, a dormitory, Work going on outside, labor camp. Exhaustion; one slipping away. “Je veux un Rabin...”. I need a Rabbi..

‘Je suis trop faible’. Pensait faiblement l’autre, enver son ami meurant.

“Too weak to say it, I am sorry, too weak my friend, dear friend.”.

Mitzy then heard a song, or rather a chant, melancholy yet tinged with optimism, a chant coming first from the one phantom apparition then the other.

“Shama Israel

Adonai Eloyhainu

Adonai Echad

“Shama Israel

Adonai Eloyhainu

Adonaie Echad”.

The two men appeared to fill out physically and grow younger healthier. There in a  Place Publique a French town square or city plaza wearing vintage leather jackets, (brand-new then, in the nineteen-twenties).  One of them was seated on a monstrous motorbike turning to say something to the other before speeding off in a roar of bird-song and engine-sound.

“Shama Israel

Adonai Eloyhainu

Adonai Echad”.

Behind them both came more individuals in varying costume. Upon an altar in a vast hall, a cathedral.  A wedding. Regal. Rows of maidens dressed in white, brides maids, by the hundreds, faerie queens from time out of mind.

 “Mr King!”.

“Mrs Queen”

“My love”

“’I’ve missed you”.

“Ha, Mr Shakespeare”, said a beautiful black woman to a balding man opposite with a pearl and lace high neck-collar and a long pinched nose.

“My dusky love..” said the man

“I see you are still receiving credit for my work”. Said the woman

“You left enough clues” his voice echoed.

“The times...” Replied the ghost-writer.  “You’d have thought they’d invented writing”.

“Words, words, words. Plus ҫa change, plus c’est la meme chose.”  Replied the ghost.

“Like my love for you, Will”, said the black woman blowing the man a kiss. “The more it changes, the more it’s the same.”

Even had these apparitions appeared as stark three dimensional figures they would have remained invisible to those in the Waiting Room who themselves looked like ghosts in the rooms air-conditioned penumbra; their faces dimly lit by objects they stared down at and fidgeted with but which had no smell.

As the luminous filaments met, the complimentary rows of lives stretching back in an arc beyond time, suddenly concertinaed into both Mary Mary and the Roma standing before her. The glass doors suddenly slammed shut as though once again blown by a powerful gust.

Mary Mary took a small step back as, perceiving him through a glow which spread from the region of her sternum; she knew she had become visible to the man opposite. From Mitzy’s point of view, they were crying into each other’s souls.

The company now found themselves outside in the corridors of Eyes’ labyrinth, the Waiting Room having dissolved. Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb’s shrieks still pursued them from no particular direction, but their howls were being challenged by a new infinitely steelier yet blood-curdling scream doubled by an accompanying layer, at least three scales lower in the diatonic; the higher pitch; a glacial dehumanising stare, the deeper and lower pitch; a steady immanent powering up of weapons.

They lived in paradise, they lived in paradise!

Where? Where?

With wives and children! With wives and children!

Who? Who?

In the middle of every living room! In the middle of every living room!

What? What?

An open sewer! An open sewer!

How,? How?

They are sleeping! They are sleeping!

Why? Why?

Aissur Yadot! Aissur Yadot!

When? When?

“Run!"

Chased by Aissur Yadot, the perfidious discreditor of Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb, Mary Mary, Mitzy and the Roma disappeared around another corner of the maze and out into the open tundra.

From the outside and at a distance the words’ Russia Today’  were cutting their way, scythe-like through the walls of Eyes’ labyrinth with the dexterity of glass-cutters in the hands of international thieves.

Out-and-Out Liars, Part 2; Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters, Chapter 2, Part 4

 

                                                                        4.

Her arm aching from adjusting the numerical digits displaying the date on the clock/calendar in the Waiting Room, Mary Mary celebrity drag chanteuse and her pet Chihuahua Mitzi found themselves, once again, out on the Arctic tundra; they were not alone. Having escaped the miserable labyrinth and Eye’s baying bloodhounds Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb, or Rolling- and Breaking News, Mary Mary had now morphed into a handsome bearded explorer her beehive hair-do having snapped off in the general freeze. Beneath a dark crop of hair, framed by a lush beard glinting with auburns and red undertones, her eyes surveyed those of her lover.

On entering the Mittel-Europa 1980s’ Waiting Room with its rows of septuagenarians, Mary Mary had received the full force of their ire when a pile of neatly stacked Ubermensch Monthly magazines began to topple. She soon found that it was not her that was being screamed at, for retrogressive time had rendered her and Mitzy invisible. It was a young Roma boy, sat in the corner swinging his bare brown legs, who was the object of their collective rage. The fact that he had done nothing seemed to be beside the point; he was young, happy and different. About ten years of age his large dark eyes seemed bewildered by the Wutschnaubendige shrieks of those not-so- locked in their own internal purgatory.

Historical lessons were either being refused to be learned here, or the atavistic fear and hatred of the Roma was a contract in which both sides tacitly colluded, the one steeled for periodic onslaughts yet not altogether impervious to hurt, the other exercising an ancient racial limb that stretched all the way back to some fretful Urwald.

Mary Mary hoped that if she just ignored it, it would just go away and anyway, not only could she not be seen but the Teutonic eruptions at the boy with the swinging brown legs and large saucer-shaped eyes were marginally better than the cacophonous racket of Swen Gnillor, and Swen Gnikaerb. She sat down to read a copy of Ubermensch Monthly which she pilfered as those in the waiting room once again rounded on the Roma lad.

The List of Contents promised an article entitled The Statistical Improbability of the Educational Advancement of the Untermensch by Mal-Combed Badwill.  Mary Mary was baffled; the photo of the features writer for Ubermensch Monthly depicted a...mullatto, or hal-caste...no, not politically correct, thought Mary Mary. What was the latest correct terminology? Mixed race? Dual heritage?.. She had heard it somewhere, recently, in 2013 that is.  Suddenly she remembered, bi-racial!. If Mr Badwill sought to cloak his own obvious Ubermenschlichlessness through statistical erudition belittling those from a background from which he himself had sprung, it was working. Here he was, page 5 offering up data, numerical evidence, hidden in a murky soup of amusing anecdotes, about the  lack of advantages, a  predisposition for laziness, and the inherent poverty of those he now clearly felt himself above. The article concluded that it would be the year 2027 before even a tiny percentage of those who were not Caucasion caught up with those who were. Mary Mary felt sick. On Page 7in The Arts and Culture section “WHEN I HEAR THE WORD CULTURE...”  a photograph depicted a famous, and angry looking art historian boarding a train with a shopping trolley full of tins of Campbell’s Soup.

It had not escaped Mary Mary’s attention that while in her possession Ubermensch Monthly magazine had been rendered invisible and this fact triggered an idea in her quick-witted mind, honed by years of dealing with smart-Alec hecklers during her stage shows. Frau Bundchen, Herr Schiffer  and a dozen other failed veterans, their rage gathering pace and fury toward the innocent Roma boy, jumped backwards as one when the object of their racial hatred suddenly vanished.

The boy seemed not to be phased, indeed he appeared to be unaware of Mary Mary’s gentle embrace or of the Cloak-of-Invisibility effect she was having on him. From his perspective, the shrivelled remnants of the master-race had jumped back so abruptly they had piled on top of one another onto a single seat like in a game of Musical Chairs, upsetting the pile of Uebermensch Monthy magazines, which in turn sent them screaming at each other in a volley of invectives and mutual blame at the newly established order of the lack of...well, Ordnung!

Holding onto the boy’s hand, Mary Mary reached up to the clock/calendar and began winding time forward. From the corner of her eye she could see the Roma boy growing into a tall handsome man, though with hardened features and a defensive disdain in his eyes. His hand grew in hers. The back-copies of Uebermensch Monthly and the Mittel-Europa septuagenarians were not long in crumbling to the floor leaving puddles of evil looking black bile mopped up in quick-motion by a new generation of African Gast-Arbeiter.

The Waiting Room emptied and filled as Mary Mary slowed time down to the present day and found herself in the company of, and holding hands with, a thirty-something year old Roma in a glass room populated by Mediterranean migrants, - economic refugees from Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal- sat  alongside freshly-minted Eastern-Block Capitalists, all competing for their own little bit of Lebensraum. In a corner sat an avaricious looking red-faced man holding a train ticket to Switzerland, not completely dissimilar in looks, Mary Mary thought,  to the art historian in the Arts and Culture section of Ubermensch Monthly; a rolled up Picasso peeked out of his heavy overcoat.

Out-and-Out Liars, Part 2; Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters, Chapter 2, Part 3

The Breatharians, founded in the 1980s by Wiley Brooks, (an Ethiopian imigrant whose guilt-ridden gratitude at finding himself in the giant candy store that is America spawned this scorched-earth religion), held and still holds the belief that  in order to leave the gaudy superficiality of a 3D world and ascend to the Elysuim Fields, if somewhat parched, of an existence in 5D,  forgoing all food and water was not only  prerequisite for entrance into this paradise  but strict adherence to a life lived on fresh air and fresh air alone, an absolute. What they saved in toilet paper they gained in sanctimoniousness.

Evian Star was formed at the precise moment when the leader of the Breatharians began preaching, in a moment of cold-turkey-induced recklessness, the idea  that  McDonalds, namely, diet Coke and double quarter-pounder, with cheese was  now vibrating on the right frequency, 5D that is, and offered only  vital portal into that world. Faced with his leader’s sudden and craven volt-face Evian Star (real name James Sheen) would have vomited on the spot had there been anything in his stomach. Instead, gripped by a series of dry heaves, he lead his gastric band of brothers away  from the convoy of Breatharians heading for the distant great yellow arches on the horizon.

Teething problems presented themselves to the Western world-wide billionaire members of Evian Star at the outset ( 5D Workshops were charged $1 billion; a $100.000 deposit wired a month in advance) ; the same problem that plagued those who had lived on breath now visited those who lived on incremental sips of  H2o; When  Evian Star members  Australian-born Verity Linn,  Timo Degen and Munich pre-school teacher and Melbourne resident Lani Marcia Rosylne Morris all died in isolation (RIP)  while on the Evianarian liquid light ‘diet’ (a bargain at a cool $10.000 a bottle,) on Facebook, its charismatic leader denied all involvement in the three deaths, his evasive rhetorical post read;

Death has a psycho-spiritual, rather than physiological, source. Discuss!

When challenged further about a Swiss woman whose physical body succumbed to a lengthy regime of pure light after reading his blog ‘Love and Fresh-Air, Evian Star shut the door on all possible reproach to his leadership, declaring.

  

I cannot be held responsible for the actions of my followers. Those who died were not coming from a place of integrity and did not have the right motivation.

The Annual Evian Spring Gathering in Haute Savoie, France found a rag-tag army of Evianarians camped out on the former grounds of a Monsieur Cachet close to Sainte Catherine, the source of the great spring itself; A grade 1 listed  site, Le Societe Anonyme des eaux minerals De Cachet did not appreciate the appearance of the improvised Evian sweat-lodge, the phallic Evian Ice sculptures or the huge marquee housing a restaurant with Scratch-and- Sniff menus, upon its manicured lawns.

One night and toward the end of the ten-day Gathering a mild storm blew away some members along with tents; flattened biscuit and chocolate wrappers were found on the edges of  bleached oblongs of grass. Evian Star who had arrived three days into the festival cloaked in non-fee-paying nubile disciples, was horrified at this clear evidence of snacking. Not only were those guilty made examples of and cordoned off in another part of a field but the whole collective was made to follow a dietary regime more rigorous than the one they were already on. Evian Star also declared he was going on a long pilgrimage, alone, to purge the sins of his flock.

Evian Star also felt the compulsive, nay stomach-cramping urge to visit another fanciful sovereign, a pig-farmer, and self-styled emperor, a white Rastafarian by the name of Napoleon or Nappy for short. Nappy greeted Evain Star like a kindred Lord into his shabby bog-like realm and with the use of scraps of paper and felt-tip pens a manic joust of brinkmanship began as each drew maps colouring in territories conquered, one with a porcine empire, the other with territories flooded with Spring Water.

In the background, out beyond the pens the aroma of roasting pig was wending its way towards the nasal follicles of the two kings. The game of One-Upmanship had run out of steam with victory heavily weighted on the side of Evian Star due to his record-breaking feat of abstinence from all solids.  It was at this moment, the victor bathing in the afterglow of smugness that the host asked the guest whether he and his community could have the honour of tasting his honourable guest's famous Evian Soup.

From a large wide carpet-bag on the floor Evian Star produced an equally large black cooking pot or cauldron, of the kind self-styled wizards like to carry. From his seamlessly bottomless bag he also produced five giant bottles of water, the principal and sole ingredient of this benign and notorious dish. The pot filled, Evian indicated he was happy to assist from a seated position and Nappy donned an apron with repeated patterns of Miss Piggy.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to reward your fine hospitality and for the opportunity to lead your lost community out of the darkness of a 3 Dimensional existence and into the infinite 5th Dimensional frequencies of my soup.!”

To say a leaden pause followed would be understatement indeed; however, not willing to offend his guest helpers hauled the large pot onto the Arga, at the same moment the aromas of spit-roasted suckling pig wafted into the yard.

Like captives of the recital of very long and very bad poetry Napoleon’s fellow communitarians sat eyes glazed, the light from the Arga's flames rendered insipid by the very contents, or lack thereof, of the watery recipe simmering above. Darkness fell on the Kitchen as more corpulent members of the porcine fellowship squeezed through the door at the prospect of a feast.

Sat in serried ranks of shock, it was their leader’s duty to quell any insurgence; the guest was always right, this was tradition, and must at all cost receive due honour and the utmost respect. However this guest clearly needed taking down a peg or two. Besides, business always at the forefront of his mind, Napoleon had several kilos of Pork Scratchings to shift and experience had taught him that large already-formed groups were easiest to sell to.

As Evian Star sat rigid in anticipation of his watery soup, Napoleon approached the stove, lifted the lid and dipped a finger into the pot then brought it to his lips.

“Ummh. Delicious”, he exlaimed,"delicious, but may I suggest one thing?”

“Be my guest”. Replied Evian Star.

“It could do with a little salt”.

“If you think so”. Resolved Evian Star.

“I do” said Napoleon crushing a handful of rock salt into the pot.

This was followed by another long pause, after which Napoleon, once again dipped his finger into the pot and brought it to his lips.

“It is almost ready, but may I suggest one thing?”

“You may”, replied Evian Star.

“It could just do with a potato or two”.

“Oh, if you think so”.

“I do”, returned Napoleon tipping a dozen peeled potatoes into the pot.

A short pause followed. Evian failed to notice that a rosy colour was returning to the cheeks of all seated in the kitchen. Dipping a finger once again into the pot and sucking on it with a grand gesture, Napoleon declared.

“Your Evian soup is very near perfection, yet its sweetness could be enhanced with the addition of a few carrots”.

“Do you think so?”, queried Evian Star.

“I do”. Replied his host tipping a colander of chopped carrots into the pot.

As the Evian Soup simmered Napoleon weighed up his guest. He took a mouthful of soup, this time with the use of a ladle.

“Your soup is not only known nation-wide, but enjoys a world-wide reknown, and for good reason, but may I be so bold?, he said handing napkins out and receiving one back concealing a furtively tied Bouquet Garnis.

“You may”. Said Evian Star

“The tanginess of the zinc element could be slightly off-set by the addition of a few dices of pork”.

“Do you really think so?”

“I do”, said Napoleon as one of his members hurriedly entered with a bucket filled with  succulent pieces of freshly roasted pig.

As the bowls steamed before the company gathered, all waited respectfully as Evian Star lifted the first spoonful of soup to his mouth. A silence fell as the group assembled watched the founder of the Evianarians shovel spoonful after spoonful of Evian-based stew into his mouth.

Surreptitiously, Evian Star’s host edged a small jiffy-bag of Pork Scratchings towards his guest's bowl.

Out-and Out Liars, Part 2; Swen Gnillor, Swen Gnikaerb and Other Monsters. Chapter 2, Part 2

                                                                                  2.

NO BLACKS!

NO IRISH!

NO MUDDY BOOTS!

Notice in the window of the Welcome Arms Public House

A cavernous Beer Hall, a windowless bunker, a substitute house where young and old, kept out of sight, slaves to industrious side-show charlatans. “Variously Flavoured Vapours of Ethanol!”

On wooden banquettes the men and women  bowed, too sozzled to realize, in the still, silent penumbra of the County Beer Hall, that the 1824 Vagrancy Act is being re-instated for the Great Olympic Facade to keep them off of the streets, the gravel-voiced toasts of an empire that has long croaked its last, some toasts still veering dangerously toward pre-war and revealing more than the odd Black Shirt among the finger-food.

Bar staff double as benevolent bouncers as the odd regular is ejected through the double-doors, for dozing ‘Come back tomorrow  George!’. Foreigners and strangers are set upon viciously; at this level of evolution, ancient blood-feuds, watered-down cheap booze, the knee-jerk hatred of the ‘wrong kind’  surface in the catacomb-like unloveliness of the Beer Hall shut out from the apparent multi-culturalism outside.

The County Beer Hall  remains the polar opposite of bright; locked in a mist of sunless murk with only the cloven-hoof hops-stained sepia beer from unwashed pumps to strip the lining off the stomach and loosen the bowels, the 'denizens of his shivering realm' are indeed sick in soul and limb; life under the reign of the Weather-Vain King is reduced to this.

The atomized company of young and old, unhappy in their beer instantly clots the life-blood of one who enters the County Beer Hall,  dragged beneath an undertow of  gloom. Devoid of music or any other distractions, above the ossified bloodless wraiths of the crowning-glory of the industrial age, hangs a murderous cloud of resentment.

On a day of a seamless week in a featureless year the shadows of Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb creep along the walls of every Beer Hall in every county and crouch, like programmed death; begetter of hate, black as the masking tape that restricts all but one Channel in the dumb finality of an Old People’s Home.

Not so long ago Swen  was a welcomed guest into every abode bringing tales of far-flung lands and the chandelier sparkle of Dance Halls, but now- as Swen Gnillor and Swen Knikaerb install themselves permanently and stick fast to the fabric and structure under which the down-beat denizens of the Beer Halls cower -The Weather-Vain King, who has been expensively schooled in the art of setting the proverbial Cain against Abel for hapless cronyism -  bleats erratic hourly edicts, whispered him by his worm-tongued spin-doctors, and casts fear upon the realm with skaldic breath.
 

Prior to the insidious arrival of Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb it was not unheard  to hear tales of a far-flung  Hall, in time out of mind, in which everyone, in a fit of drunken peak,  had slaughtered each other. England’s first epic Beowulf  records the nightly visitations of the twin monstrous outcasts, the malformed giant Grendel and his vengeful Mother called to the Beer Hall out of a dark slumber, clarion-like from their primeaval marsh-exile tormented and frenzied by the glow-worm of distant merriment and mirth.

The tapestry of allegory is indeed thin to thread-bare and, as it dawns on a nation that, once again the unseen monster had returned; the monster that brought murder, manslaughter, outrage and carnage to the County Beer-Halls in this Age of Reason came, not from the insidious evil of Swen Gnillor and Swen Gnikaerb nor from any allegorical or mythical beast, but from the bankrupt souls within. With the coming of night, as Beerwolf rose in the Halls and the sneers ran, a foaming vicious pack behind a snide hunting horn, the Betting-Shop Frog Kings howled in muted pain; the madness took hold.

As of blasts that save outer walls but leave everything within splintered and shattered, thus was the outrage of the greedily rent limbs of the never-thirst-slaked. The previous night’s table-boasts now turned to national mourning.