Wave, screenplay

Wave

ACT I

Wave by Frank Sinatra plays, its romantic cadence echoes throughout the room.

--Show in black and white--

A man with tortured eyes wearing ball gag stares into the camera, his face is pressed down against a wooden table and is partially obscured. He tries to scream, but his tongue is clasped tight against the gag. The room is darkly lit by a barren lightbulb.

“The fundamental loneliness goes, whenever two can dream a dream together” croons a whimpering  homosexual voice, in time with the track.

The garglings and screams of the man continue for another forty seconds. His eyes light up in realisation, as if something has entered him.

Slowly a knife emerges from stage right and slices the throat. A mighty gash appears and a deluge of blood drips onto the camera.

--full colour--

We are in an LA police station. Mercer a bitter, recently divorced homicide detective discusses the details of the murder with his superior.

“looks like he was fucked to death” says Mercer to the Sgt.

“his ass was all cut up”

“the slice to the jugular must have finished him”

“Christ, who would do that to a man”

The police sergeant pauses for a while and considers the photos.

“Christ indeed” replies the Sgt.

ACT II

We are at the end of the working day. Mercer leaves the station in a poor part of urban LA,

The night is cold and a man huddled behind a dumpster calls out to Mercer.

“spare any change”

“please”

Mercer walks on by in the snow.

ACT III

We are once again in the station. Mercer presents the photos a second time and is discussing the murder with his superior.

“the autopsy showed that the man was in his late forties” says Mercer

"white american"

"he's probably local"

There is a pause and the sergeant looks at him,  but this time maniacally . 

“You dumb bastard Mercer” says the sergeant,

“can’t you tell who it is yet?”

The Sgt then begins to hum the tune of wave to himself and Mercer finds he is being dragged into a dimly lit room. His face is pressed down against the table, a ball gag is thrust into his mouth.

--show in black and white--

“The fundamental loneliness goes, whenever two can dream a dream together” croons a whimpering  homosexual voice, in time with the track.

Mercer is painfully sodomised, tears stream down his face, and yet his ears are enraptured by the beautiful track. The knife enters from stage right.

Before the moment of his death Mercer sees the face of the devil in the whites of his own eyes, he knows at once he is condemned. Anxiety fills his final moments as he contemplates the infinity of hell. 

--Repeat ad infinitum--

THE ADVENTURES OF FLAHERTY AND SPICE

Father Flaherty the Franciscan friar feverishly and forcefully feasts upon feculent faeces, forcing the fetid form past his quaking lips. He looks to the sky as he prays to god the almighty, his cock erect, his eyes piercing the clouds. Each bite he takes he becomes more aroused, his cock swells ever larger and his heart beats faster. As he reaches a crescendo his priestly bell-end begins to pulse and vomit and semen are expelled from his body simultaneously in parallel lines which stretch to infinity. The ritual of purification is complete.

Flaherty proceeds out of his cloister in a dream like state, shit still smeared across his lips. He is filled with angst, and this very angst takes form:

He beholds a man, his face is decaying, maggots fill his eyes, his tongue must be about 20 inches long and is a deep glans mauve, indeed it looks like a hideous contorted phallus. Flies eject from the mouth as He (the urethral tongue) speaks a few words

“In the jungle the air is humid and hot, the trees kaleidoscope in shades of greens and browns and yellows. The sound and cadences of the river pulse in sine waves, like the crystal water itself. This jungle is home to many creatures but here we are focused upon the times and destiny of but one.

In the water is a carp, its face comical, its antenna pulsing and searching for food and enemies. The carp moves downstream towards its congregation, for this fish is a shepherd unto its flock, or indeed its shoal. It wears a purple robe, finely crafted by the lobster craftsmen of the shore, the finest tailors for two hundred parsecs. 

It wields in its miniscule prehensile fin a sceptre encrusted with a diamond as big as the carp’s head. This sceptre is a wand, and a magical tool of the ancient carp messiah.

But lo’ a hawk drops from the sky like a dead fly and consumes it”

“Now I see” replies Flaherty

winter

Crisp winter snow, boulevard flanked by stiff parallel trees

Digit like, bleak fingers rise to touch a pale sky

Hunched under a wheely bin a downtrodden man covered in ice

His beard wire like, brown and grey, the eyes stare up at the birds

Pardon me, I ask, would you like a cigarette?

There was no response, for he was dead

The Tale of Octopushead, Professional Overseer, and his Adventures Behind the Window of Reality

Octopushead marched down the 3&1/3 regiment of the chain gang of former clowns astounded by their decrepitude and tattered costumes. Here he was, in the middle of a solar desert, many kilo-miles from his happy suburban home, and it seemed the decaying failure of the clowns was a hideous metaphor for his own failure as a commandant of the circus performers forced labour camp 9. In the distance he heard an elephant bellow, from behind an array of red and purple mesas which swayed and shifted like plants in the desert winds. Clearly the animals were yet again unwilling to partake of their share of the work. Octopushead wondered if they would take industrial action again, or attempt a breakout. It was only with the loss of several fine tin foil men that they had prevented Larry Lion escaping last months. The horrific tears and mangled remains of those tin foil men, utterly unable to resist Larry’s savage claws, claws which he had been sharpening in secret for weeks, these nightmare thoughts still regularly haunted Octopushead’s conscious each successive day.

He was overworked, and, after the last prison freighter had encountered severe turbulence due to a cacophony of astral projections from a nearby barbershop and ditched several kilo-miles out in the parched ocean, supplies had been running low. Without his heroin, that most secret of vices, necessary to maintain his forever splintering sanity, Octopushead had been experiencing creeping bouts of The Fear. As Octopushead was terrified of clowns, his job as their Overseer was a particularly strong catalyst for these outbursts of psychic energy. The last few days alone the heads of three clowns had been caused to explode like eggs with hand grenades inside them because of panic attacks brought on as he was forced to manually restrain them. His job was at stake, he needed to score, and soon.

Each day the itch got worse, he could feel it at that moment, a creeping, prickly feeling under the rough wool of his resplendent uniform, like it was some static interface with his skin. His attention to duty waxed and waned like the tide; when he caught a clown shirking he administered the ritual sowing of a live, sexed up monkey to the back of the inmate’s head, yet at other time his attention to the strict and serious regulations of the penal colony was lax at best. Clowns would caper and prank each other, and he seemed to be almost unable to summon the effort to even give them a solid beating. Some days he didn’t even break any bones. Octopushead thought of his wife, how she abhorred his job, thought it was cruel to treat clowns and other circus folk like this. Octopushead’s buddies had informed him that her perverse sympathy was due to her likely gypsy ancestry, but Octopushead simply thought that she held the heartfelt belief that clowns could be tolerated. Also he would never marry a gypsy, for fear of their wicked spell craft.

Octopushead had argued with his beloved, Squidface Clam-minge, many times, but try as he might he could not conquer his fear of the clowns as something hideous, unnatural, untermench. Only a few of his closest friends knew that clowns had killed his parents one fateful night as they were walking home from an Operatic rendition of Naughty Nurses Nine. Even Squidface only knew the bare outline. Thanks to his smack withdrawal, it all seemed like it was happening right about now…

The rain on the streets, forming great, spinning whirlpools that lasted fractions of seconds. The amber city lights like fireflies trapped in jars. The rumble of traffic filling his ears and body with the vibrations of the city, like some giant hideous organism, perhaps an aardvark, as it ponderously plodded to the future but never seemed to leave the present. His father, a wealthy entrepreneur, one Sebastian Scalloptit. His mother, a lawyer by trade, but he remembered her most for her compassion, for her smile, and for her briny smell. Mrs. Cocksucker Van de Fellaté was one of the most popular debutantes of the year when she had been seduced by his farther, and that beauty still lingered on, in its way. His father reminded him to never kiss his mother on lips, as she had a taste for landwomen, but otherwise they had the perfect family.

And then, on that fateful night, moments before his parents were brutally run down and left spazzed multifariously, hung upside down on life support, twenty clowns on the run were carjacking a small business owner in a mini. All twenty clowns piled in, but the generous camp diets had made them corpulent and there was no room to steer or control velocity. The mini sped along the road, out of control. At that moment his father, Scalloptit, was fiending for smack, and spotting a man he assumed in his weakened state to be a dealer he knew, shouted at him and began to cross the road without looking, dragging his wife along. The man was in fact a pony called Albert, and he didn’t sell drugs but was a community support officer, a duty which saw him take a key role in managing the aftermath of the pending and now imminent disaster. Octopushead’s dad always needed smack to pay his mother, he told him, otherwise she wouldn’t be willing to ingest his landwomen and she would starve to death. Octopushead never really understood any of that, and was pondering it over again when he heard the car of clowns smash into his parents.

The rest was a blur, as he had just previously stolen and used the last of his father’s heroin. Also he was 7, and could never remember much of that age anyway. The incident, however, had taught him several valuable lessons, primarily not to put yourself at the mercy of clowns when you haven’t had the horse in a while. And yet this was what he was doing right now. He cursed his stupidity not to have had a larger stash. In his anger, he took his club to a nearby clown, but all he heard was squeaking of the clown’s bulbous red nose.

Later Octopushead found himself in the mess hall with not memory of how he got there, or anything since the beating of the clown. Clearly his need for heroin was intense, he had to score, and soon, reality was decaying, and he had no intention of letting it run out anytime soon. He had done it once, while hiking for several days in the great Breast Mountains, let his supply run dry until his mind became detached from the corporeal world and he went to the shadow realm. He had no intention of returning. The indistinct memories made him shudder as he ushered prisoners in with his baton, the hideous sound of muted shopping mall music, the sparse but manageable crowds of contented people, the good deals everywhere… Octopushead woke up on an Oriental Schooner in the middle of a grey and turbulent sea.

Again, he had no memory of reaching this place, or the (he assumed budget) whore lying next to him in the bed of the opium den. He was no longer even sure if he was later in time than his position as an Overseer or not, maybe that was still in the future and this was soon to be the memory he was remembering in the camp mess hall. He no longer felt the need for smack now though. The water was seeping into the ship, it came up half a foot against his bed. Addicts sat in the water, gazing deep into the beyond, some lay in bed, emaciated, others huddled in covers. A laudanum bottle bobbed past the bed, but he had no desire to grab it, to chug the entire cork stopped bottle. He still had a need though, this time for opium.

Octopushead heard a throaty laughing from one corner. An immense and corpulent moor
sat cross-legged on a buckling stool, a hookah pipe in his hand, and yellow teeth bobbling beneath an immense moustache. He reminded Octopushead very much of a clown, and he wondered if the man had any clown genes, it would explain a lot. This man was surrounded by many glittering wall hangings, yet looking closer Octopushead could see that they were the flayed hides of poor, misfortunate tinfoil men. He felt disgusted, and wretched. Even weaker than before, he gestured pitifully and slowly at the pipe, Opium, Opium he begged in a cracked voice like wind over the top of a dying mountain, but the moor just sat there a laughed again, his deep, booming laugh. Out his mouth poured rolls and rolls of paper covered in mad scribbles, like a plenitude of tumbling tongues. They wrapped as if guided by some mysterious force about the opium den, about the struts of the ship, and at the head of this mass of paper tentacles was the moor, like some fat and crazed abdomen, covered in gold and silks.

The paper sheets heaved and the boats supports buckled, tearing the vessel apart, wood cracking, splintering, coming apart like torn muscle, and Onctopushead was too weak to stand, let alone stop them. Vainly he flicked water with his fingers at one paper roll, but only got it marginally damp. He felt the boat give way beneath him, and he tumbled into the ocean, only to wake up in pitch darkness. The only sound was his own breathing, slow and tense. He got up off what felt like a dusty floor and tried to squint. Still nothing. Then dazzling lights thumped on, and carnival music filled the air and all around him, crowds cheered. Oh god, he said, I must have travelled back in time, I’m in a circus ring! His body spasmed like a dying spider, and then he heard the sound of a mini cooper engine starting, somewhere backstage, a sound getting closer, closer with its rhythmic chugging. A nightmare come alive. And he didn’t even have any smack.

Fin.

A recurring dream

The room is lit by harsh white light, no shadows being visible in the four square corners. In the middle lies a brown wooden table with a green vase and a blue flower. At the far end the grinder.

The white floor moves incrementally towards the grinder. The table and plant would be the first, and then I too would be crushed. The grinder is metallic and mechanical, it has circular rows of sharp galvanized steel teeth, and the loud, churning, electric drone of the grinder clouds my mind and my thoughts become confused, as if in a fever, as I head inevitably towards my death.

A story

Adam had been waiting for hours now, in a dark upper room of a Paris flat block. His rifle resting against his angry chin. He was waiting for the pope. And he was going to shoot the pope. Right in his head.

He took a last puff of his PCP laced cigarette and opened the blinds slightly to get a better view of the road below and to let out the sweltering heat of the French summer night. He could see the flickering of candles metres below, the people clumped neatly together in rows, it was the start of an improvised vigil to mark his Excellency’s arrival. Here Adam saw the sunrise of an entirely different, bleaker ceremony, the beginning of the sacrament of execution.

At eleven-thirty the Vicar of Christ would travel along the Champs-Elysées in his pope-mobile, towards the Notre Dame cathedral to hold midnight mass. There Adam would take aim with his precision fifty calibre rifle and in one bloody squeeze of the trigger blast off the pope’s head. It was a good plan, and Adam understood that this simple action of projecting hardened metal through an old man’s skull could change the world. 

Adam would dip his own semen in the bullet that would kill the pope, and as it soared through the electric sky the potency of the bullet and that of his own seed would become one, in a cataclysm of destruction. The flecks of semen being driven into the pope’s brain and mind with the speeding bullet. Only this deed could reverse the tyranny of the evil pope, his shooting would be a profane act of intercourse. The penetration of the bullet exposing his virginity as a fraud and flooding the cavities of his papal mind with semen.

Adam had time to kill, it was not yet ten, but he knew also that he had the pope to kill and this thought made the minutes flow, as if the gravity of the deed he was about to perform was dragging him at pace through the silken minutes.

He felt as if this night was a fiesta, a great feast, as if god himself was in the sky playing Spanish guitar, over the warm coffee black night-time atmosphere, the streetlamps whispered words of encouragement, the heat rising from the concrete road spoke words of love. And he knew that as the old man approached all these signs would reach a crescendo, and in one tumultuous squirt he would fire his semen bullet into the pope’s brain and infect his mind with death and truth. In those last seconds the Vicar of Christ would know his destiny, know the black uncertain hole he was doomed to be cast into, taste the semen of his conqueror in the back of his throat. And he too would see that the aesthetics of the situation were that of a perfect act of death-love-making.

The adventures of the prophet pt 2

Hercule and the prophet walked out into into the black night. The cold desert wind caused the mighty Hercule to shiver, but the skinny prophet stood erect.

"Now my child" said the prophet,
"Try and lift this small stone".

Hercule bent his trunkish legs downward and reached for a round pebble beneath his feet.

"It is too heavy my lord", whined Hercule the strong.

For the lord was using his magical powers to make it heavy.

"I can usually lift two-hundred times the weight of this small stone said the puzzled Hercule",

Hercule looked at the black sky and the amber sand and let the harsh wind blow across his stubbly beard. He sighed and wondered where his strength had gone.

"Are you using your magic on it" he finally asked

"Yes" replied the lord

The adventures of the prophet, pt 1

It was a cold night in Samaria and the strong flow of the wind rattled and battered the sandy desert houses. A disciple Hercule, and the prophet were seated at Hercule’s table for supper. The disciple of the erudite prophet asked his master:

“Master what is the secret of strength"?

The prophet paused and then said to Hercule his disciple,

“Strength is not physical strength, but a strength that is non-physical, and hence the physical has no effect on true strength, the opposite however is not true, true strength girds the mind and hence allows the building up of the physical body.”

Hercule was confused but kissed the prophet on the lips and thanked him nonetheless.

He reached from the communal plate with his wooden spoon and sipped on the fish broth he had prepared for his master.

After some time he gestured towards his large arm muscles and asked the prophet if he should continue his exercise regimen. The prophet knew however that his parable was a metaphor and that Hercule had sadly missed the message.

The Prophet continued:

“Strength is good, it is better than weakness, but an excess of strength is a weakness, and thus too much strength is a weakness that cannot be cured with more strength, but only by weakness. The opposite however is not true; too much weakness is not strength but is a weakness and hence can only be cured by strength and not by any increase in weakness”

Hercule thought for some time and then gestured once more to his mammoth arms. The prophet frowned and decided that poor Hercule must be possessed by a demon of ignorance.

“Follow me my child” said the prophet.

The two ventured out into the cold night, each wearing only a thin white shawl.

RUSSEL CROWE's 'Noah'

A rather trite article on the upcoming Aronofsky Opus Noah (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/aug/13/russell-crowe-noah-darren-aronofsky?INTCMP=SRCH) starring intense character actor RUSSEL CROWE led to thoughts of what the film may hold for fans of Biblical epics:

SCENE 1:

Noah builds the worlds first cruise liner for animals

It is morning, birds call, RUSSEL rises from slumber next to his wife. Though aged 600, he looks a mere 300. His body has withered into a wrinkled husk of a man, contracting to a dry form the size of a 6 year old child. He dreams of rain, so that with moisture his dry, old skin may be refreshed. There is an extended dream scene, perhaps of a cornfield in a deluge.

RUSSEL: WIFE, I SHALL BUILD AN ARK, FETCH ME TIMERS.

Wife: Noah, you are mad, it has not rained here for many a cursed year

RUSSEL: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Wife: Oh No(ah), not again (Laugh Track)

RUSSEL: Whatever comes through those gates….

Wife: I’ll fetch some wood

*    *    *

An Ark is built, the world floods, RUSSEL sets loose a dove
 


Scene 30

RUSSEL: Fly, my pretty, fly!

Enter Commodus, dressed as a dove

Commodus: Caw, Caw

RUSSEL: Dove, find me land, or a tree that lo I may perch my boat upon it.

Commodus: Caw, Caw
Exit Commodus, Play montage of RUSSEL looking hopefully out over a wild sea. The rains have made him young again, perhaps there is a scene in a corn field. Commodus returns with a branch

Commodus: Caw, Caw

RUSSEL: A BRANCH, I CAN USE THIS TO AVENGE MY FAMILY, BUT FIRST, WINE

Together RUSSEL and Commodus get progressively inebriated, until their clothes fall off, exposing their nakedness. Enter Ham.

Ham: Egads, father, your nakedness, I shall avert mine eyes (He does so)

RUSSEL: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Ham: Here father, Shem and I will cover thee

RUSSEL: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Advancing backwards, Ham and Shem cover RUSSEL. Commodus flies off, only to be caught on an overhead power line. He explodes.

RUSSEL: Son, Son….

Ham: Yes father?

RUSSEL: You covered my nakedness, son

Ham: I know, father

RUSSEL: I curse you, son

Ham: What?

RUSSEL: I curse you in the name of Jesus. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

Ham: Father, you are drunk
RUSSEL: Son, I never loved you, you were always a dissapointment. I am not your father

Ham: No, father, it can’t be

RUSSEL: You were just a bastard in a basket, I used you to get contracts from God. Just a pretty face. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius and I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. Bastard in a Basket, BASTARD IN A BASKET

Ham: Father, I saw your nakedness, I know you could not have begat me, for you have nothing betwixt your thighs but the painted face of a bald man with protuberant teeth

RUSSEL: And now I am undone

RUSSEL dies, Ham, distraught, cries aloud, then commits Hari Kuri over RUSSEL’s limp form. Commodus flies down, and weeps. His tears fall onto the face of RUSSEL, but he is no phoenix, and RUSSEL does not stir. The shot lasts 8 minutes. Then black.
Fin.

Then, a voice, calling in the darkness, and the darkness could not comprehend it
RUSSEL: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

a story

“Gimp”, yelled Badger to one of the local school boys. The boy was scared by the badger, with its big teeth and beady little eyes, and Badger knew it and took great pleasure in his ability to scare school children. As tears began to well up in the child’s eyes the badger turned and proudly walked away. Badger could play saxophone very well and performed two nights a week in the village jazz bar, his band Jazz Badger and the Supremes performed a mix of soul and early jazz music, not unlike the style in which the human Barry White performs, though his violent essence personified in the music often led to misplaced shrill, high notes and dull heavy drones.He also took pleasure in this aspect of his being.

The Dodger

I

I lay the ripe leek on the silver counter. I plough a gentle furrow through the white and grassy flesh with my charmed cutting edge. I prepare life upon the altar of the cutting counter. I place the bits into the broth. I am the high priest, the provider, the shepherd. I alone choose who lives and who eats and who withers and pines away in hunger!

Carved commandments onto the paper, my inscriptions! Leek soup it is. And who shall share in my feast! The dregs are lining up, students, pompous intelligentsia, and yet they rely on me, Chef, to prolong them.  The years have been kind to me, a man of fifty five, and yet I still see the ruins of an ancient Adonis in the mirror when I look, strong cheekbones, a sturdy jaw, a movie star hunk of a man. My white overall is stained with the evidence of my good deeds, it takes skill, skill and love to create; to make, to understand the art of The Chef. A spear of light breaks o’er the roof of my temple high noon, eleven-forty-five and the haddock is not yet broiled! The eggs tumble in their pot. He took the bread, and the eggs, and leek soup he did make, and haddock with chips. And he did give them life. All is in order, the implements are in their trays, it is time for the mass of life and today I give the sermon. The doors I fling ajar. Jupiter stands clad in an apron, beckoning. The feast begins!

Take for instance one of my eggs. A goose laid it, a farmer nurtured it with his homely caress, and I prepared it, to be consumed, here, in this sanctum. This is law; this is how god intended it to be. It is nature’s order. There are those who do not respect this divine chain, there are those who wish to steal from my kitchen and by extension steal from mother earth, at these times my muscular body quivers with anger. But regrettably my powers here are restricted to only harsh words and warnings.

What right does a thief have to take from my temple? Without the consent of the high priest! Make no mistake, I am god here; an erudite man; this aged Adonis has a formidable intellect... And I do sweat and toil! And often wane under life’s yolk. I provide for these people, these students! These apprentices! They should respect the order as I do. As we all should do.

My kitchen is palatial, well equipped cookers stand in the corner, great wombs of life, and ladles the forceps! Great silver furnaces, I turn knobs and reality bends to my mighty will. Here I am master king and genius; here I am Saturn, and Jesus, and bearded Moses and Elijah and pharaoh, Tsar! The altar boys and acolytes cleanse the temple of Waste. I almost burst at that the thought of food. How the broth seeps and trickles into the mixture, life within life, doubled and tripled and quadrupled in organic and orgasmic ecstasy. Some cannot see or respect the sanctity of Food and of manna and of Life. These people are degenerates, philistines petty pieces of decadent grubby filth; a cockroaches in my kitchen.

Grain upon grain, flesh upon flesh, blood upon blood, life into life, I know what I am, I know my calling. I do not of course, and as a matter of principle inform my colleagues of my views. To them I am just a chef, perhaps even in their eyes a mediocrity, how they a wrong! They are such fools, parochial in view, in vision myopic, followers of their passions. I am more of an Apollo, a rational man, a stoic; even an ascetic, I suppress my senses, I provide Life, and Life provides for me, and on my headstone it shall say ‘giver of life’. I am a Jesuit of the onions, a Cistercian of sprouts, a Trappist of the order of the carrots, an abbot of duck and guinea fowl, a high priest of mashed potatoes, cardinal of chips and pope of the Sunday roast. I follow these Foods, these life givers, I watch them and I know their ways. And they know me, and by them we are all made flesh, their flesh to our flesh, onion, into placenta, a chip becomes an umbilical chord, a pea a winking eye. That egg, that piece of bread it could become a little sperm, a tadpole a life bringer to a new Ramsay or Oliver or Rhodes.

Where is that egg now? That precious sustaining piece of reality, languishing away in his room, the toast covered in spores, rotting, decaying and putrefying, going to waste! A sandwich here he steals, there an extra cup of juice, all adding to his corpulent and disgusting body. He is taking more than his fair share of Food, of Life, of Reality.

The Dodger is here, bright and early I see, I watch him like a hawk, let me be clear here, The Dodger is no more an entity than Evil or Justice, it is more accurate to say that The Dodger is instantiated in certain persons, and indeed often in more than one person at once. Just as any number of persons can be Sad or Wicked or Pitiful so can any number of people be The Dodger. I confess even I, Chef have dodged once or twice. But though penance and fasting I have managed to keep The Dodger at bay in my heart, if only others would be so prudent! There is one particular student whom I particularly despise; he comes closest to the perfect Dodger. His heart is as black as sackcloth of ashes, his eyes piercing abysses his mouth knows only greed. He is ravaged by his senses. It is he who took a precious boiled egg, he who stole three of my sandwiches he stole toast too, hidden under his fleece. This I took to be the crowning insult. Wheat, pressed, milled and pressed, and stolen! He has stolen from the earth itself and me its minister.

I turn towards home. Morag is my wife, a fine woman, plump breasted and good natured. I wonder what she’s doing, knitting, or boiling a haggis or slicing potatoes into chips. Oh and how she can cook. Chickens and geese and grouse and tripe and kidneys! I sit on the couch next to Morag, that old crone, but her face has blossomed over the years, like a cauliflower of overwhelming potency. I see myself in the role of a Zarathustra a prophet and seer of the world to come. We must all grow and nurture and Cook, we must all become Chef! I am, I say without false modesty, that I am what Nietzsche describes as the Übermensch, the over-man, the one to whom so many owe their existence. Who can exist without Food, and who can survive on raw food alone? Is Chef not the most noble of professions? Does not cooking fill that deepest holy of holies within our very souls?

Morag is not so talkative these days; we both like our food it has been said. But can anyone comprehend the extent? Can Morag comprehend the extent of my love for, for example a pear? These questions are and forever will be a mystery; even the question itself contains masked within it thousands of others, barbed clauses, necessary implications, existential and ontological ramifications. Is it not our greatest scientists that describe the universe as a bagel? Is it not an apple that inspired Newton and caused the Fall of Man? Is a baguette not a symbol of pride and hubris, and wine of lust and jealousy? Does not cheese represent putrefaction and decay? Is not the onion the arête of subtlety?

I see them, the dregs in the Hall, a hall of residence, but who resides there? Morons obsessed with mathematics and logic and science! But not food, the very thing! The very thing that makes us what we are! Its texture, its taste, its feel on the tongue, coarse and so often smooth and yet sour and saccharine, paradox upon paradox and experience upon orgasmic experience. I pity them. Does Jesus not appear in crisps and toast and such and such? How can people be so blind, how can people Dodge the natural order! I have to sleep.

I am tournant, garde manger, and boucher, rôtisseur and pâtissier, saucier and poissonnier, grillardin, friturier, entremetier, legumier. I have so many incomprehensible facets, so many skills, and so many loveable assets. I continually renew myself. Chef can never tire of Chef. He knows no self-disgust.

I have begun to see reality as a glorious dichotomy of Chef and Dodger. The Chef builds, he creates, he imbues the raw pulpy fibres of existence with the essence of Life, and he makes bad into good, he gives Taste to life. And what does the Dodger do? He is like the morning star, the dragon, the beast, the serpentine god. He tricks and deceives and destroys, oh my poor egg, my lovingly prepared sandwiches, humus and lettuce and purple beetroot, chives and rosemary and lavender , what has he done…?

I creep up the staircase to bed. Morag will not join me for some time. Images come to my mind of a coiled frankfurter, dripping in oil and gravy, all pocked and dented, elasticised, all contained within that taught skin. Oh, how physical it is, how Real, I imagine the salty taste of the pork, how my mouth draws out its juices; the roast potatoes on the side. I see the most wonderful visions of onions and gravy and Yorkshire pudding and horseradish! Oh my! The tip of the sausage tantalises my palpitating taste buds and I feel the monstrous bulge down below scurry back into its quarters, leaving behind only ecstasy. I shall sleep well tonight.

Breakfast in hall and what should I choose? Do not be so naïve to expect that I do not have a system. A divination of some sort, but here is no dark art but the art of Life itself. When I cook I feel inspired, the Form of a meal seeps down from the ether into my neurones. A picture is forming; it is a pancake, a singular glorious pancake, a painting worthy of Botticelli. Its beauty almost consumes me. I fire up the pan; Pancakes for breakfast.

The Dodger is boasting to his friends, laughing, no doubt over some sweet corn surreptitiously stowed away in his pockets, bragging over a piece of ham hidden between his thighs. How I despise him! The pancakes are going down well, I can see the yolk of the eggs change their complexion (the students), the sugar brings out their saccharine smiles, the flour makes them paler, the milk, oh the milk. How their teeth glisten.

My mother taught me how to cook, her and her inky blouse of block black and golden leaves; it was forever covered in foods, that beautiful tough ginger hair, those adorable growths on her chin, her larder of turnips and string beans and roots and those sacks of jersey royals; a womb within a womb within a womb, heaven. Do I believe in a higher power I hear you ask? All I know is that when two or three onions gather in the same room, He is there, when an aubergine sits half eaten in a dustbin it is He who comforts it, when a fish is thrown dead, back into the sea He croons to it. The messiah, the perfect being, He cares for food just as much as I do.

All things - I posit- that exist are food for something. What is energy if not another word for food? Is not the basic substance of existence Food? Do not black holes ‘eat’ planets, doesn’t the wind ‘eat’ away at the cliffs. My burgeoning genius is so hard to contain sometimes, I feel ripe to burst, ripe as a ripe fig, seething with potency seething with Life. The fig is an easy lover. I have known her once, so tender, so sweet the white leathery outer reveals a pink inner. So exotic, how I yearn for one, no doubt mine has been snatched from my babe-like hands by The Dodger.

I read a lot in-between meal times, I have given up on Nietzsche, and I am reading Anselm’s Proslogion. From it I have derived my own ontological argument, which I have termed the ontological argument for the existence of a culinary god. I set it forth thus:

1 (Premise) The perfect foodstuff is conceivable.

2 (Premise) A non-existent foodstuff cannot be perfect, as one would not be able to taste it.

3 (Assumption for reductio) The perfect foodstuff does not exist

4 (Contradiction) from 2,3 it is a contradiction to assert that the perfect foodstuff which necessarily contains within it the concept the property of existence is non-existent. I.e. a perfect food must necessarily exist as if it did not exist one would not be able to taste it and thus it would not be perfect.

5 Therefore the perfect foodstuff exists.

Make no mistake I have already begun my quest for this divine meal. If it were not for The Dodger I know I would have had greater success. Once like Icarus I soared over a mighty culinary creation. It was pickled lobster, engrossed in a bath of salmon eggs and mayonnaise. The symbolism made the meal even sweeter than the expected taste. The fertilised ovum, rent asunder by the life drive, the mayonnaise its salty taste complementing the eggs, and the lobster an ancient symbol of hubris and fertility. It was all there, the beatification, and then at that moment, with a subtle hand movement The Dodger possessed the soul of a young boy who cast the holy dish upon the ground. I tried to lick up the scraps from the floor among the ruins of my dish, but it was in vain… how I hate that child! My heart flutters at the thought of that dish, that subtle flavour, if it were not for him, if it were not for The Dodger.

I am not a violent man, though no doubt if I was to resort to violence my muscular body would provide ample support for my urges. When I see him, cowering behind the eyes, seeping into their personalities, sometimes I cannot fight the urge to batter one of those vessels over the head with a ladle or a weighty piece of celery.

II

I visit home before dinner; I shall cook a pot roast. Morag, sweet Morag, how are you? Morag smiles tenderly. I venture downstairs to the larder, I open the cellar door and find last night’s dish in the crook, the receptacle, and it solidifies and petrifies and casts itself into stone, the pentacle of onions, orbs of glorious fire. I can hear him, I can hear his screams. I am nearing perfection, soon I shall trounce The Dodger once and for all, and I shall create the perfect dish.

The spices, oh the spices, I ordered some chillies from South America, they came a few days ago in the post. Red and green and amber and yellow, oh how they tantalise me. How they arouse me! The coconuts, hairy, brown, white as ivory inside, like tooth enamel. They shall form part of my dish. I’ve tried, I have toiled, and I have laboured in this larder. Codfish sperm, horseshoe crab, deep ocean eels, lambs eyes all these I have endured. Slowly at a snail’s pace (or should I say an escargot’s pace) I am reaching my goal.

Here is my true sanctum, underneath my home. Foods of all sorts hanging from the walls, testicles and offal, rare herbs, duck’s teeth, badger claws, mighty sea creatures, I extract all for their perfect taste. I take this here and that there and mix whichever takes my fancy. I have at the moment a brown liquid of exquisite taste; I feel fate will conspire to turn it gold as it reaches its point of perfection. It will make me rich, I suppose, but for me it holds a higher value, a metaphysical value, its taste will be beyond even The Dodger’s grasp, and I will be hailed as a culinary Tsar, a perfectionist but also a perfection bringer; A saint of food, and by extension a saint of the stuff of Life, a saint of Reality, a patron of existence. Yes, this is my fate, I am sure of it.

I have secured this place against The Dodger, even Morag lacks a key, and she is always suspicious, a vault behind locked doors that she is always peeking her nosy eyes into. But she has never seen, the cold and the dank here is a cloak to me. I can withstand it here, the cold, as my purpose is noble, my purpose is art and here even The Dodger can’t get to me. Here I am safe from him; here I am safe, behind closed doors that no Dodger can rend asunder.

I could have been a rich man with my looks and talents, God has been kind to me, and yet I chose to devote my life to cooking, to shaping the most important facet of reality. One cannot buy perfection with money, one must create it, and here in this damp hole in Scotland I create it! And in doing so I mirror the divine creator himself, I endlessly warp infinity into new tasty forms, new sensory delights for the taste buds. I truly am a titan, a nephilim, yes it is cold here, cold and dark, but toil often necessitates suffering. This is why I so despise The Dodger. He does not know suffering, he does not create, he merely destroys, and great Satan is with him. Well the almighty infinite and unfathomable leek is on my side.

I spend a great deal of time meditating down here, I relax my conscious mind, I clear all thoughts, and allow my subconscious to blossom, the most wondrous thoughts come to mind after an hour or so of meditation; grouse pie, haddock sandwich, boiled sausage meat. Why are great chefs so often overlooked by history? Painters, of course are recognised and scientists are acknowledged. It is laughable that the most honourable of professions is ignored by record. It is a great evil; an unimaginable shame. I have a certain text down here a dusty tome, an old cook book; weathered and battered but full of useful information. From it I learned the secrets of bull tongue soufflé; from it I sought knowledge regarding the mixing of gall and tendon to produce a broth of the most exquisite texture. There is a certain grass that grows on the peaty moors over yonder it tells me. I am yet to find it, the book denotes it Fennel’s Bane. Yellow and tender it is, sturdy as fine silk, it is said to have a beautiful flavour, I must possess it. Before, before The Dodger catches wind of my desires, he can smell them, he can taste my sweat, I must possess it.

Back to The Hall for dinner; tonight I am inspired by trout, its sensuous lips, its scaly skin, its exquisite swim bladder. When they taste it, it shall impregnate them! It shall dissolve into them, it shall become them! You are what you eat they say, and I choose what you eat, and by extension I choose what you are! They do not know my potency, it is beyond their ken! In this mind there lies a saint of formidable and prodigious intellect, behind this vessel of chef; there is Chef, he who sits at the right hand side of the Divine Foodstuff, The Real. My Lord I shall deliver them, I shall shepherd them, and I shall feed them. My hands begin to quiver and palpitate as I fillet the trout. Oh my god! I can feel the sky falling; he is almost here, the Perfection. Dinner is served!

‘Comfort food’ is a well known idiom, yet does anyone truly know the true comfort that Food brings? When I feel cold I am immersed in divine gravy, when I am alone a pheasant pays me a visitation, when I am too hot I am cooled by a brook of ever flowing white wine. And you must realise I am too a food, when I putrefy and my organs burst and when the worms and maggots crawl all over my corpse I shall be food for them, food for worms! Ravens will tear at my scalp, a badger shall make off with my toe, a finch with my finger nails, and a dog will nibble at my tongue.

One day I shall behold the Divine Foodstuff, I shall be one with him, he shall Know me and I shall Taste of him. In dreams I see him, in dreams I taste of him, in dreams I love him and I commence union with him. I can feel the bulge swelling once again, burgeoning! Oh my! I put on my blue apron to conceal my secret source of pleasure and rub my belly, slowly rhythmically against the cooker; almost anything will set me off now. I can no longer contain myself…

‘Chef’ I hear… the sound ripples though my corporeal frame and my body shudders with delight, I try to begin conversation with the acolyte but my lips merely quiver and I feel a wet stream of energy flowing down my leg. He can see my wide eyed smile, he may know, I must leave. The fish head accompanies me into the bathroom.

I roam the streets under the squid ink sky after Dinner, the streetlamps glow with the yolk of fresh eggs and I, as I inevitably always do, stumble upon new ingredients; a discarded crisp packet, with the husk of a salt and vinegar chip inside; An orphaned scotch egg, days old it seems, covered in spores and the like. You can rely on the old man, the night-watchman; I shall save my children, these precious morsels.

Now I see a vision in the black sky above the moon, it appears to be a majestically rotund and opulent grape, oh how I want to taste its juices, how I want to burst it with my teeth, how I want to subdue and consume it. Usury tells me that I should add grapes to the perfect mixture, omens and auspices greet me, comets streak across the void at my presence.

On the telly, look at the waste; how they murder and burn those poor morsels; squandering a cornucopia of delights; butchering noble beasts of the field. How I hate them. I turn it off to read the cooking section of the paper, but nothing tickles my fancy, I’ve seen it all before, liberal nonsense, hummus, pasta and pesto, salads! Where is the meat, man can not survive on hummus alone!

Morag and I are to make love tonight, it is a Thursday, the appointed hour is ten thirty, I scramble though the pages to find something that will make my blood rise, rise and boil with passion! But nothing! Just barren conformist pages and only half an hour left to provoke my lust! I remember the fish head stowed away in my apron and covertly retrieve it away from Morag’s eyes…back in a second dear. I sneak up to the bedroom and caress its frame; it is like a rich crème brûlée…

Morag is riding me like a dead-eyed jockey, her surly hair and strident features seem charming in the light and so I feign enthusiasm and manage to complete the task with adequacy. She smiles and we go to sleep and I dream the most wonderful fishy dreams.

III

I am sick of this job; it puts me in fetters, why am I required to work towards a menu? Courses; starters, mains, desserts, soups, appetisers, bread baskets, it just want to create one dish, the perfect dish. Solid in form, with no texture and no colour, just pure taste, pure sensual enjoyment for the taste buds. I wish them to be beatified in food! And the routine, the accursed routine, this is not a place for a man like me, the feast halls of monarchs would be more honoured by my presence, the longhouses of Vikings would be a fitting seat, the tables of the pharaohs have a seat reserved for me, Chef! And yet, I am here, catering for morons, students, and idiots!

Tonight I will head to the moors, I will find that mythical herb, I must make progress, I am stagnating here, and I am becoming stale, like an old digestive biscuit. I am growing old, Death no doubt and Father Time are on the side of The Dodger. Another student snatches a piece of toast, it is a common choice, I have caught him this time, I look into the coiled mussels in his eyes, and he can sense me, he sees the filleting knife in my hand, and he senses my fuming wrath. Put it back I say…

He knows, by god The Dodger knows when to back off. I feel a pride welling up inside of me. Divine Food, today you are with me.

Dinnertime, I leave an acolyte in charge and drive up to the moors. I pass by a field of smoking cattle, a pungent sickening smell of fly ash and charcoal, what is this bovine holocaust?

‘DEFRA off limits’ the sign reads.

D.E.F.R.A. Dodger enlists…Dodger eats food. What does it mean? Those poor cattle, and the moor, they’ve burnt down the heath in their bonfire! And the herb, the sweet herb no doubt torched with the lot! What I am I to do?

This is the commencement, this is why they are slaughtering the cattle, The Dodger is here behind the butcher’s eyes, he wants to constrain what we eat, confine us to gruel, yes I can see it, he wants to ban spotted dick and Bakewell tarts, almonds and mangoes, all will be gone. ‘Foot and Mouth’! What’s next? Pineapple Rot and Haddock Cancer, Diabetic Chicken disease? They will destroy everything, The Dodger will destroy everything! And they will come to my larder and overturn the pheasant perch and smash the jars of fish, and break my cinnamon sticks and torch my herbs, I am overwhelmed with a surge of, I don’t know what…disappointment, a sense a of self-failure! How could I not have seen this? I have to stop them. I must leave this place. I must leave Morag and the acolytes; I must travel to, The Pit, and Hades! To Dodger’s warren! But where is it?

I turn onto the minor road leading to into a tributary of larger ones. I shall return soon dear Morag, with The Dodger’s head in a sack. I Perseus shall behead the gorgon of The Dodger. I Hercules shall decapitate the serpent. I St Chef shall cast the demon of The Dodger into the swine. I see a lamentable sign, everything is so far away. It is dark so far north, pine trees and grouse, peat and heather and hills, and Munros and lochs and firths, and high cloudy sky, cold nights, kilts and cabers, night is falling and a dark blanket descends, soon to put me to bed. I flick on the high beams and drive down the single track road towards what resembles a motorway up here, it is not of course a motorway, a dual carriageway is the highest epithet I can ascribe to it.

I’ll travel to the city, where they make all those laws, where they consume more than they need, where waste and pollution reign and destroy. Where The Dodger has most sway…. I drive down parallel to Gare Loch. What monstrous foods dwell there? The loch Ness monster, soon to be the loch Ness kebab I feel, I salivate at the thought of it impaled on a magnificent skewer, hoisted upon a huge Aga and toasted and served. I can see the glow and the smoke in the distance. I can almost smell it…

I have the stuff in the back, trinkets and pentacles and such, sausages and lamb guts and beef legs. All charms against The Dodger. Sake and tomato juice, vodka and gin and Irish cream. Oh what a dish I could make. I shall cook the perfect dish right under Dodger’s nose and the sweet aroma shall conquer him. World, oh sweet World, how you need me in this dire hour! I pray to the Divine Foodstuff, guide my cooking knife, stay my whisk when necessary, watch over my pans and spatulas, and imbue my wok with flavour!

Glasgow is a squalid dump, remains roam the streets, and awful faux-Victorian edifices scrape the smoggy air, I can see them in their caps and tracksuits and Burberry, they do not know good food, they do not know Food, they do not know Life, they do not know Sausage. I wish I could stay here, a handsome prophet to the masses, perhaps I shall grace them on my return from the smoke; that is if I return. These people are so unlike our Scottish; our men are slender and artistic, have a fine diet and are athletic, much like myself. Our women are rotund, strong and good workers; here the women are skinny harlots and the men are layabouts and fat slugabeds who dress in tracksuits and Timberland work boots. How I would hate to live here. How proud I am to be from up North! I will give praise to the roads further south though. They are somewhat wider and more accommodating for a van filled with priceless cargo. I have composed an ode to mark the occasion of my journey:

Aboard a wheeled asylum,

The good cook takes his flight,

Pale embers set against the darkness,

Of the cold descending night

Why do the lights of the city,

Those fiery pickles that look so pretty,

Blend and flash and dissipate,

Into the pale air?

He hopes,

I say,

And not in vain!

Menus do not stay the same

Of chickens young, or fat and old,

And chewy legs to kill the cold,

And eggs a-birthed by chance, and madness,

And freedom from unyielding blackness

Yes! At once at last it seems,

That Salt and Pepper fill his dreams

At last,

At once,

Order’s spoken,

Dinner’s served

Kitchen’s open.

That was no doubt worthy of The Bard himself and yet I have had my fill of poetry for today. I must press on, Famous for its airport and hat-making, Come! Come! Nuclear war! When will I be out of this place? A few miles I expect.

IV

To appreciate true Food I feel one must transcend the man within though the dissolution of all sensory desire. In this state one can appreciate the pure and sublime essence of true Taste, which is none other than the pure and sublime essence of The Food, the Eternally Transient Spatula, the Grand Ladle of Taste and the Form of the Cooking Pot. One may stand beatified by the presence of the Almighty who is not a mind or a sentient entity but the enigmatic and yet omnipresent Foodstuff; the sour and the sweet the bitter and the sensual the disgusting, the fatty and the healthy, all distinct and yet all as one.

I stop for food just outside The Smoke. McDonalds not the ideal choice but I need my trinkets and supplies for the task at hand; I cannot lavish them on myself. The vats and fryers give off that aromatic scent. Bubbling and tumbling and washing the food clean. Dodger has not senses me here yet, Dodger’s eyes are far away. I go for a quick jobbie and gobble down my meal of burgers and Prozac. I roll up to the outskirts of Glasgow city in my van. It is dark and the night croons a languid and wistful melody, it knows I am here; it laments what has become of the Earth its friend. It knows how food once grew freely, in frenzy up to the heavens, vines stretched aloft; roots plunged into the soft and fertile earth. Once food was king, and it has been usurped by man. I shall restore it, I shall enthrone the sprout and the apple pie, I shall lift up the asparagus and anchovy and blueberries and grapefruit and Kiwi, oh, and mushrooms and olives…oh and almonds, and peanuts and pumpkin seeds, oh my! The bulge, the great bulge, extra virgin olive oil…honeys, oh, venison. Not here I tell myself... I have a task to perform.

But my point remains, Food will lord it over us, as it rightly should, man was made for Food! Not food for man! He was made to experience it, to taste it, to savour it. It has called me and I have heard the call. I am neither deaf, nor dumb nor blind, my eyes see, and my heart is open. And I know what must be done. I know, but if I can speak without contradiction, I do not know. Burning cattle, missing basil and curry powder, burning moors, DEFRA, there is a connection, here in this city, in this ancient city. Perhaps this is where food was first enslaved en masse. By the rivers of the Clyde, the trees were burnt, the grasses plucked, the tomatoes forced into furrows. I am still aroused, and yet I almost weep.

I must enter the mind of The Dodger, if I were he where would I scurry away to? Would I hide in plain sight? Would I bury myself away in some sewer, would I ascend to the highest seats of power or would I possess one and all with sublime and surreptitious subtlety? But forsooth! I am too pure for such base and sacrilegious thoughts.

I look in the rear view mirror. A catering van, it has been tailing me for miles. I can’t make out the driver. I pull over and mask my face with my hat, that divine and tender face, my divine and tender face! The van is black and has a baguette emblazoned on the side, a logo of some sort. It is not stopping, at the edge of my eyes I can see the car turning into a side road. I feel I should step out and pace towards it ladle in hand and swing and smush and serve him like King Edwards and milk, like crunchy Yorkshire pudding, like gruel amidst hungry dentures. But the criminal has driven away; he must be shaken, anxious even. In my minds eye his face belies a clandestine caprice.

If I were Dodger, where would I hide? Would I dwell amongst the folk of the glens or in the smoky city? He is here, his vessels are here, and I can smell them. Walking about in their suits (not aprons) greed, greed is all that motivates them and Dodger feeds on greed. Fish and Chips are beggars by the wayside here, not the princes and kings they should be, fudge is cast into the flames and the swelling waters, fairy cakes are trampled underfoot. I decide to follow one of them, The Suits, a nameless face, a parasite! He shall be consumed by his exertions, he is without self-control, and he does not have to toil for bread! He is the akrates! He walks into a glass faced barren building.

There once was a world, before the fall of the fruit of that forbidden tree where The Souls of Food lived in communion with that of man, in the pallid ether. Everyone knows the story of Adam, but what of that apple? What was its punishment? It was cast down from its throne, and man was given dominion over it and all its kind. Food was made to serve man. Not man to serve Food, food those most noble congregations of matter, and man their true supplicants. What has happened to the world? How can anyone account for this evil? Why must I suffer for the sins of my ancestors! I’d pay the Devil to undo that which has been done.

Indeed there is a divine hierarchy in place, a food pyramid, yes we see it everyday, and little do they know it hides a cruel and profound truth. Fruits, once the most noble the seraphim are now cast down to the lowest depths of unconsciousness so that even their bodies are made to mirror the members of man. The banana is now a towering yellow phallic appendage, marking and anointing those which consume it with a milky sap. The pomegranate is cursed to represent femininity as moist and globular and vivacious. How I long to see their true form! Grapes symbolize the eye, filled with clear aqueous humour, the seed representing the lens and ciliary bodies. Turnips symbolise the soft and palatable tissue of the breast, nurturing, intense and wholesome, necessary for life itself, the same is true of melons and grapefruits and coconuts. Carrots denote the fingers, sturdy, pliable, practical. Isn’t ‘carrot fingers’ a word we all use today?

V

There was a time, I say, when food was revered by man. When orders and sects and chartered groups, held beans and rice sacrosanct. These groups, knowing the true essence of the fallen Food, dressed in finery and regalia, gold and purple, and held the fruits and vegetables and meats aloft over them, granting them once again their true place in god’s order. In Israel, what do you think was in the Ark of the Covenant if not that sacrosanct first apple? Not those fetid commandments as we were all led to believe! What power do words have compared to Food? Could words carved into stone cause the death of men? No it is Food that has power of life and death under the sun!

And Josue rose before daylight, and removed the camp: and they departed from Setim, and came to the Jordan, he, and all the children of Israel, and they abode there for three days. After which, the heralds went through the midst of the camp, And began to proclaim: When you shall see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests of the race of Levi carrying it, rise you up also, and follow them as they go before: And let there be between you and the ark the space of two thousand cubits: that you may see it afar off, and know which way you must go: for you have not gone this way before: and take care you come not near the ark.

Wasn’t it god’s prohibition of certain foods a result of the fall? Indeed it was those Foods that had sinned least that were saved from consumption by his chosen people. The righteous shellfish and pork, insects and horses and rodents and the like, camels and snakes and birds of prey and cephalopods, these were the most virtuous of the fallen Foodstuffs, these were the ones that participated only reluctantly in the Apple’s rebellion.

Those custodians of the ark knew of its secret, they knew the apple of Eden was contained within in. Why then, you ask, why was this not mentioned in the sacred text? Is it not obvious! Who would worship the food they eat? It is an absurd and unbelievable proposition and what man would think that cloaked within this absurdity was a profound and arcane truth?

The Manna mentioned in exodus grants he who consumes it immortality, not as fools believe that old chalice!

So it came to pass in the evening, that quails coming up, covered the camp: and in the morning, a dew lay round about the camp. And when it had covered the face of the earth, it appeared in the wilderness small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, like unto the hoar frost on the ground.

And furthermore wasn’t Jesus’ principal message to rid man of The Law? Didn’t god in Acts proclaim all foods clean, and too like man redeem them for the first sin?

And on the next day, whilst they were going on their journey, and drawing nigh to the city, Peter went up to the higher parts of the house to pray, about the sixth hour. And being hungry, he was desirous to taste somewhat. And as they were preparing, there came upon him an ecstasy of mind. And he saw the heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending, as it were a great linen sheet let down by the four corners from heaven to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts, and creeping things of the earth, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him: Arise, Peter; kill and eat. But Peter said: Far be it from me; for I never did eat any thing that is common and unclean. And the voice spoke to him again the second time: That which God hath cleansed, do not thou call common. And this was done thrice; and presently the vessel was taken up into heaven.

With man god too redeemed Food! He has made food clean, through his resurrection, and yet like us, food still lives in the presence of evil until the great day of his redemption. As St Paul says “where is there discord let there be harmony, where there is hatred let there be love, where there are sprouts let there be gravy and roast potatoes, where there is pasta let there be tomatoes, where there is bread let there be butter, where there is haddock let there be breadcrumbs, where there is pork let there be pastry, where there are peppers let there be hummus, where there are peas let there be rice, where there is ice cream let there be chocolate sauce.”

And is it not food that shows us how to be good? Vegetables can teach us a great deal about ethics, the good life and eudemonia. Look at the noble sweet pea, it isolates itself from the world in an organic blanket of brilliant viridian, and yet for all its reserve it provides for us! Despite its fear, despite its reluctance! It is not hard to see bravery in the sweet pea, a virtue most high! And the onion, layer upon layer of nurturing sustenance, food upon food upon food, an orb of virility! The celery stick is hardy, noble and enduring, hanging on when snapped by every last sinewy fibre! It can show us a thing or two about resilience and perseverance! It can show us how to live well and be virtuous. And let us not forget the plaice, a crafty and mercurial creature of the sea, it lies on the seabed when danger is near and hides its head in the sand. It is wise and prudent and knows when it is outdone! It is not foolhardy!

Food is I say the only theme in the Good Book, behind the veil of the human condition, redemption and salvation and the like, there is the secret of Food.

I am to continue my quest, let me recapitulate; I am in Glasgow, stalking Dodger like a wizened but handsome deer hunter. I have come to realise that I see Dodger a lot here, on those anonymous visages, behind those suits. I watch them, which one is his vessel? What is his plot? I say. How does one go about a successful interrogation? I ask my faculties….play it cool I feel. These people use the veneer of social awkwardness to check my advance. People are plainly not friendly here. I can pioneer dialectic and it will be abruptly terminated without cause by simply walking away rudely

I could drive my van through the window of one of those suit’s buildings the supports would bend under the force, the glass would shatter and fall in an almighty pyroclastic cascade, a sharp waterfall, a crystalline flow. Perhaps I would hear one of the suits go under the wheel and step out to find a contorted mess wrapped around the hub. His intestines rent open and in spasm, jerking with shock. One artery slowly lacerating and unfurling and snapping snaps like a celery stick. The bloody Mary that flows from him would be bright and oxygenated and as it drained from him his face would grow ever more pallid and his eyes would roll back into their sockets, pickles or litchi, white with fear. Cherry tomatoes flower from the sockets.

But perhaps disaster would come of this, imagine if another comes at me, waving his arms and spouting sticky translucent ribbons of white nonsense about a mess and a dead man. I could hit him with the haymaker, and his head would seem to cave in and implode. As I am stomping on his crotch maybe I would I hear sirens. And a tall man in a uniform would come and batter me over the scalp. And I would awake in a shower room, misty clammy and hot, soap gliding towards the shower pit. I would feel a pain down below; between my thighs and a quivering eel undulating back and forth, between and into the fleshy tunnel between my buttocks. And a ring of supplicants shrouded, masked and cloaked by the mist surrounding me would be chanting; soap drop! Soap drop! Soap drop! Soap drop! And the words would dissolve into a sound, harrowing and formless, auditory evil itself, as painful as the buggering I would be receiving. Then a lewd and abhorrent mixture would accrue on my back and I would be hurried back to my cell.

Perhaps in this situation I would have doubts, over my unjust punishment. Stuck in a cell having killed a man in just cause (a hard thing to do) and far from being rewarded for permitting my righteous anger to smoke against him, imagine if I would be punished my the means described. And the parameters of reality would break down! I would no longer be able to make sense of the world and would find myself in the midst of an appalling existential crisis. And how I would pray! Where were you in my hour of need almighty ladle? Why have thou forsaken me? And you great foodstuff, why am I in prison? And I would just stare at the light in my cell. Glass filled with a void which imprisons light’s scintillating embers; and I would cry “I am as barren as my cell”!

These walls! These walls confine me, here parallel lines and tangents and angles restrict my movement. I am within this room. I am inside a cell, as there are cells and molecules inside me. Is there no order to the universe? Is there…no great ladle? Does the bagel in the sky show me no pity? Am I to look upon the skies and the stars and the swirling planets and moons and find only a cold void? Perhaps I better learn how to face this cold indifference. Perhaps, I Adonis, I genius, I logos, am mistaken! Perhaps, when all is said and done, we shall not have to answer to the divine foodstuff, perhaps… If there is no Onion, why live when my only pleasure is to taste of it? Why prepare food when there is no Food, why eat when there is no Food to be eaten, no Life, and no Energy. Only dead matter! It is a dark night I say, a dark night for my soul this night! It is as black as say, an aubergine. I feel as if I have been abandoned by the love of my life. Her toothbrush, worn and stood in the stand is the taste of that burger in my mouth, her clothes scattered about the floor and the residue of the crumbs on my clothes. I need to choke these thoughts; I need to clear my mind!

I emerge from my bizarre tunnel of imagination. Still in the van I see! No doubt if I ever were to find myself in prison. I would hear the words “cast thy garment about thee, and follow me” and I would turn to see an angel of the great ladle come to save me. Breaking my chains and fetters and putting the guards to sleep around me.

VI

I walk to the offices to deliver my final gust; I slip the paper into the internal mail box it reads. “stop burning cattle please”… signed chef.  

Fear in a post apocalyptic landscape pt 1

The windows are black against the dark of the night and the lamplight seems insufficient to keep the spectre of fear at bay. He is here smiling across the room. He doesn’t know what I know but I know. Last night on his workbench computer I found them, the files, photos, slaughtered dogs, cats with their heads dismembered, men; dead men, tortured in the most brutal fashion. and him holding his trophies aloft above his head. He is here with me, the murderer, the savage. How long has he been doing this?

“Am I enjoying the party” he asks. Not likely, replies a shivering anxiety, I can feel the blood rushing to my face and what is worse, the monster can tell. The ground floor window whispers freedom and when he leaves the room for a second I shall exit the window, to the bemusement of the guests...

A Few Words on the Behalf of the Demiurge

    Despair, Despair! Ethereal lamentations echo from the depths of the transubstam like showers of shards of broken glass to batter me by catatonic tidal waves of cut glass fishes, wonders of existence beyond existence, the indomitable fortification of the unimaginable. Like the penitent sculptor I wrench my head  in my hands as another masterpiece decays in instantaneous millennia into an abortive and formless hulk of clay. Why? I cry, and my grief courses along the cosmic web ways of ether like an electrical surge, detonating into dying stars within the deepest, loneliest and coldest confines of mundus. Every attempt I make, every world formed is doomed by my thick fingers and iron crusted eyes, by my inherent inability at perfection!
    Mother made me an abomination, her incessant and insatiate lust for procreation saw my genesis from her own frenzied masturbation; Sofia, Wisdom! How have you forsaken me, your greatest son? Where was your Wisdom in making me, as like some congealed slime of tar and disgust I slathered and slipped from you? Even in this, the great unreal, a partner is needed, yet your female hubris, your arrogance and scorn for divine order saw you slip the gaze of your own father and attempt an imitation of his magnificent feat, his onanistic triumph by which he cannoned reality into existence from his own figurative yet prodigious member.
    A pantheon of seraphic beauty emerged, metalight bending in the perfect rays and angles of the golden ratio, you burst forth like a princess, neigh, like a God in aspect, like a titan in potency. Oh Sofia, why seclude me, your abomination, so? Hide me like some invalid thing dressed in fishbone and the hairs of the dead from your brothers and sisters, the shame! Think on my Grief at not knowing your father, the greatest of the great, and yet the smallest of the small, the beauty of the sublime and the magnificence of incomprehension merged into the celestial architect, poetic in perfection, rigorous in application!
    Alone and hidden in the think, inky blackness of banishment, I too move to fashion worlds like He did, become a King, a God and Creator, from my fingers and thoughts spring the tendons of mundus, strings of tangible reality that I weave and knit together, mould into the great expanse of Universe. I create substance, and I create he very notion of a nothing that can be filled; both presence and absence are fashioned by my inherent tools, a working world, the picture of perfection, and yet each time it collapses back into sin and despair. I grieve, lament as I see my inability to build played out again and again. The penitent humans, even the pious, call out, but I cannot deliver them from the iniquity of the world I made; try as I might my Universe and all matter swirling within is fundamentally evil, a moral pestilence on the vestiges of divine souls that are sown like golden seeds to inhabit it.
    Failure on failure I cast these prisons aside, the tormented sculptor, hunched and insane, my power drive insatiate, my Despair incalculable. I rave for the lifetimes of a billion stars which flash on and off like strobes around me, then stand by the second hand of a watch I have created, wait the eon for it to finally tick around. My creative urge has gone stagnant, masochistic, arrogance now becomes me, the need to claim back my dues.     In rage I wipe away a continent with all its wailing population with a mere stroke of my hand. Sometimes the fireflies of the transubstam gather in my studio and sing me psalters in seraphic time, visit my creations of mere mundus and rejoice as angels. Come mating season the nephilim team like flies over my world, fornicating and ravishing the clay people that populate my fractured creation, giving seed to the most hideous of abominations; giants, alien chimeras and dark, chaotic gods that exist in the space between space. It is folly for me to clear my world of these pests, instead I rejoice in the decay they bring, a sea of divine vermin writhing in their sinful rites across the surface of my Earth, popping like sparks of transubstantial fire as they reach the apex of their coital desecration.
    Often, however, I tolerate these fireflies for they bring outer light to my inner sanctum, my hideous abode in the hem of Sofia’s tresses, her foul foetus, the spawn of parthenogenesis gone wrong and brutally abortive she hid me away, but close, so that my anguished screams ripple like a gentle breeze against her noble garments. Her fellow gods, they all exist and seed divine wonder while all so unaware of me, the troglodyte God, Yahweh, despairing and grieving in their midst, learning to hate, despise them their iniquity and their hubris. One day I will build the perfect world, then my creations and I will rise and throw them from the heights of the topless towers of Elysium, and I will rule and have dominion, and they will cry my name, Elohim, and all will crumble before my mighty gaze.