~ the stigma of the booth

I don’t like speaking of my enslavement to spasmo-nemigron. In my shame, I even give it a nom-de-plume. I like to think of myself as a whole person without the inclusion of the controversial Bentley compound, but currently I’m not. The equation – at this time - is incomplete without my 9am sublingual dose ... and my diet vanilla coke ... and my copy of the Age ...

Polly’s school is just behind the Pinewood shops. After their children have gone in, many of the mothers mill in the courtyard before breaking up to go their separate ways. Some use the opportunity to go shopping. A few of these go shopping at the chemist where I acquire my spasmo-nemigron, and where my wife acquires her spasmo-dromoran.

I wonder how many mothers recognise the austere booth at the rear of the pharmacy for what it is? Well, one actually works there, but she takes her responsibilities seriously and appears unprejudiced. Neither of us have spoken openly with her about it, but she had no obvious reservations about leaving her daughter at our house for Polly’s party; if she considered us ravening drug fiends, might she not have had second thoughts?

It’s the other, less informed parents that need watching. B--- is a single father who also sups at the evil well of spasmo-dromoran. He tells a cautionary tale.

After he was recognised receiving his dose by a parent from his son’s school, the word spread among gossiping mothers. It wouldn’t have been much of an issue if they had merely shunned B--- - who is bearded, shabby, alternative and an unnatural fit for any suburban socio-parental bloc - but the pall of fear and prejudice also descended upon the innocent son.

I wish I could give you more details on this, but my memory fails me. Also, there may have been an element of paranoia, plus the school involved was Wesley, which may have skewed the parental reaction away from the mean ...

Earlier this week, my wife was seen emerging from the pharmacotherapy booth by the mother of one of Polly’s more obscure classmates. Who knows what the repercussions will be? One thing she has in her favour is her excellent grooming. Only on particularly bad days does she even come close to resembling a hollowed-out, slack-featured, opioid dependent Piltdown woman. The problem is the junky who exits the booth before her and the one who scurries in after.

Often, these are the characters who give the game away, who make the purpose of the booth all too evident. Some, but not many, are indistinguishable from the general clientele. Some are grey shadows, barely noticeable even when you look directly at them. Others lurk in attitudes of extreme discomfort, casting glances of suppurating evil about the store. Others, in faded track-suit pants, runners and beanies give themselves away sartorially. Others speak in loud voices, warmly greeting strangers like friendly drunks, pontificating on subjects of which they are entirely ignorant ...

Who knows what the average customer thinks of this, passing through the chemist on a casual visit ... It’s hard to look at it subjectively after visiting this and other similar booths on thousands of mornings. Do I look any better than my peers in this mournful sub-set of society? Perhaps someone out there can tell me. All I know is that the best way to solve this problem is to take a blade to my nemesis, to finally slip the manacles of my indifferent slavemaster.

~ the legs of the mighty

Days pass. Little changes. I clutch at my routines as if they are all that prevents my fall into the abyss.

Since I’ve been attempting to correct my financial situation by selling on ebay, I’ve had to actively search for stock. Books. My wife is incredulous about my need to keep buying, when the house is littered with ziggurats of piled books. She doesn’t understand. Those great mounds are composed of incomplete trilogies or series, which I am waiting to complete. You get a better result that way. There are also an awful lot of books on which I’m undecided. They look like they might sell… but I need to do a little research… and rarely do I have time… What I really need is have a market stall to clear everything out…

Then there are the books I want to keep. Every time I’ve abandoned or sold my library down the years, I’ve bitterly regretted it. I feel peace in a house full of books. A library has an aura, it emanates a gentle bookish radiance. It is a great seam of potential, there for the realisation. I love scanning shelves, head tilted sideways, waiting for a title or author’s name to leap out at me. I love it most when the books are mine, and I know that every one of them was chosen for a reason. I love having so many books that I can’t keep track of them. I love being surprised by what I’ve forgotten.

But, of course, it’s also a burden. A great weight of material for which I am responsible and which I must keep in order. At present there’s anarchy. I have nowhere near the amount of shelving I need. My ebay stock bleeds through my personal collection. The kitten knocks over the teetering columns, and time turns my neat arrangements into kipple.

I didn’t mean to talk so much about books.

Currently, my wife has a debilitating virus. Of course, I’m suspicious, but my instincts are telling me it’s not the kind of ‘virus’ one gets from consuming too much [or too little] of the soporific honeycomb.

Indeed, she’s been reasonably controlled of late. I believe I have managed to expunge the Romanian’s phone number from her phonebook – though in the past he has shown a nasty tendency to ring out of the blue, just because ‘he’s in the area’. Thankfully, without his number, her ability to ‘just pop out for a second’ is massively reduced.

Strangely, with the easing of my own enslavement to drugs, I find it increasingly difficult to ascertain my wife’s state. I have hacked my way clear, I think, to another plane, where priorities and potentials are very different. Perhaps that’s why my first knowledge of any flare up on my wife’s part comes only when the problem has gotten out of hand. Mind you, she is now on a mind-numbing dose of Spasmo-Dromoran - meaning she needs a hell of a blast of high-grade honeycomb to become visibly stoned. She openly admits feeling little or nothing when she does it - so why does she do it? Such are the mysteries of addiction – though needle fixation and simple habituation I’m sure play a part.

But trust is a problem. Since I can no longer rely on my senses, I find myself automatically assuming the worst, assuming that any explanation is a lie, that any trip to the supermarket is a scoring expedition …

*

Depending on luck, Camberwell market can be a good place to find the kind of books I sell. I’ve taught myself to ignore the things I might be at risk of purchasing for myself, [ie stuffed animals, general grotesquerie], and concentrate on my task. It’s frustrating how prices vary. One or two dollars is the normal market price for a paperback, but there are stallholders who charge over ten…

Yesterday was the first time in ages I’d been at the market. I encountered two faces from Erin and Hendrik’s wedding – Kerry and Linda – working a small conceptual jewellery stall. Seated comfortably in the shade with drills, snippers and glue they do all their work on site, creating freaked-out accessories from materials sourced only at the market itself.

They were kind enough to present me with a necklace recombobulated from the legs of plastic superheroes.

~ one clustering filbert

This morning I opened my sachet of Spasmo-Nemigron powders and found the creature depicted below - caked with pinkish dust and trying desperately to fly free. It would have succeeded too, had there not been something badly amiss with its organs of flight. It landed, apparently deceased, on carpet worn of pile by the restless soles of ten-thousand junkies. Inquisitively, I crouched down too see. The glistening young pharmacist was suddenly alert. He leaned over the counter, peering …

- Strange bug, I commented.

- Oh? he said, with surprising interest.

- Don’t worry. You won’t have to summon the exterminator.

- Oh? Oh, good …. he mumbled, clearly working to suppress any appearance of curiosity. Give it here. I’ll have it … disposed of.

I shrugged. It was already safe in my pocket as I strode from the pharmaceuticals outlet.

Of course, the image below is larger than life. The bug itself - I am reluctant to call it an insect - is about half the size of a cicada and radiates an aura of health and … fleshliness is the word that suggests itself. Though it appears dead, I am not wholly certain this is the case.


Does this representation bring to mind a name? A name frequently associated with extreme science? And with life-saving medical advances? A name as often cited by the journals Science and Nature as by Saucer Kooks and Pyramidiots?

Need I go on?

It bears the signature of that most estimable of human beings. Spasmo-Vizier Mercurius. His work is unmistakable.

The wiles of fortune – whether for fair or foul – have brought me into possession of a genuine Mercurial artifact.

Now I must ask if this is truly a creature and not some unimaginably complex clockwork automaton. No wonder I could not construe the principles it employed to achieve flight …

And, knowing its provenance, I may safely make some inferences …

Was it free to fly the magnificent spaces of his laboratory-dacha, [said to have been built by Peter the Great for one of his lovers?] Was it a fugitive? Or was it mere biological refuse, not quite dead or de-energised? Was it under examination when it strayed into the automatic units used by Mercurius to manufacture his elaborate compounds?

These units are hermetically sealed to prevent the Magister’s arcane recipes straying into the hands of a race unprepared for technologies of such sophistication.

So how did the bug – which I shall hereafter describe as a filbert*– get in?

Did Mercurius place it there himself?

And if so, why?

Often, I feel humbled that I am fated to consume the fruits of the uber-man’s labours. Who cares that they make me dead tired for ninety percent of my waking hours? Who cares that I no longer derive an emotional response from music? Who cares that my libido is massively reduced? Who gives a toss about the unknown havoc it wreaks among my organs …

This is Spasmo-Vizier Mercurius we are talking about!

So how to proceed? What to do with this iota from the hands of the Magister? I would never be so foolish as to sell it … but might I not, safely, reveal its existence ... to some close friends and associates...?

Such as you?

* see Shakespeare’s The Tempest

spasmo-vizier mercurius

Many combatants in the Ulterior Wars place an almost religious faith in the ability of Spasmo-Vizier Mercurius to rid the Earth of the Spore Menace.

Here he is seen preparing a substance new to the universe, which he tells us - when released into the water supply - will reverse the polarity of spore compliant tissue. We're with you all the way, Mercurius!

~ Drive Me To The Dogs

My wife has returned from a bunker in Preston describing her experience as 'horrible'. The unisexual fortress was full of war victims with sour lips, fused minds and twisted bodies, many of them driven to madness by the depredations of the Spores. She described the sharp smell of antiseptic, and the stress of suddenly finding herself living in close quarters with so many wandering, murmuring, twitching reminders of what the Spores can do to a person. During her time there, she barely left her cell, as her own condition was somewhat critical; she was frail, cadaverous. paranoid, in despair, and wholly unable to manage her life - and it was here that she decided that preventative medication was the only thing that would save her.

It is a pity, as Spasmo-Dromoran is a harsh drug that mimics many of the effects of the Spore-illness in order to counter them. Under its influence, the bones and teeth may crumble, the love of music may die, one may sleep for upwards of fourteen hours, and the manner of the soul may become infantile. During my own time on this drug, I produced reams of writing, of which very little was useable. It was indulgent and hopelessly naff - my internal editor seemed to have lost its critical faculties. I dare not tell you what became of my teeth.


My wife, however, has come home bubbling. She has resurrected the house from its squalor; she has upgraded the contents of Polly's lunch-boxes a hundredfold, and has already mustered the confidence to go have coffee with friends. The household aura has shifted from piss yellow to restful blue. In recent months, owing to her emaciation, she has been too embarrassed to take on work as a life model. [her primary money-making occupation], but already, thankfully, she is putting on weight.

I wonder how long this pleasant part of the cycle will last? What I dread are the moods which Spasmo-Dromoran can generate. The bad, irritable moods, which come just after lunch time each day. Jenny is the sweetest creature with a delightful nature, but Spasmo-Dromoran gives her an acid tongue that can strip the flesh from my bones. When that starts, the best thing she can do is have a nap.

But for the moment we are all seemingly well, though impoverished. Soon, perhaps even today, I will have to return to my book-selling on ebay, an activity that drives me to the dogs. I am building the ant-pinata for Polly's upcoming party. I am in the yard cultivating nuVanilla. I am reading The Swarm by Frank Schatzing. I am thinking about a snooze, though it's only eleven in the morning...

~ The Swarf That Penetrates

In passing, I have mentioned the scientist in my car-port. Now I would like to introduce him properly.

Robert is a shambling forty year old with wire rimmed glasses and wheaten hair that falls to the small of his back, and which he usually wears in a single braid. For him, clothes are simply a means of protection from the elements - he displays no preference when, each decade, he reluctantly burrows through the sale bins outside of op-shops. Often, Jenny and I offer him habiliments in an attempt to upgrade his decidedly shabby image

Robert is more or less a member of our family. We love him dearly. To Polly he is a patient and extremely tractable slave-uncle.

I first met Robert through Lorraine, who at one time was helping me procure prohibited substances. Lorraine was once an escort, before working in a brothel and then on the streets. Ultimately, the Quinquagesima tool its toll on Lorraine and she retired to her flat high in a housing commission monolith. Robert was her boyfriend until they separated about three years back. Lorraine still drops by the boarding house where Robert lives to drink tea, inhale concentrated THC, read the newspaper, and sometimes sample a little of my heavenly nuVanilla. She has mellowed in her later years and is also a good friend to Polly, who calls her 'Rain'.

Both Robert and Lorraine are rat lovers and used to keep them as pets. One day, I encountered them facing each other with deeply sorrowful expressions. They were jointly cradling a deeply beloved rat. It had cancer and was dying. With tears streaking their cheeks, they saw it through its last hours. I could not help but be moved by the commitment of these two old junkies to the poor little creature. Love. Simplicity. Respect. Care

Recently, when The Black and White Cat was dying, Robert did not stint in his efforts to comfort it. Kylie was visiting at this time and, observing Robert's dedication to The Black and White, she immediately classified him as a saintly spirit. Kylie is not the only friend of mine who judges people by their treatment of animals. I too see it as an indicator of the soul

The Black and White Cat had been with me for eighteen years.Originally it was named Chagall, but I could never use this name without feeling pretentious. [Mind you, my childhood cat was called Raskolnikov [see Dostoevsky], and I still recall being mocked [and hurt] by distant neighbours when I hollered for him at night]. Old Black & White cried piteously night and day and, because she was deaf, she did it loudly enough for the whole street to hear. Once contentedly plump, she was now an incontinent bag of bones - and quite plainly ready to die. Jenny and others were demanding that I have her euthanised, yet I was reluctant. One year previously, The White Cat had died in my hands at the RSPCA - and a young female vet had had to cope with a tall, slightly weird middle-aged man's uncontrollable weeping. I dreaded the thought of going through that again. What's more Robert was against it. He was certain he could somehow nurse the Black and White back to life, find a way to fix her somehow ... But, in truth, it was the Quinquagesima at work and - to quote Burroughs - that is the mark you can never beat.

In Robert's attitude, we find a clue to his character. Everything, to his mind, can be fixed, [though not the The Black and White Cat, who keeled over shortly after I resolved to take her to the vet]. Robert, personally, seems able to fix almost anything: Jenny's shoes, microwave, playstation, ratchet from my socket set, washing machine, about fifty components from Jackie [my beloved Renault 12 stationcar, who is the same age as Jenny and whom I'll speak of another time]. He's rewired the entire house and is installing rainwater tanks [Eight 220 recycled olive barrels raised high upon a wooden structure]. Every Wednesday, we have a working bee to keep our home from falling down about our ears.

Many years back, in pre-Jenny times, when I used Spasmo-Dromoran [rather than the Spasmo-Nemigron], Robert lost his flat and moved in with me. I was a different person then and though Robert was the perfect boarder, I had trouble with the noise he made cutting carrots and encouraged him to leave. His yacht was in the front yard and he spent all his time working on it. Lynne was a little fascinated by this, [she was my lover at the time,] and was certain that the yacht was symbolic - that Robert was expressing his desire for freedom. She believed that he would never leave on his dreamed of journey up the east coast of Australia, but would work patiently on the boat until the day he died.


When Robert left, the boat stayed. As it dominated the front yard, I urged him to move it and, a year later, he did. The yacht traveled from property to property until a particular friend moved out without telling him. Robert never found this friend, nor his boat... I feel guilt over this. The mast still lays on the roof of the car port, and I curse myself whenever I see it.

But now Robert has a new obsession. He is in love with metal. He has set up a working space in the car port and, since he has retired from the Ulterior Wars, [with the interesting ability to manufacture synthetic honeycomb,] he lives in dirt cheap accommodation, gets most of his food from a skip behind South Melbourne market, and is able to save nearly every penny of his Veteran's Pension. First there came a smallish antique metal-working lathe. Then a giant industrial grade lathe. Then a big bulky compressor. Then his beloved Deckel Tool Mill.

A tool mill masses more than a ton and this one was delivered onto the drive way. Robert spent the next month producing metal rollers with his lathe, so that he could move the thing into shelter [He also manufactured a heavy duty steel button for the toilet at his boarding house]. Once it was in place, he proceeded to dissemble the machine and - with the help of the online machine tool community - he set about cleaning, polishing, repairing and painting every single component. It has taken more than a year, but he has now begun reassembly and with each day the machine comes nearer to completion. It's not my usual kettle of fish, but I must say his Deckel Tool Mill is an impressive thing. Robert should be lauded - even if it is only by the members of the Model Engineers Association.

Robert is the only genius I know and I could speak of him at great length - but I shall save that for another day. Suffice to say he is wonderful to have around, despite the tiny shards of metal [called swarf which are scattered everywhere and which cause the most painful and deeply penetrating splinters in the feet of Polly, Jenny and I.

[Read 'the discombobulated genius' - another post in celebration of the artful Robert]