One Three One: A Time-Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel (37 page)

Crenellated with an unbroken waistband of jagged mountaintops at its most earthbound edges, the sky above me fried ten
million micro pasta star shapes in its vast circular pan. I reached up to each one and blew it a kiss: ten ker-zillions per moment at least. She looked down and told me, no, she was not my mother. But she would stay with me and I would be comfortable. I explained about my descent back from death into human form and she laughed uncomprehendingly. But so beautiful was this woman that I saw only kindness in her eyes when she joked.

Then I told her of my decision to reject my princely rights, to abandon all notions of kingship, even to overthrow the very idea of there being a king of Ashop. Instead, my kingdom would be restored to a ninefold earthbound collegiate system of horticulture and treelore with the Odin as its armoured facilitator; restored to a Lunar Calendar of 365 days in the year – thirteen months, each of exactly four weeks’ duration, with a single holy day at each year’s end in celebration of that sacred Doorway through which all must pass. Fuck yeah! I told her that without the self-overthrowing of the hierarchy, that without sacrificing ourselves to ourselves, the sole way forwards into the future would be through Greed, Acquisition and Raw Lust for Power alone.

Now, the land hereabouts began to tremble and sweat. One hour had passed since my magnification. One hour in which Blessèd Anna had become overwhelmed with newness at my Sardu story, had herself fallen into a psychic coma of astonished cultural overload. For now had her mind – so recently Sardususpicious – become enthralled at long last, become installed at long last with the grandness of our
Missionu
. For now had her island in four short days yielded up to this wasted foreigner more truthful possibilities, more secrets, more fissures, more cultural tweens than all the treasures, tombs and treelore still lying undiscovered across the entire Italian Mainland – or so she would inform me again and again and again. Bubbling, foaming, erupting out of her sleep, she would make stupendous declarations. Then? Again would exhausting sleep betake her, each of these new truths more than enough to overwhelm Blessèd Anna during her long transformation. Steeping herself, basting herself, broiling herself in those fabulous but overwhelming facts, Anna had – upon all these things – meditated, mused and marvelled until and until and until? She had pinged the alarm button in her overdeveloped scholar’s brain. Down had come the indoor rains of her cranial smoke alarm. Drizzled down, damped down, clamped down. Until her newly Revolutionary brain capers had – through sheer overwork – been forcibly shut down.

Soon after the first wave of Visions had overwhelmed her, Anna had crept off and slunk into the hearse’s rear chamber, where – now properly out for the count – she rested under glass as though lying in state. And while she rested, I watched. And while I watched, I sang. And the songs that Anna did inspire through me did pass so eloquently that not even local troubadours could improve upon the righteousness of my Sardu voice right there overlooking Madau Valley. Spying an obsidian flake upon the ground, I broke into an epic, improvised obsidian ballad, effortlessly extemporising rhymes of obsidian lore – and with considerable expertise. Without effort I sung of the knives, of the mirrors, of the rings; I sung of the lofty obsidian powers possessed by ancient Sardinians. And so beautiful were my tunes inspired by Blessèd Anna that the smallest of animals and all the insects came to marvel, came to hum and sing and whistle every tune that I was offered. Until, until, until no being, no life nor spirit form could extricate themselves from their ringside seats pulled up next to our Illustrious Cabinet of Curiosities right there at the field’s edge, our notorious magical kiosk with its Blessèd Anna Window Display.

Surrounded by the watching eyes of Nature and Supernature, shaking and stamping alone how I raged now as the Blessèd One dreamt under glass. Spinning and shimmying, filled with the Dance how I writhed and gyrated unsated around this metallic blue bomb, this inverted bathtub supreme, this armoured Durruti Dream crouched and all ready to spring forth from its summit meeting. And I saw the jagged summit of Mt Arbu to the northwest buckling and twisting like Chesterfield Cathedral. Effortlessly I viewed beneath its outer shell as though staring through glass, the mountain’s essence struggling on its axis to break free. At last, this achieved, down towards us it strode now
manifested in the form of a great horned warrior, who clasped to his right eye a mighty telescope the size of a nuclear submarine. Striding towards our encampment three fields at a time, this mountain giant crouched down beside me until he was no taller than Big Ben and bellowed as he pointed into the hearse.

But even as I parried Mt Arbu’s advances, there I saw to the southwest the same geological wriggling, pulsing upon Mt Terralba’s slopes. And now did the essence of this other mountain sally forth, again petitioning me with its many reasons for choosing Blessèd Anna as its human lover. Persistent too were its entreaties, persistent and even irritated at my apparent procrastination.

But I would not give up my treasured position – could not. For I knew that these other suitors had been conjured up only through the beauty of my own songs to Anna. Moreover, even my cursory reconnaissance of the mountainous, castellated horizon had revealed in every direction fastidious observers of Blessèd Anna across all 360 degrees of the compass. Should even one suitor be allowed to remain here, so would dozens seek permission to fall upon our encampment. Thus, I explained my personal position to the two mountains then bade them Good Night.

When two hours later Blessèd Anna awoke at last from Lying-In-State, she had ascended to higher places. Her lips pouted as though she’d been cosmically kissed, her lunar breasts were brazen and backlit beneath her brassiere, her Gradisca dress sucked up into her ravenous arse: it was as though she had just got with GOD. I could not take my eyes off her. I tried but I could not. She noticed.

Now, Anna fired up the big General Motors V8 – but nothing. Now, she fired it up once again. Zilch. Now, still determined to pursue today’s mission to its proper conclusion, she opened the great bonnet and checked out the spark plugs, the electricity circuits, etc. But right there in the darkness the black engine oil soon made such a piece of Pop Art out of her pale blue dress that Blessèd Anna felt obliged to strip down to her white under-slip. I stood open-mouthed in mute appreciation of this unscholarly action, and I now wore a big smile on my face that was not based on reaching Lanusei this evening. Then Anna made her sudden diagnosis. She looked deflated, disgusted with her simple error. For she had, on exiting the car hours before, accidentally engaged the indicator lights thereby running the battery down. She checked her mobile phone, but there was no signal. My big smile increased. For the middle-of-nowhere seemed an ideal place in which to be spending my last hours
with this loveliest of ladies – coveted even by the local Gods themselves. And I felt confident that it would be technically possible for us both to sleep comfortably in the hearse so long as we compromised personal space in favour of accepting such concepts as the colleague as counterpane, the associate as duvet. I had me a magic cloak and I was not afraid to use it. Besides, coming so soon after our cosy marathon M. Goodby history lesson, I had been rocked by Anna’s sudden absence, rocked by her twenty-two-hour roadtrip with her father. Now, in these my final hours, I wanted to leave this planet super sure of what this beautiful woman had really looked like. Never to forget this time of this life – only to remember.

But none of Anna’s demeanour towards me now suggested that we could be lovers. In truth, as spirited friends and associates only had we developed our closeness. Moreover, having caused us now to be stranded in such a remote place, such were Blessèd Anna’s current feelings of personal irresponsibility that her newly raised consciousness and psychic trajectory only exacerbated her feelings of stupidity. Thus, looking less like a scholar than ever, and more like some pouting rebel queen from some underground movie, did the gorgeous semi-clad one simply drift barefoot away from our encampment, traipse off into the Moonless night, all the while waving vigorously to me. Then just at the point where darkness engulfed her, Anna turned around, pouted and quoted Kowalski’s drowned lover in
Vanishing Point.

Now in the pitch-black night I sat and fretted on the ground beside the hearse. Anna had been gone long over an hour, during which time the wind had got up quite severely at the north and I remembered Giampaolo’s prediction of a coming storm. Eh, that was no storm, surely nothing but a squall, a hilltop squall hardly even worth a mention? But I knew that the wind had been courting Blessèd Anna since she’d danced atop the Iloi tombstone, danced ecstatically all night and with such high-wire flamboyance! And I knew how the wind at Goronna had befriended her as she’d waited for me in the hilltop darkness, perplexed and too terrified to act. But even after all those events, I’d hardly imagined that I’d now be reduced to squinting through the darkness for evidence of my errant love as she consorted and cavorted with some amorous meteorological phenomenon. Where was she? Was that distant rumble a by-product of games with her ardent lover? Had the flock of birds that now overhead did pass me been disrupted by her cosmic coupling with the wind? Who was I to break up such a wayward partnership? How could I take on the wind? And now out of the darkness I saw Blessèd Anna racing steadily across the distant meadow towards our encampment, and behind her I saw the wind playfully trip her, spin her over and lay her – plop! – spreadeagled on the ground. Dazed, Anna merely rose to her feet and continued rushing towards me. How outraged I was! Had I been the cuckolded lover before even the loving had taken place? How could I even see the wind? And yet an artillery projectile with a painted red tip would not have been clearer to me. At last, Blessèd Anna approached near enough for our gazes to meet. But such was the wind’s headlong rush that once again Anna met the prairie flat on her back. There she lay with her legs parted, one knee raised. And with that she was taken by the
wind, or rather by the squall, whose essence spiralled upwards into the sky then dived earthwards and disappeared inside her. I heard her moan a low guttural moan. I saw this show, I did not understand. Off into the Madau Valley downhill screeched the little storm and in short everything was quiet again. In blissful peace now, I stared upon Anna fifty metres away on her back: her legs parted and one knee raised. I saw this sight that I did not understand. Came back the storm up the head of the valley at the peak of its anger: broke even the drystone wall to the ground, pitched upside down into a spiral yet again disappeared the storm into Anna, inside her. Thus, my scholar-love rode the currents of the weather, rode the currents of the night. At last all the stars did shine suddenly through the black cloud overhead, fried it up, scorched it into charcoaled fritters and pushed the darkness even further ahead. And my love-scholar rode the currents of the evening rising currents of the night. I heard me moaning, a low guttural moan. Back came the squall headlong up the valley, romping over the stile and wall, bursting down the field, headlong into Anna, right up inside her, fucked Anna as I watched. Down come the walls of civilisation, dams burst and inundation comes rolling in across the white sand beaches. As surely they must – eventually.

Only after long hours did their meteorological lust die down and the wind disappeared at last, leaving the gorgeous one lying prone just one hundred metres across the meadow. But whenever I attempted to visit Blessèd Anna, to ascertain her physical and mental state, so would the wind return to buffet me away, to bully me off her stricken form. Enduring from that ill-wind
more than an hour of these pesterings and exertions, eventually, like an army hospital orderly recovering a wounded soldier from the battlefield, did I race under cover of the magic cloak towards my incorrigible freak-brained lady, my stricken Anna whose wisdom, learning and gorgeousness had each day in my company expanded further and further until even the very elements had claimed her now! Hidden thus, slowly I inched my way towards my desiccated Anna, then dragged and hauled her back to the hearse, wherein I had set up a rudimentary field hospital fashioned from what few clothes Anna possessed and surmounted by the magic cloak, under which we now slipped, under which we now kipped. And I felt confident that both of us would sleep comfortably in the hearse just so long as Blessèd Anna accepted such concepts as the colleague as counterpane, the associate as duvet. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …

At 5am, out-of-nowhere – the sunrise not yet even a Mithraic glint – did the ancient kaput General Motors radio roar into life with all the brash fanfare and epic flourish of some glitzy Hollywood movie. It was Jesu Crussu opening his daily show on 89.9 FM.

Loudspeakers built into the floor of the hearse brought forth now my favourite-ever road movie theme. Peace and eternal love be upon you, Jesu Crussu. You’ve sacralised our entire roadtrip. As the dark acoustic
Paradieswarts Düül
-ian commune emanations of Furekaaben spread thickly through the upper atmosphere of the hearse – bongos, tablas, voices, violins, acoustic guitars – I tasted their fumes and inhaled their sublime music. Next to me, Anna was fast off, snuggled up to me in the sweetest manner, her two praying hands acting as a pillow for her head, both my hands clasped tight upon her large breasts, and her naked butt rammed right into my lap as though we had been fucking just moments before. Waking up in the back of a hearse is not nearly as weird as you’d expect, especially when the broken radio plays all your favourite songs. And even more especially when you find yourself curled up around the warm recumbent figure of smart, scholarly gorgeousness gone up country. Intoxicated by the Scando-Germanic ecstasies of Furekaaben, I was stretching out upon the vast tortoise-shell linoleum floor when Anna awoke. She looked at me astonished, as though it was I who had chosen her favourite music to play on the broken radio. Then, in recognition of Crussu’s divine intervention, of General Motors’ divine intervention, she hummed and trilled the female vocal line along with the record, stretching out all feline and endlessly curvy.