Chasing Oranges Page 4

ptercha

  Before long a new legislation was forced into place, kindly inviting all Pazannians to refer to their new leader as “the Great One”. Uranius was to be hailed as the son of the Creator herself. She who had sewn the fabric of space and time together so beautifully, and had given them the world as they knew it. He, through whom the Creator herself spoke and blessed all Pazannians. Through whom the truth could and would be revealed, if however not thoroughly understood.

  No one really knows much about how he ever came to acquire all the power he eventually did. History, or Pazannian word of mouth, seems to point to that fact that Uranius had a good number of individuals who happened to be thugs, which no one saw fit to argue with. They all conveniently seemed to support the newfound leader who himself saw nothing wrong with any of it. The rest as they say, was just horrible.

  We’ve had our share of these kind of characters down our way, but this was a new and holy happening back on Pazanna. How could they possibly imagine that they were backing a shit show? I guess few ever foresee the oncoming danger of a beautiful utopia.

  The Message, or “Sikapizunkaz” as it was known on Pazanna, became the one and only gospel Pazanna would ever know. The only one they would ever need, as the newly founded party line stated. Uranius the Great became the undisputed leader. The chosen one. Chosen to run the people into a millennium long hole of desperation, hopelessness and suffering, in the best tradition of unelected leaders.

  For centuries they would do nothing but intone the words to the everlasting tune and pray to the spirit of their long living Great Leader, his ancestors, and their great Creator up in the skies. Imploring them all for everlasting life, happiness and peace. Of course they never got anything of the sort, but they were still most inclined to pray to them. Anything else would mean being called up as an unwilling volunteer for Pazanna’s notoriously dangerous outer space exploring programme, whose survival rate lingered around the three percent mark. And that was considered a light punishment.

  As a matter of convenience to the Great Leader, the English language never made it to Pazanna. (Incidentally we should point out that Pazannian is a language most unpronounceable to us humans. An extra set of vocal cords renders most of their vocabulary unpronounceable to the average human being.)

  Gazillion Zorga would still sing the song on occasions. He’d been beaten into learning it off by heart as a child. And he would do the dance. He had little or no hair left to pull at but he still made it look almighty frightening, and like all good things frightening it was entertaining. And Jack Landan and his siblings would laugh.

  It went something like this:

  “Bag een blak

  eye eetda zee

  afeesulon, amglad tobee bag

  yesa le loose

  foma noose

  dats kepa me anhin arown

  Libbin onda za a

  kaza geitme eye

  fogera hurs kazal neva da

  Ahgat, nan lives

  katseyes

  uzingeveewanadam anarana wie

  Kazam eyee

  yezam-ba

  vellam-ba

  yezam-ba

  hehehey

  heheheieee

  yezam-bag in blak

  yezam-bag in blak.”

  A mixture of joy and sadness would take over Gazillion Zorga whenever he sang the old song. It brought back memories, of the friends he’d grown up with. The same ones he’d seen skinned alive in one of the many battles they’d fought against the mighty stiff hand of the regime.

  Music was a concept that few Pazannians would ever come to know, understand or fully appreciate. The only known record of any music on Pazanna dated back to just two and a half decades before the first recording of the holy message. All forms of music or anything sounding remotely like it was instantly banned by the Great ruler soon after the happening. It was considered too blasphemous. The message was a gift from the heavens and that was not something to be taken lightly. No common Pazannian could possibly compete with the glory of their Great Creator. Only in death would they be able to join her in her sanctuary in the skies, and sing along to the holy song which she had written herself. A Pazannian’s duty was to spend one’s existence practising the heavenly tune so as to be prepared for the day they would meet their creator-songwriter and join her in marvellous chorus for all eternity. That’s the kind of mind altering shit they were fed. Few ever tasted anything different, and so they acquiesced, unknowingly. How could they possibly imagine, that approximately twenty-two and a half thousand light years away, bearing forty-six degrees towards the Caesarean constellation and a little to the left, floated a small, ever so slightly green and blue planet, known among its inhabitants as Earth. A place where some two hundred years later, a Rock’n’Roll band composed of four very outstanding, yet pathetically normal by Pazannian standards, human beings would claim the great heavenly song as their own. Some hidden radio receiver in their heads would pick up the same tune floating around in space and play it on their six string devil-like electronic instruments, turning it into one of Earth’s all-time greatest hits. They would also go on to release a whole array of messages into the vastness of existence. Enough to cause even the greatest of thinkers to wonder whether the egg, the chicken or the taco had come first. If there were still any chickens left on Earth they might have looked into it in a little more detail. They would just have to take the man’s word for it.

  And whilst youngsters back on Earth were starting to Rock’n’Roll (with two capital R’s) and getting up to no good, kids on Pazanna were still being made to learn their own version of the song. Their leaders, who incidentally were all descendants of Uranius the Great, had after numerous years of debating, decided to adopt the song as Pazanna’s national anthem. It was played incessantly around the clock. At breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, at weddings and funerals. At schools, restaurants, public parks, toilets, baths and trains. As a matter of fact there were few if any places where the mystical song wasn’t played across the radio waves. It was played extra loud and on constant repeat on the birthday of the first Great Leader which was celebrated every other third day of their 9 day week. And it played incessantly in millions of bedrooms across the land just before every good Pazannian was seconds from sleep or in the act, as more were being conceived and delivered. Whatever corner of their minds they thought they could escape to, the great message never truly left them. A few meditating individuals would on occasions manage to isolate a remote part of their brains and enjoy a few seconds of silence before the mighty roar of the message flooded into their existence yet again.

  Not only had laughing been prohibited on Pazanna, but smiling had also been outlawed. The punishment for such an insolent gesture was to be forcibly pierced in the face with big, round steal rings. Large stone weights were then attached to them causing the cheek muscles to weigh down heavily, making it impossible for the individual to pull even the remotest of smiles. A first infringement would result in a week long punishment. A second infringement a month, and a third a life sentence. Doomed to carry the weight of the institution’s miserable lack of humour and empathy until the end of one’s days.

  Funnily enough, as is the case with most things in the Universe, the Great Message eventually came, by some ironic sense of destiny, to represent the small, blue planet at the IUCS, (aka Interstellar United Constellation Summit) held every other rotation of the inner Cartesian core. Worlds, planets and conglomerations from all corners of the galaxy met to discuss things concerning trade, law and issues regarding the expansion into the next dimension. The 11th convention of United Interstellar Nations, which took place around the Earth year 2089, saw the 23 representatives from planet Earth causing a bit of a havoc when they began to giggle uncontrollably as the first notes to Pazanna’s national anthem played on the loud speakers in the main conference hall on the opening day. It made big news on Earth. Caused a few good souls to smile about it across the Galaxy. The same news never made it back to Pazanna
. Or at least not that time.

  In the days when interstellar travel was still legal on Pazanna, a few brave Pazannians began to make the long trip across time and space and the mist and dust, bringing home news that the Great Creator, the same one they had venerated all along, had materialised herself in the form of an Earthling Rock’n’Roll band composed of four, short, sweaty, two-eyed human beings. One of them further adding insult to injury by wearing a provocative school boy uniform. Needless to say the matter was immediately interpreted as blasphemous. The 16 explorers who had bravely brought back news of the discovery were quickly made to disappear and the matter was never mentioned again. Not long after traveling to Earth became a restricted luxury, reserved exclusively for the richest and most powerful individuals. Those few brave ones who continued to spread the word that the song was indeed a creation of the seemingly simple Earthlings, were cut down on the spot and fed to the starving masses. The Pazannian regime could not afford to undergo such powerful transformations.

  Inter-mole-hole space travelling as they knew it and understood it, with all its benefits and belly-tickling diarrhoea related problems, was banned as relations between the two spheres froze to an absolute zero. Now that’s pretty cold.

  Gazillion Zorga would only speak of the dark days on random occasions. The tall figure of a man, whom Jack Landan had always looked up to as a beacon of rationality, had once been an established member of TortellonE. A known interstellar, pseudo-criminal organisation in the eyes of the Pazannian regime. They had travelled left right and centre and a few more places, working behind the scenes and treaties which ruled the void. Specialising in the logistics of precious materials and using whatever methods they saw fit to achieve whatever it was they set out to do. The same organisation was to set the roots for the resistance movement during the 32 year 2nd Pazanninan civil war.

  The flamboyant tales that Gazillion Zorga told had for many years given Jack Landan the impression of a man who had singlehandedly saved his people with the sheer power of his will and armed with a chocolate-bar-firing bazooka and fart igniting explosives. Gazillion Zorga had actually worked in the explosives unit of the resistance army that fought for a god given freedom to think freely and smile. According to the colourful tales he told his grandchildren he had blown up inter-stellar communication systems and wormhole connections with the power of his farts and a few matches.

  Jack Landan had heard his grandfather’s version of the events a few times, with all its adventurous twists. How the ogre-looking Balakanamams had come in the dark of night. Guns blazing, trigger happy. A rotten comrade ratting their plans out within hours of their return home. How they took the lives of his 15 mates whilst they slept. Gazillion Zorga had been busy getting the inn keeper’s daughter pregnant with his future first daughter. That unique moment of lust, and perhaps a little love, was what ultimately saved him. And as he ran through the fields of Pazannian-like corn, he heard the sounds of the chocolate coated bullets firing in the background, the explosions of the cinnamon-pasted-bun-bombs exploding all around, as jellybean shaped sniper shots whizzed past his head. The rest was history. A war of guerrilla tactics and candy flavoured weapons which made his tales all the more entertaining for the kids. The knife sharp truth was always somewhat kept from them, for their own good, some would say.

  apterch

  Time would always seem to stand still during those journeys home. And indeed it would have, had they been traveling close to the speed of light. But wormholes worked differently. Some long nosed individual had attempted to explain it to him but he had been half through the third bottle of the amber stuff. Too tired to listen, way too drunk to care. Space was nothing more than a means to an end to them. Like a river or the sea was to a sailor. It held none of the transcendental meanings reserved for the untravelled philosophers and writers that romanticised about it back on Pazanna. Space was a cold dark place. Soundless and merciless. A place which left little room for error.

  He would deal with the trips with whatever drug of choice he could find and he would sit back and hope the diarrhoea would not hit him too hard. And they would laugh at the younger recruits, their poor faces would switch colour as the small spaceship contorted and stretched under the mysterious forces exerted on it by the pull of the wormhole.

  It mystified him. The way the ceiling, floors and walls of the old spacecraft would appear to come and go. Vanishing like mirages as they travelled through the stupefying tunnel. If he was lucky enough he’d drink and smoke himself to sleep and wake up on the other side, half of the crew still dealing with the disturbing side effects of inter-space travel.

  He had looked forward to returning home to Pazanna that time. The struggle, as they called it, was far from over. A war for the freedom they had so long been denied. And yet, for all his loyalty and bravery, he wondered how long he could keep it all up. He looked around himself to the new generation. A younger generation that fought with valour and bravery, but without any real understanding of what they were really risking life and limb for. It was only the stories he and others like himself told, that kept their will and the fires in their souls ablaze. He knew it. He knew what it felt like not to be able to say no. Not to be able to do and say what he felt was right and free. For they had tasted the sweet life of freedom. He hoped and wondered if this new blood had it in them to keep up the fight. They had made great progress of late but there was still much to be done. There was no denying that.

  He still had a few good battles left in him. He was only 35, but the wounds and the sub-sonar travel were starting to get to him. They never talked about it openly, but every time they awoke on the other side of any given wormhole they were all secretly relieved to have made it through in one piece, and with all the pieces in the right place. Wormhole travel was the equivalent of dropping a completed jigsaw puzzle into a tumble dryer and magically hoping for it to come out the other end the same way. It begged faith and a certain degree of madness which he sensed was starting to run low.

 

  That night they touched down at the usual spot and unloaded the cargo of Lactobia they had brought back from their latest travels to Earth. They cut it into small squares and packed them into little heaps separated by a thing sheet of paper and stored it in large crates that were driven off to a secret location. Some they would sell on the black market to be used as a cheap form of mind altering entertainment. A popular fetish among the highest levels of the ruling Pazannian elite. The money they made was then used to pay for the war on the same regime that unconsciously seemed to fund them through its back door addiction to the Earth exported concoction. The rest of the heavy duty stuff they used at their discretion. Mainly as the powerful explosive that nature had designed it to be.

  It was the first time he’d had someone there to welcome him back. Hence the first onslaught of feelings and the doubt about his role in the struggle, perhaps coming towards the end of its days. The possibility of giving up the fight and making a life for himself somewhere else. The thought had tickled his imagination during that last trip back to Pazanna.

  The short walk back to the tavern, that they occasionally used as headquarters, was made all the more sweeter. His new found hots for the daughter of the innkeeper. He had made his move on her some months before and they had enjoyed a few happy days together in the peace and quiet of the outer regions controlled by the resistance. Unknown to the innkeeper they had spent a few memorable nights together. It had not involved more than holding each other tight, under the cover of the two Pazannian moons. Him telling her tales of the far distant places he had visited. Of Earth. That small planet hidden away past the Adromeda constellation and a little to the left. Where the land was all sorts of colours and the sea blue, but if one held it up in a glass it had no colour. That had tickled her fancy most.

  The boys from the resistance had been wined and dined as per usual on returning home from a trip. She had served them along with her father. They had exchanged looks and sh
e had managed to slip him a coded message. A code he had taught her. A code that would come in handy should her father ever find out. He had read it openly in front of his comrades who knew no better. It read: My room after lights out! He giggled to himself at her use of the words “lights out”. He would wait until they had all retired to bed and when the time was right he would calmly walk up to her room. And if anyone were to catch him about the place he would slap them across the face and claim he was on a toilet run. After all, he didn’t care too much for the opinion of others. It was the secrecy of it all that he enjoyed most. He had tucked the secret note into his pocket and taken another slurp at his glass. He would try not to drink too much that night.

  Happily he sat back in his chair and looked to his comrades with pride. He could not recount how many had come to miss over the years. But he remembered the names of all those that had personally served with him in battle. He was considered to be one of the wiser of the group. And although they all took their orders from the central resistance post, the comrades had always looked to him for confirmation every time they received new plans of action. Now he sat there and enjoyed what he saw. The dull faced young recruits, listening attentively to the tales of gore and death the elders told. Red-faced and talking loudly. And here and there he would stand and join a few of them in talk. They were all exceptional individuals in his eyes. Willing to put their lives on the line for it all. Even Gonzobia, the rat, the loner. He too seemed rather amused, sitting in the corner all alone as per usual. He was the ugliest of the lot, short and ugly but he had proved himself well in battle. An able tradesman and a believer of the cause. They exchanged a friendly look and lifted their glasses, toasting to freedom and to the struggle. In hindsight he would realise what had been wrong with the man all along.

  When the last man had been carried to his bunk and the last of the lights blown out, he lay there looking up to the bare ceiling. Waiting for the first sounds of snoring. Then, when he felt he could no longer wait, he pulled himself up straight in bed and made for the corridor. And as he paced quietly along the corridor he heard the sounds of the innkeeper mumbling in his sleep. He walked past the toilets and towards the back door that gave onto the courtyard. It was a clear night and the two moons shone brightly in the sky. All he could make out was the subtle sound of his boots along the hard ground. Round the corner and past the den where he saw the candle light flickering behind the small glass window. He needn’t knock so he pushed the door open and let himself in, locking the door behind him. She lay there waiting in bed, and smiling as he approached. Her mind was made up. There was nothing her father could do about it.

  They came in the darkness of night. The dark forces. Spurred on by an inside informant. It couldn’t have been easier for them to surprise the group of 15 brave fighters in their sleep. Deep in the dreams that the long trip home and a night of celebrating had brought.

  They came quietly. They parked their vans about a mile down the road and continued through the mist on foot, undisturbed. They didn’t even have to break down the door. The rat was there waiting for them. Pulling on a cheap smoke as they assembled before the main entrance to the tavern.

  “Where are they,” a senior agent had asked rushing past him and shoving him in the gut as he did so.

  “Upstairs, room at the end of the corridor. They’re all in there.”

  Stealthily they proceeded up the stairs. Two dozen or more of them, armed to their third eyes with heavy duty slaughtering weapons of non discussion. The door had squeaked slightly as the first agent pulled at it gently but it hadn’t been enough to wake anyone. They were all fast asleep in the knowledge that they were in safe territory and that the rat was keeping check. It had surprisingly been his round to keep watch that night.

  Then, when they were all in place, two men to a bed, the senior operating agent gave the signal and with that unleashed a mortar attack of fire. The exploding bullets and flesh-tearing projectiles tore their way through the young fighters taking with them their precious lives. Loud, powerful echoes of devastation were sent flying throughout the tavern and the farmyard. Gazillion Zorga and his young lover were deep in reciprocal appreciation. When the first blast reached their lover’s hideout he had not wanted to process it, but when it had continued into the roar of an execution squad he could no longer ignore the fact that something horrible was occurring not too far away. And as he rushed out and back across the farm towards the tavern he saw the rat still standing there with his smoke. There was a short exchange of looks as they both stood there in the fading light of the moons. Only the flashes of gunfire still firing away upstairs and shining out into the courtyard. The rat had only the time to let out a silenced squeal before Gazillion Zorga flung a concealed penknife into his throat. Gazillion Zorga watched him reach for the sharp object forever implanted into his flesh before dropping to the ground. Then, as he peaked into the tavern, he caught a glimpse of an agent standing guard by the bottom of the stairs.

  “You there!” he heard the voice call out after him.

  There had been no time for romantic goodbyes. He would be back for her sooner or later. Right then he could do little but run for his life. Run, run, run, barefooted across the wet, cold marshland that surrounded the farm. And as he made it across the first fence he began to hear the shots whizzing past his head and dropping into the rice paddies. Zipping and swirling, wishing and pitting. He kept up a steady pace. His chest burning but his mind clear. He ran until the dawn began to show in the distance. Then he lay down by a tree and assessed his situation.

  The rat had sold them out. Gazillion Zorga would have a hard time proving it, and they would have a hard time believing him. He stretched his neck back to think and checked himself for wounds. It would not matter, he thought. He knew what he had to do. There was a plan. It had only been discussed among the elders. He would take it to completion, return for his love and leave. He could not run the risk of returning to camp. They might accuse him of setting up the rest of them. He knew the way they thought. Anything to keep the moral high and sharpen the pencil of discipline. No, he would do it himself, for his mates, for his comrades. Getting her out would not be too difficult. He knew they would not harm her. The rest would take care of itself.

  He found refuge with a retired elder called Friedelund Bianco. He had been a brave fighter back in his time but a few too many worm holes had constrained him to his hut and he moved little. He had made peace with the fact and only cared for the four walls that surrounded him. The rest could go to hell. Zorga explained his reasons for not wanting to return to HQ and Bianco agreed. The resistance’s core spirit was changing for the worse. Bianco told Zorga to get the hell off of Pazanna. That night they toasted to past battles and friends lost.

  “And to those damn wormholes,” Bianco had said giggling. Friedelund Bianco was one of 6% of people who had suffered the shuffling effect of wormholes. He had consequently not been re-patched all that properly. His head had been twisted on back to front and unrepairable damaged done to some vital organs inside. He had then voluntarily dislocated his shoulder as a solution which allowed him to face Zorga, his back to him, and still hold up a glass to his mouth and toast as much as he liked.

  Gazillion Zorga came across some Lactobia through a black market crook who owed him a favour. With enough talk and the right amount of threat he got his hands on enough of it to cause the right amount of damage. The spot had been picked months earlier. The small hangout across the river where a number of senior officers and officials from the corrupt regimental army met regularly under the cover of night. Halfway between a brothel and an amusement shop, it was hidden away in some back alley, a stone throw away from the regime’s headquarters. It was a bare, barren place, nothing more than a bar, a few tables, an old piano that no one quite cared for, and a number of doors that led off to lavishly decorated rooms where all sorts of private negotiations took place. The resistance had chosen the spot specifically with the intent to send out a cle
ar signal. Of course, if things went to plan the regime would try to hide any incident. It would however send out a powerful message, that no one was safe. The resistance would and could strike at any chance they had.

  Such plans would normally have to be sanctioned by the resistance HQ but he was going to go at it alone. His mind was made up. He would complete the hit and get the hell out of there.

  “You ever think things will change for the best Gazillion?” Bianco had asked him as they sat round the small fireplace that evening.

  “I’d like to think so my friend.”

  They drank a little longer and when Bianco had had enough he pulled himself off to bed and left Zorga to contemplate his next moves alone in the silence of the small hut.

  During his preparation days he paid a young resistance hopeful, a child, to take a coded message to his love. The kid returned a few hours later. She would meet him by the river at the specified day and time. He had arranged to take over a level B ship that was rusting away in the one of the resistance’s scrap yards. The caretaker had tried to push the bureaucracy on him but it had been enough for him to raise his voice and the keys to the ship were his.

  He hadn’t told her. It would not make any difference to her anyhow, nor would it to him for the matter. Given the old nature of the ship, they would not be able to shift through wormholes much to his liking. Instead they would have to travel away from Pazanna and through the empty space at the speed of light and perhaps a little faster than that. Although it pleased him to know they would not be munched and possibly mistakingly re-stapled by avoiding the wormhole, the second option would inevitably cause them to travel forward in time. It would mean little for where they were traveling to, but it implied that they would never be able to return to the Pazanna they knew. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The more he thought about it the more the idea appealed to him. It implied they might one day be able to return to a planet of peace and brotherhood. Who knew. He calculated they might only travel as little as 50 to 150 years into the future. Nothing he couldn’t handle. He would tell her when the time was right. His voyages into space had revealed enough foreign and advanced technologies and cultures. There was little out there that worried him or surprised him in equal measure. They had no other choice.

  He sealed the small stack of Lactobian jelly to the underside of his inner coat sleeve. The timer he concealed in the wrist watch he wore with pride. They would not suspect him. He had been there before on a recognisance and all had gone as planned. If something did happen he would have to think quick.

  The club was busier that expected. The fact filled him with a dark sense of satisfaction. Just as well. There were no innocent bystanders. There was no danger of collateral damage. He would be striking at the heart of the corruption. It might not make the biggest difference but at least he knew he was avenging his comrade’s deaths.

  He was let into the bar unquestioned, his tidy suit doing the job. Around him he noticed the place steaming with high ranking officers and the occasional go-go girl. Chained to the floor like wild animals they swarmed about the place desperately trying to make fools of potential customers. On occasions someone would slap at their backside or kick the spit bucket in their direction.

  There was no music playing but the chatter was loud enough. He walked up to the bar, nodding calmly to a lieutenant who looked him down suspiciously. He ordered a drink and stood, his arm up against the bar, scoping the place for options and exits. The one detail they hadn’t had the chance to discuss was where to place the charge. It mattered little. It was only a question of placing the explosive unnoticed and making a calm and quiet exit.

  As the sound grew louder more and more officers of the law accompanied by all sorts of beings fled into the joint. He could not help think how normal and peculiarly silly they all looked. Had it not been for their impeccable uniforms he would’t have thought much of any of them. But the uniform was all, and it served to remind him that he was indeed not looking at ordinary individuals but at murderers. Bureaucratic rapists, who signed their names to anything that would and could increase their perverted grip on power.

  He was approached on a few occasions by some of the fare looking female employees. Their bodies twisted and rendered abnormal by one too many space transmitted diseases but he had shrugged them off much to their disgust. Of course there would be collateral damage, something had said to him. There always is. Yet, it would have to go ahead. He took a swig from his glass and called for another. Then with drink in hand he made to the other side of the room, towards the piano, pushing his way through the crowd of drunken officers sitting at their tables.

  “You play the thing?” a stern voice yet relaxed had called out, as he sat down at the noble instrument that had no doubt been imported years earlier when inter-space travel had still been legal.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Gazillion Zorga answered as he gazed down at the splendid object.

  He had seen plenty of them during his many trips to Earth. And he had sat in the same smokey bars, watching all manner of talented people drag the soul spirit out of the things. He had sat with a few of them and asked them to show him a few tricks, and they had.

  He placed his glass above the lid of the piano and began to push down at the keys, gently. Surely enough the simple blues tune he had so admired and wanted to learn began to sound across the hall, the chattering and flirting quietening down as the audience began to focus in on that side of the room. And as one hand joined in with the other, his melody took on the beautiful colours and tones of the blues and he played it like he meant it. Like they’d shown him on Earth.

  “Where did you learn to play if you don’t mind me asking?” he was interrupted as he looked up to a Lieutenant Colonel standing there by his side, his red eye glimmering and a glass of the good stuff in his hand. His missing left arm had all but been removed, most probably in a past altercation with the resistance.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure,” he continued holding out his hand, “Lieutenant Colonel Buttkrak Itch.”

  “So where did you learn to play this fascinating piece of junk?” he added.

  “One picks up a little here and a little there,” Gazillion Zorga answered with calm demeanour and still looking down at the piano, striking a key or two as he spoke. Their short conversation was abruptly cut short by the intrusion of a young officer who stomped to his feet, blind drunk and made for the piano.

  “This is what it’s supposed to sound like,” the young man cried out to his comrades across the hall who applauded him on cheerfully. He pushed Gazillion Zorga off the stool and began to hit down hard at the keys. The horrible sound of random notes sending the crowd into a hilarious frenzy. Gazillion Zorga made friendly eye contact with the Colonel as he rose to make space to the young officer. He reached for his drink and leaned onto the side of the piano in a relaxed manner, smiling. The back of the instrument, he noticed with the corner of his eye, was exposed. That was his chance.

  He had hoped to place the charge under the keyboard but he had been forced to improvise. The backside by the exposed strings would work just fine. Picking his moment carefully, and waiting for the curious Colonel to turn his back to him, he reached into his inside pocket and for the small charge. It was small enough to release a large enough explosion to see them all off. A moment later, when the wave of sound had risen to its highest and he figured no one would notice, he reached with his left arm behind the piano and applied the jelly in one swift action. A second quick movement allowed him to place the charge into the jelly, the timer connected wirelessly to his wrist watch. Sweating ever so slightly he returned to the bar pushing through the crowd again.

  He was meaning to settle his bill at the bar when he felt the presence of the Colonel standing there staring at him.

  “Pleasure, Gazillion Zorga, I believe we’ve never had the privilege.” he said audaciously.

  “Indeed not,” the Colonel replied shaking han
ds. “Where is it you serve if you don’t mind me asking? Gazillion Zorga. I’m sure I’ve heard the name before,” the captain spoke before knocking back his drink.

  “Special Branch Y, Pazannian National Resistance Front sir,” Gazillion Zorga said smiling. The words caused a shiver to shoot through the Colonel’s insides but he shrugged off the stranger’s humour and let out a nervous laughter.

  “And now if you don’t mind Lieutenant Colonel, it’s been a pleasure,” Zorga spoke politely as he moved past the uniform and towards the exit.

  It took the Lieutenant Colonel Itch about 56 seconds and a further drink before he was able to compute the name Gazillion Zorga. 56 seconds that could have spelt the difference. A quick sip. A look into the distance. A cherry-coloured girl pulling at his groin, which he had secretly lost in a previous visit to the same underground watering hole. Then, as he brushed her off, he recalled all of a sudden and felt the mighty fear of the universe shoot through his backside and up to his glandular sack in between his ears. Gazillion Zorga, known rebel leader. But surely not, he thought to himself, looking around for the intruder. He must have been joking. Not in here.

  56 seconds were enough for Gazillion Zorga to vacate the premises and walk calmly back to the main street. He lit himself a smoke and walked past a few more drunken officers making their way to the smokey hole. Then, when he thought he was sufficiently out of range, he reached for his wrist and coldly flipped through the digital menu to the desired function. He took one more puff of his smoke and pressed down with calm determination. He threw his smoke to the ground and there it lay, still burning as the pounding explosion of souls was blast to kingdom cum in the background.

  thE oLd mAn

  hapterc

  The old man sat in the shade, sucking and puffing away at his hand made pipe. Looking over the plateau that stretched as far as the eye could see, and perhaps a little further, there where the dreams lay. In the shade and comfort of his hut, the remains of the six legged camel still where he’d left it. The same camel they had strapped him to when they cast him into the unknown and banished him from all forms of so called civilised life.

  The wind blew the sand up against the small hut and whatever else there was. At times the sand would cover it and it would disappear for a couple of days. On occasions for weeks. Then one day it would reappear.

  He sat on his handmade chair. Made with the leather he had gathered from the poor being that had carried his weight for so many days across the desert before it lay down to rot. It had shown no signs of slowing down or of resigning. Surely and steadily it had continued, step after step until it eventually fell to a knee. Its heart gave it one last pump and then it was it. He’d lain there, strapped to its back, frying in the sun in the day and hallucinating in the cold at night. It had been months now, perhaps years. He couldn’t tell. He cared little for time, and he was more than happy to lead his life without the added restraint of something as artificial and pointless. He smiled about it when he thought about it now, but there was little to smile about at the time. He had lost a few teeth in the process, but had eventually managed to bite his way to freedom. There was nothing he could do for the camel.

  Days had loomed on and turned into nights, and the same nights had sure enough turned into days. He had come close to starving. On the fifth night he set about doing something about it. He found a sharp rock laying amongst the sand and shrubs and cut out chunks from the cold flesh of the camel, and with it fed his insides. The next morning, reinvigorated, he set out across the infinite landscape that lay beyond. He walked for two full nights before reaching the green vivid patch of life. The oasis he now called home. The stuff of legends, like the tales he had heard of in his time.

  In the beginning, unable to come to terms with his new reality, he spent deliriously long periods of time leaning back against the bark of a tall, thin tree that seemed to fruit, in the soothing shade that it cast over the steaming hot sands. When he finally managed to gather enough energy, he climbed to the top of the tree, cutting at the colourful fruits with his sharp rock and dropping a few of them to the ground. Then he began to munch away at them with feverish haste until he felt his belly bulge from within and he could take no more. The resulting hallucinations started not long after and would continue for weeks. Coming and going like gusts of wind. Sweeping him off his feet and up into the hight of the dark, cold desert skies. Days, weeks, years, millennia would fly by, and then, like a floating leaf, he would softly fall to the ground and fall into a deep sleep.

  One day, when he felt the anguish of the fruits’ effects had ceased to haunt him, he decided to walk back into the direction he had come from, back to the carcass. Bit by bit he carried the camel back to his camp by the fruit tree by the edge of the oasis. There was much to be made of it yet. And bit by bit he took it apart. Roasting whatever parts hadn’t rotted on a bonfire. He would light one every evening before the sun set with the aid of a piece of glass he’d found in the beast’s stomach. Everything else he saved for material use. Its bones had become an integral part of his table and the chair which he still used. The skin he used as a sleeping bag every night when the cold would come and the howling of strange beasts would start in the wind. On those nights he would lay in bed, looking up at the skies and at times the moon. Then, when the howling had ceased and he felt like he could relax, he would recall the past. All that he had achieved and done with his time. Reliving his life, day by day, like one long tale.

  At times he would speak to the camel. What was left of it, he made into a shrine. He called it Swalim. It meant friend in his dialect. Together they spent many nights in each other’s company. And he would tell the camel stories. And when he had eaten enough of the strange fruits from the tall, thin tree, Swalim would also begin to tell stories. But it was he, the old man, who talked most. He would tell of his journeys, of the people he had met, the places he had seen and the times he had cheated death. He had few or no plans for the future. There was enough material in him for some truly good stories.

  Time and nature had been kind to the old man, authorities and governments a bit less. His long white hair still hung with youthful vigour, his shoulders still hung up high and strong and they held the rest of his body up straight like a good coat hanger. His fading tattoos. The one on his inner arm, Squazimmu zalam. Do more! A memento from his young days. The days he had spent across the way, whizzing around through all sorts of wormholes. The days before they had set up the fences, and the ugly grey monster. The infamous wall. Before the great explosion had sent them all, and all their plans to hell.

  Hell was on Earth he believed. What was left of it anyways. He belonged to the generation that had grown up on a globe, a sphere. He had never bought into the bullshit about the cube and its financial implications. It was brainless propaganda meant for the brainless masses and he chose not believe it. Instead he chose to stand against it, them, the authorities. For that, and his apparent lack of belief, they would eventually punish him.

  One night, whilst nibbling away at some of his favourite orange coloured fruits, under the cover of the purple evening skies, he began to recall. Back to when, nearly four decades earlier, he had been sitting at a bar in the comfort of his home town. Sipping thoughtlessly at the very last few drops of a whiskey, when a man, a few years his senior, took a seat next to him and began to talk.

  “Say boy,” he’d said with a stern yet friendly voice, “you look like someone who’s in need of a new challenge! What you say, fancy a chance to make some money? See the world. Meet some beautiful ladies.”

  “Sounds too good to be true.”

  “That’s ‘cos it is kiddo!”

  He’d met their kind before. Pirates full of promise and full of shit. Galavanting over the border like it was some kind of day trip out. Promising all sorts of things and wizardly boo. He’d seen it all before. So thanks, but no thanks.

  “How about a drink instead?”

  “Cigar?”

  �
�No thanks.”

  The fellow lit his cigar and blew it across the bar to the discontent of the beaten down barmaid.

  “You see. Truth is, I ain’t like the rest of them.”

  “What makes you so different then, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  He puffed his cheeks full of smoke and then released it into the room. Then he gazed over to the other side of the bar where some fine looking ladies were crossing their three legs in manners way too provocative to be innocent. One of them smiled back at them both and revealed her ticklingly comic lack of teeth.

  “We pick our people for a reason kiddo. We’ve been keeping an eye on you. We’ve being doing our homework and we’re in need of some extra help.”

  “We? Who’s we?”

  “That’s for later. What you say? It’s got to be better than hanging round this place, scratching out a living.”

  He leaned on the bar and fiddled with the side of his face. Looking out of the bar and onto the streets it struck him how little there was out there, outside the four walls of that drinking shit hole. Only the misery of the streets. And there was someone, offering him a ticket to freedom.

  “When was the last time you left this place kiddo?”

  “I’ve never left the place.” He had always been quietly proud of the fact. Too many had leapt at the promise of something better. In doing so he believed they had betrayed that which was most sacred to them, their home. Suddenly there he was facing the same conundrum.

  “Well, here’s your chance kiddo!”

  “What’s this,” he asked as the fellow handed him an envelope.

  “A one way ticket.”

  “To where?”

  “Ship leaves tomorrow. 27:00 on the dot. Dock 23, by the rigging plant. I’ll see you there!”

  “I haven’t said I’m going yet!”

  “You haven’t, but something’s telling me you are.”

  “What you talkin’ about?”

  “I’ll see you there kiddo.”

  Then the enigmatic figure shot back his drink and left through the swinging doors like something out of a distant movie. The same ones his father had shown him when he was a young boy.

  He was there the following morning. There was only one ship leaving from dock 23. It lay there in the water like a sleeping giant. A beast of a ship. The kind one should never wake without a good enough reason. It was resting. Resting from its intergalactic travels.

  “Glad to see you made it son,” a voice called from the water front as he approached the dock. The hombre from the previous night welcomed him and held out his hand for a shake. The smell of cigar was still strong. It accompanied his presence wherever he went and it would do so for a good many years to come.

  “Name’s Gazillion Zorga. Welcome on board.”

  “I’m Zwein Arta...”

  “Forget it kiddo. Where we’re going, you get to chose your own name.”

  “Where is it we’re going anyways?”

  “Not too far kiddo. Shouldn’t take too long anyways. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  That trip, and many more after it, would take him to all the darkest and some of the brightest corners of this banana shaped universe. He picked Maleba as his new name. It came from his local dialect and translated roughly to the “invincible”. No one ever asked what it meant. He went by Maleba alone and that was enough.

  He was officially welcomed into the TortellonE import and export coorporation minutes after showing up at dock 23. His first trip was to the Azzorian constellation. A soft introduction to the wild new life he had chosen for himself. There would be darker and graver times ahead as well as a few good times.

  They would be called everything going. Liberators, rebels, heroes, traffickers and terrorists depending on where they were. They worked hard and played hard. The stars became their stopping off holiday destinations in between missions and they burned the candle at both ends. He and Gazillion Zorga became good allies, then business partners and eventually life long friends. They shared a common love for everything green and Earth-like, and they dreamt of the day when they would retire to the planet, perhaps open a nice little place by the sea together. Like the best of friends though, after a good many years of each other’s company, they eventually lost touch. Perhaps pulled apart from incompatible dreams. The desire and need to rest. To be able to fall asleep at night without the fear of waking up dead. To create a family.

  He settled down in the old neighborhood, in the poverty and misery which was the settlement across the bay from all that richness and wealth. He would commute daily across the waters to Notobia. Exchanging the beautiful desert flowers of his native land, that he picked himself, in exchange for precious technologies with which he hoped to improve the miserable and desperate existence of his fellow natives. He was one of the few who moved freely between the two worlds. A necessary evil which Notobian authorities allowed with calculating evil.

  Back in his world they called him the Wizard. Down at the bazar where he had set up his little shop. Where he educated the young children of the streets. Teaching them the wizardry behind the mechanics of modern technology. Telling them all manner of wonderful tales. Of the distant places he’d visited, the weird creatures he had cut bread with. The fights he had fought and the wormholes he had travelled through, and the nightmare diarrhea it had caused him.

  The young man which had once left the small bay outpost for the glory and adventure of the stars grew old. The scars of many battles fought slowly began to disappear into the crevices of his wrinkling skin. And as he, the Wizard, turned into an old wise man, so the legend of his adventures and of the mystical-like skills he possessed began to grow. Talk of him spread through the streets of the town, and seeped its way into the daily reports that were wired back to the darkest state offices across the bay, where they kept a close eye on the ongoings of their unwelcome next door neighbours.

  Despite his best efforts, a happy family life had eluded him. He had met his fair share of women. All shapes and limbs. But none had ever rattled his belly like the one, the beautiful Zonia. A girl of the night, yet destined to become the mother of his child. The proud fruit of their love as he liked to think of it. He had begged her to follow him across the bay but she had resisted for fear of reprisals. She, like many others after all, belonged to the powerful conglomerate of power businesses that run the human trafficking and distribution of OrAngE up and down the coast in that sector of the cube. For an eternally brief time they would live a troubled but happy life, with the hustle and bustle of living between two worlds and the demanding pressure she felt at the prospect of becoming a fugitive.

  She gave birth to a commonly perfect baby whom they named Kayan, after the abnormal smudge on the inside of one of his palms that resembled the Kayan leaf. The big meltdown happened not long after, and just like that, they were parted, forever. He would never live to see the man his young child would grow to become.

  In the dark years that followed, the aging man found meaning in life in the daily struggle he pursued in the name of his tortured people. Victims of a global socio-financial, concentration camp-like mentality that spread like wildfire after the meltdown. Still, the young men, that had once sat at his feet as children, listening and being inspired by the stories he told at the bazar, came to him again. This time as men seeking advice. And again they listened to his tales of struggle. Of battles of blood and ideology. Of the guerrilla campaigns on Pazanna in the name of a freedom its people had been denied.

  The metamorphosis that followed was as natural as any that had come before. Inspiration turned to words, words to heated debate. The debate fueled the discomfort, the discomfort the pain, the pain the fear and finally the resentment, as the first of a succession of puppet dictatorships took power. Then came the wall. The great monster. Built with the funding aid of the great Notobian riches.

  When the first shots were fired, and the first blood ran, like it had done before, the fearful authorities c
ame for him. Blaming him for the rancor and violence which ran in the streets. The Wizard and his wizard like ways. They punished him with a hundred lashes and the most humiliating of ends. Strapped to the back of a camel and cast into the wilderness to fend for himself.

  KAyaN mAleBa