Believe it or not I was born in 1989. But in Moscow where time and fashion goes to die.
My funky psychedelic 1977 open concept house has even funkier plumbing. A flange leak and several pinholes on the coppers went undetected long enough to rot the floor in the hallway bathroom. I’m currently staying at a hotel while insurance sends out the mitigation squad and the whole bloody floor comes out. Fortunately (thanks to Opa’s military insurance) I think we’ll be out only a couple o grand.
There’s quite a story surrounding this which I may or may not share in the near future.
This besides the ever present procrastination and the mighty UPS whip (Fedex no longer has a contract with Amazon for ground…so we now have their volume, joy) are why my posts have yet again slowed to a trickle.
There was a sensation of whirling, of spinning headlong blindly through ether. It felt like eternities had passed between the clap and the first glimmers of some strange purplish light.
“Holy shit it’s laser Floyd!” Jim exclaimed facetiously.
“Are you familiar with physics?” Germain inquired.
He could hear the question but see nothing besides darkness, and the strange hazy purple glow.
“Are you familiar with physics?” Germain repeated.
“Apparently not. Unless ya drugged me.”
“There’s no need to force the lock if you’ve got a key.”
“Maybe so…”
“Just so.”
“Uhuh, and uh what the hell door did we just step through here?”
“I guess I should get more specific. Are you familiar with circuits?”
“Sure, I’ve wired a house before.”
“There are countless electromagnetic impulses. That is the universe and its operation. It is one vast eternal brain folded densely to infinity. With time and patience, one can learn to prune this synaptic garden that blossoms in perfect holy Chaos.”
“If it’s so holy…than how come you’re prunin’ it? Isn’t that kinda cocky?”
“The root of chaos is in the seeking of order. Its worship is thus inevitable. Whether I call it holy or damned it will birth and be praised by every principality.”
“So God is chaos?”
“To the untrained God is such an absurdly vast chain of causality, such a solipsistic, self-referential thing; that had religion not risen to facilitate communion, to distill the essence of the unfathomable, only angels would approach understanding.”
“That’s a pretty big word salad you served up to such a simple question.”
“What you are seeing now, is how these mountains draw and transmit celestial light from distant stars. Their pulsing is sentient and wishes to add flesh to its nerves. Seeks this with such zeal that it will have any form. Because the El are divided, it manifests as troops of grey monstrosities chittering the discord that binds them to the ground bass of the errant heart of the fallen.”
“Gnarly.”
“I am talking about a current. They will it one way. It is our duty to will it aright. You, young fool, are merely a very specific transistor that has unfortunately become indispensable to rewiring the aeon.”
Jim wasn’t really sure what all that meant.
“You see, some Angels would prefer that only they would approach understanding.”
“You’re talkin’ bout some cosmic country club?”
The old man chuckled.
“And you want me to crash their Thursday night social?”
“Yes!”
“How?”
“Go to the caves.”
There was another clap. The world returned. Everyone was in the exact same spot, making the same exact motion, as when Jim had slipped into the dark following the first.
It seemed that the old man and he, had just had a private conversation in some secret room.
“What was that purple light?”
“Well, it’s usually more blue round here, there’s no name for it really…but I’ve always called it ‘transcendental electricity.’ We all have it. We are all particles in its waveforms. As individuals and as nations…But of course the El have a stronger current…so its dramatically visible in etheric space. And even in the earth…as I’ve said…it is blue…I believe you’ve seen it. And you will…you must see it again. Go to the caves.”
“Hell no. I’m not getting my city slicker ass stuck in some hillbilly crawlspace.”
“There is no danger for you. Your blood knows the way.”
Jim shook his head.
“Don’t you want to crash the party?”
This time he cocked his head and smirked at the prospect of some good Yuppie thwartin’ possibilities. But he did not relish the idea of dying in some pitch black hole no man was meant to spelunk. Much less a tenderfooted one like him.
The old man held his gaze for a spell and then turned to stare at the fire.
Jim, a few drinks past the limit of self consciousness shifted his attention to Elsa.
Jim was stuck again by the shift in atmosphere. With all these bodies luxuriating by the firelight it was indeed downright homey. The warmth was pleasant.
But it was also naseuting. Jim did not trust these fine feelings. He did not want comradarie with these soft strangers.
“I’ve heard you call these things the El more than once. What is that…?”
“It is an emanation of the Most High or rather an echo. Whose seal is Saturn.”
“I thought they were from Saggitarius.”
“The manifestation on this plane is mediated through the sixth planet from the sun.”
“Huh?”
“What do you suppose it means to be cast down?”
“Uh…”
“Which fate is grimmest for an angel?”
Jim rolled his eyes.
“To be clothed in limit. Girded in restricting loins of flesh. Mind you it is possible to be immeasurably powerful despite such division. They are clever and it was they that taught us to forge the rawness of the earth into sword and iron.”
“So gremlins…are aliens…who are angels….because….reasons?”
The old man chuckled hollowly.
It did make a certain sense. All these various takes on a single phenomenon. Strange little introductions in a history that only appeared in snippets to the attentive. But so what? That’s the thing that Jim didn’t undestand. That he never understood about all this religious sort of stuff. So what?
Fine people perished along with the wicked. And of what consequence is it that they dwelt in grand eternities?
Of what consequence is a principilaity of imps in a thing like eternity? A thing that nullifies. Time the great healer, the great eraser, stretched limitless across the canvas of forever…whatever its mechanism…so what?
“Just be mindful that they don’t entrace you. There is cause. I see their poison dancing in your eyes.”
Jim gulped. He was still indeed between worlds.
“Can’t knock me down.” He insisted.
“At this late hour, they are a part of us all.”
“I have no parts.”
Elsa giggled.
“You are as fragmented as a mosaic. This is the lot of man. To gahter himself tile by tile, till he beholds his place in the firmament, and his connexion to the Godhead.”
“Right on man.” Jim mocked.
“Listen boy, it is at great cost that I and those here assembled have gathered enough of ourselves to see you through.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. As they seperate the spirit from the flesh so must you seperate their flesh from their spirit. They must not be allowed to cross the threshold as corporeal till the appointed season.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to. No one expects a rotten tapestery to herald truth. You must follow for each faithful step will be be rewarded by increased sight.”
With this the adept clapped his hands and the cottage went dark.
The Fractal Journal 