God of the Game (Dreamstate) (20 page)

   “You never wanted to be Minister of Propaganda. You just wanted the plays you penned to be staged and made into movies. Here’s your chance.” He led Mr. Goebbels to the southern edge. Eyeballs traced. We were standing on the highest point in this voluptuous vista. Down below, the hugest gorge seen; no bottom in sight, just a big black nothingness swallowing all semblances of echoes.

   “Ready whenever you are.”

    Joseph Goebbels, friend of the
Fuhrer, now a glob of runny liquid, is mashed potato knees knocking in fear of the unknown, asking forgiveness of sins. Goebbels was taking too long. Staring into the abyss he says, “Ca...ca...can I go back to the D’Arcy? I’ve changed my mind.”

    New Zealander,
who’s now a bit agitated and impatient, glancing over the long queue, barks, “No!” The sharp and booming frequency shakes not only Joseph but the rest of us and the camera-worthy panorama. Somewhere, an avalanche starts. If this were a movie, each still shot would zoom out in multiples of ten, his shout resonating on. Cliché.   

   “Well
, hurry up. I don’t have all day. I leave work at five. If you don’t jump soon I’m coming over to give you a shove.”

   “Thi...this
is not a pirate’s plank...this is not fair. This is extermination!” came the German’s reply in English subtitles.

   “Jump
, damnit!” Everyone else commands, our united voices harmonizing in SATB, as if singing an Andrew Lloyd Webber production, a song promoting the equality of race against an Aryan regime.

Clearly
, Joseph didn’t get much sympathy. In the D’Arcy, he was a farmer leading flock astray. Sending sheep to slaughter. Gas chambering goats. Not much of a life compared to massacring human beings.

Thus, a still, small voice reminds him of destiny lost. His one true love. Theatre. Drama. The advent of cinema... Killing your six chi
ldren then taking your own life; what was that if not an operatic end for the whole world to watch? Joseph, it need not have been this way, staging the murder of your innocent offspring; that was the one and only honest exposition of your art, albeit cruel and selfish and revoltingly sad. That was your lost inner child crying out, the boy before he became a crony, the dead artist in you striking a dying match in the pervasive dark face of death.

    But I guess
, once a Nazi, always a Nazi. Joseph Goebbels wishes to regress, he chooses to retard. Wants to turn his back on salvation...on fulfilment. Away from the movies, the seed of love wasted in him. Wants to return to the D’Arcy and promulgate a supreme race. In service of the Third Reich, I read, he fucks around, flogs the casting couch. Perhaps he can now beget the perfect lamb.

    Sharon swan-dives into the dark gaping mouth. She was the embodiment of all things brave, reckless and spontaneous in me. Initially, our custom made body was to be ‘One’, but we could not agree, so it was unanimously decided I was to be me and she was to be my new me,
Two
; a totally inaccurate interpretation of Paul’s Second Corinthians 5:17. I was the old man. She, 2.0.

    Sharon elegantly disappears
into that giant gob, the bungee line following. Uncurling, never seeming to stop. Rapunzel’s hair going on and on and on and on...and on...

    A tug
finally, and lean-mean-machine-New-Zealander-extreme-sports-savant coolly unsheathes his Bowie knife and severs the high-tech string. My jaw drops, the cavity gulps down the remnant rope, and New Zealander gently assures, “Dun worry. It’s just like cutting the umbilical cord. All babies...and moms...have to go through that. Heard of stem cell banks? This is just taking it one notch up. How else do you explain your wounds healing when yer cut? This is nature. We design nature and store this...” he held aloft Sharon’s lumpy knot remaining in this region of existence, “in cryogenic freeze in case of future accidents.”

    That mouth just ate Sharon, that mouth which is part of this scenic island crudely shaped like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. How much the line unwinds during your fall determines your character. Who
you’ll be. There’s an indicator: Level 2 descent means yer a romantic; Level 3, a glutton; Level 4, a natural horny. Anything more than that means yer a pushover, something for people to sit or walk on. Level 1 destines a premature death.

    If your jump is interrupted by a southern gust, drifting you
into the north side of the cave, they say you’re clever. An intellectual. But beware; too much draught and you crash into the rock face of the Mount, entering into either a right or left ventricle overgrown with creepers, and sharp with stalactites and stalagmites. This the case, you’ll probably end up an autistic or with Down’s syndrome.  

East or West winds usually means dexterous, or ambidextrous in unique cases. Get the picture? Of course what you are evades you in the beginning, and you only discover your personality along life’s journ
ey. But that whole bunch of datum is already recorded by workers, and pored over management of this tour agency to develop and sell you their latest holiday package, inviting you to sample a new lease of life, a forever after of upgrades to improve your
im
mortal experience. That’s why most of us, even having gone through three score and ten, are still clueless of our existence, banking on that next consumer product to make us happy.

On the Third
Day

39

Earth

    I woke up a broken man, a
broken man with a malfunctioning mechanical dream. Robot owl alarm clock chimed, or rather hooted, eleven, and I crawled out of simulated sleep. There was some woman named Elizabeth Amber, a prominent Lady of sorts, habituating my slumber in a shell, appearing like the 18
th
century caught in suspended alternate timelines; and in my subterfuge spirit’s eye, floating, fluffing on clouds,
lime-green-minted cotton-candy-clouds
, as if England was a ronin state on Atlas, as if an old Atari ball coursing to-and-fro across rudimentary black-white computer tennis matches, she gaily provides for me a fleeting memory before consciousness stirs with black coffee to the land of those awake and living, possessed by human psyches. 

    Muscles ache. I must have been in deep hibernation, standard space travel necessity. Legs wobbly, more so I’d not used in ages. I must be Adam, formed from dust. Before this I was just a clump of soil in seas. Out of that dirt came me. And now I ache. Perhaps comparable to Gulliver
bound and tormented by Lilliputians; Lilliputians that dive off the bridge of your nose and into your waiting, yawning mouth; Lilliputians who are your soul, the soul of every man, woman and beast on Earth.

    Naked and in the shower, in front of the mirror, brushing teeth at the porcelain sink. Instinctive human behaviour. Fi
nd a zit at the tip of the nose; squeeze it; pain travels to the brain. Yellow ooze long-jumps and smears the mirror’s phizog. An apparition of Amber in agony quickly dilates, then dilutes. Something called the D’Arcy, a Flying Saucer, UFO, (or is it merely Georgian cosplay on stage?), implodes. Like a supernova morphing to black hole.

    Water saves. After a bath, after baptism, I feel fresh. Still nude
, though, enjoying this fragile carbon-based composite. I’d been an angel-type too long. Anything carnal, mortal, they spectacularly thrill. Flavours tasted in youth, memory’s morsel still a lingering aftertaste; now I can relive it,
re-screw
it.

    In front of the wardrobe reflection
, I scrutinize my old body before death claimed. Exactly what I picked. Not changeable till death reclaims. Stuck with five fingers, five toes per side, wrinkled foreskin, and an eloquent potbelly; my receding forehead brought back reminiscences of life on this Blue Marble of the Solar System. Me, in my forties; why I’d preferred this decade bemuses me. Maybe despite my ugliness, (I wasn’t that handsome to begin with in first place), I was most comfortable, most at peace. Living off my bestseller and finally done with Gee Ni and all other lovers. Perchance I can continue where I’d left off from before the Glorification and find something beyond the numbing delight of hand-hoors.       

    I quickly dressed;
abode is a greyscale cube perched on a knoll. Very futuristic. Home I’d
settle on
settled on was beyond 21
st
Century. Less than a billion occupy the Globe. The increasing population had been curtailed, and selectively put to sleep in schemes that seem to be the multitudes’ own selfish doing. A wise folly; this is the World of the Illuminati illuminated, how they’d strategized the end from the beginning, esoteric knowledge handed down grandmaster to grandmaster through generations till its fulfilment, dark Templar prophecies of Sophia finally made light, and mankind controlled in neutered pride. 

    Overpopulation had taken its toll on Mother Earth. All countries desired to be
first-world and increase the living standards of its people; but there was no way Nature could sustain a globally industrialized planet. Only solution then was to practice selective annihilation.

    In modernization, we live like kings. The average citizen is better off, obese
, and cosier in
opulence
opulence than most royals throughout the seat of history. Such wantonness and wastefulness of consumer lifestyle environment cannot agree. Scientists and mathematicians calculated the balance for Gaia to replenish herself and continually provide for the greed and lust of the rich in a sustaining loop of indulgence, and the magic figure was not more than half a billion upper-class gluttons before the world slides southwards with the weight of the wealthy and tank.

   
Unsurprisingly Unsurprisingly
Expectedly, this information, and the diabolical stratagem to follow were circulated only amongst elite rulers of nations, members of dark covenants, shadow conspirators. The ploy was simple. Advocate the avarice of all men in consumer heaven. Multiple choices, instant upgrades, progression on that upward salary scale. The more we have, the more we want;
more trees are chopped down
. More people can now afford to have; more people can now afford to want.
Even more trees are chopped down
.

    Think Green too late. 

    Mother finally retaliates; or rather, she falls sick after constant rape by her kids, and is unable to recover. Her children ultimately suffer as she barfs on them. Most die, casualties in the billions, all regular folk just wanting a better life. Sadly, can’t say any of us are innocent, not even babes, for at a young age we are brainwashed to covet. Our demise is our own doing.

   
And behind, tempting us, manipulating media, are movers and shakers of the cabal, brotherhood of the Illuminati gearing up for a sustainable future after the Earth resurrects from her crucifixion as trumpeted in ancient lore; no more overcrowded with stupid men and women committing incest with Mother Nature. Now, only they, the privileged, the highborn, can frolic and play in the sun whilst worshipping and continually fucking a healthy, radiant and fertile Planetary Mama.

    Biometric scan of thumb opens the door; hydraulic asthma wheezing as it closes behind. Living room is modern retro, sparse. Furniture, adult-sized Lego blocks easily assembled and dismantled for instant redecoration. Each setting, including wall colours, you can save and resave and call out from cloud computing.

    Lego has come a long way.
The 1930s till tomorrow, no more is it just child’s play. They’re a main player in civil constructions, property development for the filthy rich. Perfect sense from whence they came. Insert a motor, 3-60 angles and joints, programmable platforms and artificial intelligence, and you can practically design and make anything. Finish off with custom colouring and you have a sure winner. Competitor is nanotech, but old school money is icky about invisible robot bugs invading, so that illustrious Danish brand, for now, maintains its upper hand.

    Bacon and sunny-side-ups greet me, arranged in a smiley. Rubber soles squish in the kitchen as I sit and puncture an eye. Yellow blood splurges out onto white cheeks. Soon the expression is more shot in the face, and I slice the mouth bacon, smear it in broken sunshine and kill it a second time by digestion in the abdomen.

   “Nice?”

    I look up. A Manga schoolgirl radiates at the kitchen’s entrance. Hands folded, awaiting judgement.

    I nodded my approval, mouth too sloshed to respond. She chuckles and skips to the table, pulling a Scandinavian chair next to mine.   

    Sharon. I’d forgotten so quickly; more enthralled by my physical imperfections and mortal recollections than her existence. I was a newborn middle-aged man seduced by nostalgia, by a simple succubus from the past.  

    It’s worth second reasoning why Sharon had been my instinctive rebirth. Just look, we are so different. For starters, my private parts are turned inside out. Hers
, kept neatly folded behind racks of flesh. Next, I’m forty ...plus. She’s fourteen! The girl qualifies to be my daughter. Is this some sick shit? Are we actually that father-daughter-rat trinity I’d dreamt in ghee? Better keep an eye out for rodents then...especially while pissing...or masturbating. Don’t want to find a bloody stump, a fucking red fountain, or sprinklers spraying scarlet which someone left on to water the garden. Urine mixed with blood, semen mixed with blood, a definite disaster.

    And what more, we’d been intimate since ZOOL.A.ND...

    But wait. I’d not mentioned earlier. Yes, I’m on Earth, sometime in the future, ruled by the Illuminati. But even though here, under layers of igniting synapses, I recall all other personifications, (some documented already). Call it what you may, but an allegory would be life travelling on a single trajectory, and our only escape from time in 3D is in the head, especially with the
“what if this had happened”
or
“what if I’d done that instead of this”
philosophy. Plainly, it’s just imagination.

    But come
death and glory, or the Singularity, or the Second Coming, whatever ya call it, life suddenly branches infinite. It’s like, yer walking this straight line... then poof! Yer everywhere. My life is a single string, and abruptly, dynamite explodes and rains more lives of me to form cosmic doppelgangers or something. From one man to a metropolis; then this
I
-City, whilst bulldozing forward, also time travels back, and so, should I choose, all the alternate mysteries of what could have become are known and experienced by my frame.

    In fact
, I remember I had, and still have, a travel company for those wanting to go back to rediscover particular moments in history. It could be personal like the birth of a first child, or big like when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour. You could also be present at, and find out for yourself, unresolved secrets, like who actually shot JFK, and what was the true story leading to it. Real life drama. Hide behind a pillar when Brutus and the senators stabbed Caesar in a blood orgy of political lust. Or better, you can be Brutus bringing down the knife. In these travels yer just spirit. And you can pack like countless spirits into one evil soul. Haven’t heard of Legion?

    On the other hand, those that enjoy pain
and death by lacerations can be Caesar.

    Sado
masochists can be both!

    That’s not all my selling points. Married the wrong girl? Find out how it could have
been with another woman. An ex-girlfriend. What about a total stranger? Marilyn Monroe, Angelina Jolie, get it?

    Rewrite history. What if the Greeks never beat the Persians? Wha
t if Germany had won? Or a Quentin Tarantino reality after his lite-alteration of World War Two in Inglorious Basterds?

    Clear?

    Crystal.

    I made a lot of money.

    Now rewind. Sharon and I, or rather Sha-Rronne and I, had been intimate since ZOOL.A.ND. You can say she was my girlfriend there
, but I never saw this schoolgirl avatar. She was usually a power or freaky chick. Perverted Penguin said Sha-Rronne was actually myself in a being I’d created, copied from a mould of a person I’d found attractive, which I’d met only twice, and in different material states; an acquaintance lost in pleasant memories whom I cannot recognize. 

    He also added
that this was my way to Divinehood.

    Since the road to Divinehood isn’t rosy, I’d subconsciously want
ed a companion. The logic is that I never married, or something, and yearned for the bond, the first hand knowledge how those in a solid relationship felt. So what’s this finally gotta do with a fourteen-year-old? I can’t marry a teenager. God forbid! Why in the eventual did Sha-Rronne, (possessed by me), decided on rebellious puberty screaming with hot hormones served on a cold character growing up in this confused age?

   
You’ll understand what I mean after brunch
.  

    Now, in a university study done, it is reported that most men want to be females. That’s the reason they ogle girls. Men secretly love shopping. They want to deck on high-heeled shoes, apply mascara, lipstick, and parade in that killer dress. Men want to be women `cos women get to obsess over themselves. Unfortunately, men only have
their dick and balls to obsess with. So they obsess over women with
it
.* Sigmund Freud in his afterlife called this pussy envy. (Though the labelling had been coined earlier by another)

*...
, his conclusive wish is for women to obsess over. It’s the slave’s myopia of domination. In his self-perceived inferior state of mind, a man is deluded to think that if he can get women to enjoy stroking the shaft of his ego, the penis, his exalted member, most highly regarded bodily organ of his own myopic reverence, he is then the superior of her, the goddess in the graven image of his mind humbled; but when in reality, she is actually just laughing at his orgasmic lunacy
...

(Translated from the German in the afterlife) Sigmund Freud: Pussy Envy, the Male Dilemma)

40

    Mail arrived from the Otherside. A sad tale. Jai-I bemoans the utter deconstruction of ZOOL.A.ND. Was it due to me? My wanting to leave? He’d expressly said no. No, it wasn’t my fault. Just a coincidental event. Everything cool had turned upside down. Subscribers’ accounts frozen...with them inside. Stuck in ZOOL.A.ND forever. Very detrimental, this. Especially for those lesser deities. Dominant ones, it’s just a scratch to their vaults. They have plenty character-cash to throw around; bright, shiny, new, off the showroom split personalities they can easily purchase, a Ferrari type avatar or a Bugatti Veyron robot replica of whomever they are; these prosperous buggers, like Jahr, just go on buying property, real estate in diverse paradise markets regardless boom or gloom, extending their heritage, their godlikeness in various heavens new and old, vintage or novel.