~ I Meet With a Zoroastrian

After the third performance of The Liquid Tempest, I returned to the in-house bar for my second red wine. I was served by an unfamiliar person, perhaps a little older than the average Union Arts employee and of a curiously elusive ethnicity. Her name was Gova

I attempted to guess her nationality. Mediterranean? Mongolian? Burmese?

"I am Persian, but also Indian. I am a Zoroastrian."

I was immediately fascinated. I inquired about the plague that has driven the vultures of India to near extinction and Gova confirmed that it was indeed a problem. The Zoroastrians [also known as Parsees] leave their dead in Towers of Silence for consumption by the vultures, but since the outbreak there have been too few birds and a hygiene issue has arisen. I did not ask if Gova expects her corpse to be torn apart by vultures, but I would think she does.

She was flattered by my interest and my - albeit patchy - knowledge. I had never met a Zoroastrian and found myself a little in awe of this heir to a tradition so ancient it predates Christ, Mohammad and The Buddha. Indeed, it is the oldest surviving monotheistic religion and opens a dream channel to the accursed city of Nivenah; the bone-deep horror of winged deities with dour faces, wrought in old stone; ghastly demons rising from bleached desert ruins, summoned from a time before man gained knowledge of himself. Gova was not insulted that I found her religion terrifying.

She showed me the golden pendants that hung about her neck. One, an image of the prophet Zarathustra. The other: Ahura Mazda, their fearsome winged creator. She made no mention of the Zoroastrian Satan, Angra Mainyu, nor the hosts of fabulous angels, angel-like animals, and demons.

I asked how one became a Zoroastrian, thinking that if ever I embraced religion this might be an interesting path. Gova explained that one needed to be born into it, and that there were only 200,000 true exponents of the faith remaining in the world. Their most holy sites are in Iran: temples housing flames that have burned since history began. These fires are fueled by gas escaping from underlying deposits of fossil fuel.

A Zoroastrian Tower of Silence

Wonderful that this piece of living history should so enjoy the crazy Leigh Bowery inspired tomfoolery of The Liquid Tempest.

~ Bursting with Vile Fluids

It is opening night and my brains are boiled within my skull. You see, the lizard-like Slammerkin are swarming behind the walls at RMIT, transmitting their jabbering voices into my head. Unfortunately, Lynne has purchased a fat old wine cask, bursting with vile fluids, for Stephano to heft on stage in place of a hogshead - and very little telepathic effort was required by the Slammerkin to force me to the teat of that poisonous bladder.

I speak of the Spores and their dire evil, but during the comfortable intervals, when their influence is marginal, often the Slammerkin will come forth with insidious mind speech, creeping red miasmas and invisible beams of dehydrating orgones. Perhaps I will wear a defensive foil cap tonight. I need to do something, as this miserable lexia hangover has all but incapacitated me.

Jenny and Polly are home and we are a family again. Jenny is bubbling, sleepless and proud of her war efforts - as she deserves to be.

Also, I am becoming increasing concerned for the welfare of Posh Spice. Yesterday I saw her image in the MX, posing as stiff and as inhumanly thin as a barbie doll beside the other Spice Girls, who seemed mature, womanly and who were smiling, rather than pouting. Posh is an enigma. Can a human being truly be as devoid of personality as this woman seems to be? I wonder if there is some fragile nugget of character confined somewhere in there, behind the expensively maintained skull?

Could she have a conversation that stretched beyond furniture, beauty products and money? Or is she - as the evidence suggests - a replicant - your basic pleasure model - who has somehow made her way to earth from the Outer Colonies?

I was told an astonishing story this morning. Apparently Posh was photographed from above at one of her poor husband's soccer matches and a bald patch was noticed [and magnified, and scrutinised] at the back of her head. This is a sure sign of anorexia, I believe, but Posh's response was to fly swiftly to Switzerland, or somewhere equivalent, and have some kind of hair piece put in place. This astounds me. The woman is nothing but an image. An ambulatory manniquin. One tiny imperfection and she whips into emergency mode, calling up her strike team and burning carbon across the Atlantic. No matter that it is a symptom of illness. No concern at resources wasted on a thing that, in essence, is of absolutely no significance whatsoever.

The Grey Creek

I am doing all the right things; I am taking long walks along the Grey Creek; I am swallowing fish oil and regulating my intake of red wine; daily, I vitamize many wholesome ingredients into a nutritious drink - yet the workings of my mind remain sluggish and without direction.

In nine days time I am performing the role of Prospero in a production of The Tempest and I have a massive quantity of lines, few of which I have by heart. As quickly as I learn them, my mind releases them. It's like handling a slimy fish. There's no traction there. Yet, learn them I must. I cannot disappoint Lynne, the director, nor the others involved. No matter that it is a small student production. No matter that its standards are not quite professional and that there's no payment. I must yet prevail. I urge myself with the image of my wonderful costume - the shimmering silver jumpsuit, the towering silver boots... I shall be the cynosure! All shall cower at my majesty!

So, as I follow the meanderings of the Grey Creek, I mumble to myself, concentrating on my task. The creek exists in the buffer zone between a howling motorway and the dormitory suburb of Mt Waverley. I have known this creek all my life. I knew it before it was landscaped, formed into wetlands and filtration ponds, before it hosted at least five species of water-birds. When I was a child it was a pungent sudsy vein transporting vile substances through poisoned quagmires, bestrewn with blackberries and rusted machinery, to the Yarra and thence to the Bay. When I dream of the Grey Creek and its surrounds, they are always in this original state.

Soon, my wife will be home and I must show, not only strength, but compassion. She has been labouring desperately against the Spores, and has found the will to form a battle plan. It is a poor one, I think, for it relies on strengths I doubt she has - but some independent will remains and that is something to be thankful for. I'll wind up fifty and looking like one of your old girlfriends, she said today. A wise observance. Many of my dearest friends, both male and female, have been slowly mutilated in long and strenuous conflict with the Deadly Spores. The Spores treat their enemies and their slaves with an equal lack of pity - and it is not just the flesh they sour ...

>As with age their bodies uglier grow, so their minds canker ...

Then there are those who will never live to suffer old age.