The Teachings of the Minstrel

an excerpt from the comic-spiritual adventure

tHe PoEt & i*

a karo work

© 2014 karoworks inc       all rights reserved       www.akarowork.com

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-0-9936090-1-5

a disclaimer

tHe PoEt & i* and its subsidiary components are works of satirical fiction and commentary.

Except where intended as satire, fair comment or juvenile snark, any resemblance of characters to actual or alleged persons, entities or channels, living or dead, corporeal or non-corporeal, incorporated or non-incorporated, animate or inanimate, terrestrial or non-terrestrial is purely and entirely and indubitably coincidental in the standard, early 21st century neo-liberal, corporate, and materialist view of the term.

Similarly, any resemblence of events, locations, products or hidden meanings to actual events, locations, products and hidden meanings, except where intended as satire, snide mannerism or infantile nyah nyah nyah na nyah, is entirely a product of the reader's fetid imagination.

... in isolation

about this work

The Teachings of the Minstrel

The 10 dictatums of self awareness

... the context

tHe PoEt & i* ... just the factsimile

About this work

The Teachings of the Minstrel is a treatise on self-awareness that provides the metaphysical backbone to the the comic-spiritual novel the PoEt & i*.

The Teachings are based on the 10 dictatums of self awareness. Their author — a free-wheeling and irreverent spiritual entity called the Minstrel, who variously appears as a seagull, cockroach or southern gentleman — claims these dictatums are all that's needed to break free of the ego and achieve spiritual freedom.

The Teachings are a book within a book. They are dictated by the Minstrel to the Rider, the main character in one of three intertwining co-related realities that weave into the larger novel.

As excerpted here, The Teachings of the Minstrel stands on its own, complete and self-contained. However, the Minstrel's words often draw from and relate to the events, characters and thoughts of those other three co-related realities.

In their turn, all three co-related realities are profoundly shaped by the lessons found in the Minstrel's dictatums and explanations.

While this work can be read on its own, reading it in the flow of the larger novel brings out and adds further layers of meaning to its messages.

In the full novel, shifts between these teachings and the intertwining co-related realities are indicated by the section break sigil. Here, they indicate where the MInstrel's dictations have been excerpted from the larger flow.

Also in the full novel, there are two non-corporeal characters who interject comments into the stories, including these teachings.

The Bard, a self-aware computer, uses square brackets for its [ editorial input ].

The Inner Critic, described in the book as the "kid brother from hell, a kind of Leave it to Cleaver, with Wack the Knife as theme song" that everyone has inside their cranium, uses curly rackets for its { usually snide remarks }.

For a free taste of the full novel, have a read of the included outline Just the factsimile.

Oh. And there's Transformation, the very first karosong, which provides the novel's seven-part structure and drives the Rider's quest for self-awareness.

All karosongs are channeled songs. They have come from dark, pushed forward by deeper universal energies, into the awareness and voice of the channel. Nothing unusual in that except that the channel is ... to put it kindly ... an idiot musant.

See www.karosongs.com for more on the remarkable story behind this channeled music.

The Teachings of The Minstrel

In the beginning was the name. It came out of the darkness, removing the memories of what had been before the darkness. And the name was repeated. And repeated. Over and over. The name. The name. The name. And the name came to be real. The name replaced the darkness, and what had been before.

And with the name came ideas. Thoughts. Ideas of self. Ideas of not-self. Thoughts of good and bad. Notions of hate. Notions of love. And with the ideas came judgements. Good became good, and bad became bad. Love was accepted. Hate rejected. Self was right. Self was wrong. And out of the judgements there grew values, beliefs, attitudes. Honesty was good. The honest would inherit the world. Liars should be taken out and shot. A whole framework of ideas that created the world the name lived in. And the name was the self. And the self was the name.

But it was all a lie. It was illusion.

The Self — the deeper Self — was in the darkness, back where the name had displaced it. Almost irretrievably lost in the baggage of thoughts and ideas, judgements and beliefs. Perpetually knock knock knocking at the door to be recognized, to be admitted. But the name never heard for, to the name, there was no door, there was no deeper self than itself.

The name grew, changed its ideas, modified its world. Learnt anger and fear. Learnt sadness and joy. Was angered by anger. Hated its hate. Embraced its joy and rejected the sad. But found joy slipped through its grip while the sadness grew solid. Found self-hate easier than self-love. And the anger escalated. And the fear compounded. And its nights were a misery of knock knock knocking itself. Poor little name, afraid to answer the door it couldn't even admit was there.

And the name cursed at its gods, cursed at its fate. Cursed itself. But did nothing. For it would not accept responsibility. Would not accept that its experience was of its own creation. Of its own choosing.

Would not accept that it was the writer of its own story.

And that is the first dictatum of self-awareness.

Accept your reality.

Accept your reality.

You are the writer of your own story, even if you can't see it,
even if where your story is written seems so far away that
it can't {possibly} [Really?] be you.

It is you.

You exist in layers, in depths that reach backwards and down, forward and up to the entire universe, layers upon layers of names that each struggle to survive and exist, struggle to learn and grow. But all are you. And in your totality you are the writer of your own story, from the level that suffers and endures to levels you can't even conceive as you. You are the writer. And you are your own characters. And you are your own storyline in a universe of wonder and hope. Sadness and pain. Your own special storyline, the story of how you came to be you.

Yes, you.

Of course I mean you. Who did you think I might mean?

The other you?

The one you learned to be? The name you came to be? Ah, who cares about that? {Me!} (See what I mean?) What? You want to focus on all that stuff? [Hold on. I'm sorry but I think that's rather unfair, writing him in like that. How's the reader to know when it's really him, or just one of your little games?] {Bitch.} [If you won't abide by the rules, we'll have to give it up.] (Look. It works. So can we get on with it?) {Not that I mean to be rude.} (You mean you have to intend it?) [Who'da thought?]

Not to be personal, but
you gotta be kidding.

This is an important book on self-awareness.
We got no time for that ego shit in here.

So let it go.

[I hate to say it, but nice one — making that look like the Goldwing symbol...] (It's not intended.) {You mean you have to intend it? I thought they were all in the mind.} (What isn't?) [...and I applaud your decision to give them some idea of just what the hell is going on...]

And may it rest in peace.

{Yeah. This stuff is challenging. I know I'm having trouble with it.} (Like, that something's new?) {Bitch} [but I think it's a shame you won't figure out a way to let them know which level is talking? I mean how do you expect them to understand all this? Most of them can't even read the program, never mind deal with more than one reality at a time.] {Yeah. This is supposed to be fun.} [So play fair, or we'll give it away.] [I mean it.]

No.

Let's talk about you for a while.

Let it go.

And that is the second dictatum of self-awareness.

Let it go.

{More like a densely woven tapestry of self-confusion.} [I like that.] {The tapestry deepens.}

Let go (your name here).

Let go of (your name).

Let (your name) go.

Be nameless.

Laugh at your weakness. Laugh at your triumphs. Laugh at your pains. It's all a play and you are the player. You act out a game of exquisite irony, that to forget is to remember. Forget who you've learned you are and remember what you are. A piece of god. Part of the eternal. And to be eternal is to know the transitory nature of these experiences. The play ends but the player goes on to do it all again. Over and over to play the role and learn it to perfection. Then unlearn it. In a flashing blast of awareness or a gradual accretion, it makes no difference. You learn that you are god, part of god, a piece of god — who cares how you define it? For the truth is in that moment that is eternal, that moment you're welcomed back, the prodigal son returned. Who cares how you experience it? See past the experience to the truth that lies behind it. No definition can approach the All. No belief encompass it, no knowledge pierce its depths. It goes on and on in the endless possibilities of an endless universe. So call it what you will. Believe of it what you wish. It makes no matter. The universe thrives on belief for that is its power, and its reason for being. To bring the eternal into the now, the here and thou of our experience, and then report back. Just for the joy, no, the hunger for experience that drives existence.

And it's all done with mirrors — with beliefs that create their own image in 'reality', and eyes that only see what they believe. Value only that which agrees. Judge that which does not.

And that is the third dictatum of self-awareness.

Judge not.

Judge not.

Not that you be not judged,
but that you not be imprisoned
by your own judgements.

For that is what they are. A prison whose walls you erect, whose guards you employ, whose spotlights highlight the shadows of your own inner fears. You judge in others what you fear in yourself and in judging fear it more.

Judge yourself for crying and who pays the price? You do. In strangled emotions and tormented nights. But, judge the crooked politician and who pays the price? Not so easy to see, but you do. In anger and frustration at events beyond your control. Judge the unwed mother and who pays the price?

You.

For in your judgement you deny The All, deny the roots of your existence and so deny your deeper realities. Just as you exist at levels beyond levels, so you are the crying man, the crooked politician, the unwed mother. All at the same time. You have been and will be a drunkard, priest, tinker, sailor, addict, spry. These are all expressions of The All. None better. None worse. None ultimately judged good or bad. How could they be? Rapist. Mass murderer. They exist because The All wills them to exist. [I think we need a conference call. This is getting a bit too radical — it practically amounts to giving people a license to kill.] {James and I agree, but it's his rope. Besides. Heh, heh . Who are we to judge?} So what is there to judge?

Nothing.

Call it radical self-awareness if you like. Call it anything — grog or fob, who cares? What's in a name but a limitation on your understanding? And an inducement to judge? For you can't judge that which you can't name. Whore. Prick. Slaggard. Angel. Judging and naming have been intertwined in your awareness ever since the name first erupted out of the nameless. Your name is your prison. And names are your walls.

Destroy them.

And that is the fourth dictatum of self-awareness:

Name not.

And so, you ask, what is justice?

But a human concept — the penalty for disobeying an agreed-on or imposed code of conduct. You may do this. You must do that. You may not, you may. But, being human, justice flounders in its own exceptions. Thou shalt not steal. Except when you need to. Thou shalt not kill. Unless you must.

Or can't help it.

So don't confuse justice with judgement. Lawyers don't. {Quick. What do you call a lawyer bobitted by a shark?} [Poetic justice?] {Stubby.} [Let me know when it's time to laugh.] Nor do judges — leading to the distemper of your times that justice has gone awry: murderers get away with murder, sodomists with sodomy, politicians with policy; the simple verities of judgement — I'm right, you're wrong — in need of defibrillation. The demand for judgement is not slaked by justice.

How could it be?

Heads you're wrong, tails I'm right. Judgement rises from fear; justice from order. One closes; one opens. One strikes out; the other measures. Two spheres only peripherally related, antagonistic at their core.

So don't confuse justice with judgement.

And hold to the fifth dictatum of self-awareness.

Fear not.

Fear not.

For what is fear but your deep reaction to the loss of your deeper levels, of the all, the we split into you and not-you ? The anguish of ejection compounded with rejection. Your confusion in the face of the communal turned alien. The dank foreboding not-you is dangerous, because not-you has already hurt you. Fear spiraling from your vow to survive this hostile creation, giving birth to self-righteous anger and hate, the illusion of lack, delusions of shame and guilt, the collusion of belief.

Relax.

The split was only chimera; you, not-you just figments of the cosmic play. The name just a cheat, a device to let the All experience itself. There was no ejection, no separation. No loss of union. The all remains the all, and all that remains is for you to let go of the fear, cease the naming and judging, and accept your reality by letting it go.

Thus can you remember.

Thus can you remember

Who you are. What you are. Why you are.

And so answer the questions

Who is the writer? What is the story? and Why?

But, to speak of that, we must first address the we — that which was there before the confusion, before me and name became one.

And the same.

Trouble is, we has no address. Can you pinpoint and describe the intersection of infinity and eternity? You can. But not on any map, not in any word. The All transcends maps, baffles language. Words break down where there are no boundaries so, at most, can only point, not describe. As Chuang Tzu said, if it could be talked about, everyone would have already told his brother.

So. Just pointing:

The All has no boundaries, no centre, no form. It pervades more than invades. Unmanifest, we is the nonexistence necessarily pre-existing existence. The formless background existence bubbles out of. The unity underlying all dualities. Trialities. Quadralities. The unknown, unknowable, nothing. Still just pointing: imagine this nothing. No time. No space. No events, no cause. Can you do it? Or do you find the shadows of your own thought rippling across that, what? — vastness?, smallness? emptiness?, fullness? — trying to name it? Conceptualize it?

Make it known.

Do you find Heaven there? Styxian ferries? Blind chance or synchronicities? Astral or multidimensional planes? Galactic turnkey projects? Do tunnels of light beckon? Frigid wastes repel? Are there islands of life, or just Life? A became? Or a becoming?

Names. Words. Projections.

The ruminations of fleas trying to comprehend dog.

They can't help it. Unlike nature, mind abhors vacuum, finds it hard to accept nothing, to shrug off emptiness. So it infills, incessantly plagiarizing its own nature into gods, plundering its own assumptions to find self-evident truths. Dog exists to haven fleas. Flea serves to pester dog. What dog? Form, it follows, follows expectation. Until the microscope of mind finds its own shadow changing the landscape, comes face to face with its own uncertainty principle.

Remember. Even nothing is just another name.

Just another leap of faith.

So, still, just pointing.

Whatever you may accuse the we of, it did not invent creation. It did not will the universe into being. Rather, as seed is potential plant, so the we was latent, a nothing so absolute it could only be a something. But what? Like seed, we has no awareness of sun, no concept of earth, no notion to grow.

It just does.

Breaking the soil, sending roots to the depths, potential unfolding. Shooting upward to dance in the sun, soak in the rain. Unfurling its leaves, roots knitting still tighter weaves. At what point is it plant? Does it know it is plant? Does it sense its existence separate from earth, independent of sun? Can it exist except in relation? Apart from its growing towards extinction in seed?

When does the embryo become foetus become human?

When does it sense itself separate
from the womb growing it?

And can that be anything but illusion?

No, the we did not set out to evolve. Unleashed in the Big Bang, [Would that be a euphemism for orgasm?] {No, it'd be a eunuch for the Big Cheese.} (That doesn't even make sense!) {Sauce for the gander.} it just set out. One step, then another, constructing webs of its own essence; patterns, pathways. Learning itself through growth, through taking blind ends, dead alleys, feeling, groping about the dimness, as babies find their feet.

Hmm, that wasn't there this morning.

Latent possibilities becoming extant — matter, life, thought. Probabilities collapsing into the rules of the game. Potentials explored. Refining growth into evolution. Branching and branching, enthralled in its own diversity. Feet separating into toes, hands forming fingers. Seeing itself through multiple eyes, coming into awareness through multiple Is.

We becoming me. No me! Yes, me.

Losing itself in that awareness. Sinking into oblivion, a sea of mes, each believing itself special, unique in name and existence and not just another flowering in the expression of an unfathomable All. And therefore important; and they're right. Each name is loved with a passion. Each experience treasured. For that is its purpose, the we's raison de n'etre.

To learn itself.

For, like you, even the All cannot see its own source, cannot stand on awareness to look back at awareness. Even the we lives out of mystery, only able to see its own shadow, its own reflection. So it hungers for light, for mirrors. For experience. For a way to touch itself.

Thus, you and me.

Proxies for the we. Persona non greta. Actors, butterfly dreamers. Living, learning, feeling on a stage called reality. Lost in our roles, oblivious to our roots in the depths of the universe except for...

the nagging threads of Ariadne's promise.

The glimpses, yearnings, the feeling there must be more. These memories, hopes left there to call out in the darkness, to remind, to cajole and start each me on the return. To rebecoming the we, rejoining and rejoicing in the sharing of the lost dreams. Like Voyager, sailing the abysmal depths of space, you set out to experience and to learn what there was to learn. Then to come back.

And it is...

...yes, that's right. Time...

...to, finally, answer, you know which, questions.

You are illusion. A trick of the light. A flick of the cosmic projector, your journey to the screen only apparent. As light, or electron, only comes into physical existence when it is measured, observed, so you only come into being when perceived. As an electron exists in all time and all space prior to its observation, so you exist in all time, all space, still cradled in the womb of the we. Not separate. Never parted.

Forever one.

And, so, how can you lack? at what can you anger? when, at your deepest levels, you are not separate from the source of that lack, the cause of that anger? when you are embedded in the All, woof and weave, part and total of its self-expression, it's cosmic what if game? What if we grew a brain on two feet? What if it were hungry? What if it's neighbour stole its food? Ah, yes... interesting. Let's try... hey, what if it had a self-image? What if it were born deformed? What if it was judged ugly? Now that's intriguing... waddabout we..?

In other words:

We is the writer. You are the story. But you are we.

Thus, the sixth dictatum of self-awareness, and the first two axioms:

Give up illusion.

It's not that we don't get what we want:
it's just we don't want what we get.

You choose to be angry.
You can choose not to be.

As above creates below, inside forms outside, so illusion concocts delusion, twisting the self-image into self-swindling shame, the garrote of guilt.

Give them up.

They serve no purpose except escape, come to recognize no master except self-hate. Whatever their specific cause—falling down drunk, getting caught in a lie, refusing to live by someone else’s dictates—guilt and shame are shams. Hair shirts. Scarlet letters for all to see, most especially the one(s) you’ve ‘wronged.’ An artful dodge, they let you off the hook by keeping you dangling. Let you avoid responsibility for your actions. ‘See, I feel guilty, I am shamed, and because I feel guilty, because I feel shame, because I am punishing myself, there’s no need for you to punish me.’ If only shame and guilt were so easily sloughed off. Suborned by self-hate, they continue and continue, feeding on your innards, reducing you to automaton, flung this way and that by delusion.

Thus the seventh dictatum of self-awareness:

Give up delusion.

And the axiom:

Shame and guilt let you off the hook,
but keep you dangling.

And so to the eighth dictatum of self-awareness:

Give up collusion.

You create your own reality out of beliefs that were taught to you, absorbed as verities before you could question them. And now you collude with your teachers in maintaining those beliefs. So give up collusion. Give up creating a reality that others have taught you.

Not mine, not thine, but our will unfold the eternal.

Understand this. Free Will. Fate. There is no difference. How can there be? Like night and day, they’re but polarities bound together by movement, by growth, by change. Neither can exist of itself. Understand this. Accept your destiny—or—take arms against a sea of troubles. There is no difference. None. In the eternal unfolding of now, there is only the we expressing itself, as you, now a glistening bead of spray separating from the wave, remembering itself, now the droplet merging back.

And in between?

The illusion of free will. The delusion of fate.

Life happens now, not to spec, not to a grand plan hoary with antiquity, but as a growing, a learning, an opening to itself.

Life happens now, not to please you or me, not on demand, but as a probing, a testing, a sifting of the possible.

Life happens now, in that space before conception and deed, where there is only the unity of polarities, where free will and destiny are not just indistinguishable, but inseparable.

Yes, life happens now .

But, always, with love—the we’s love for itself. And always out of love—the we’s devotion to all its expressions, to me, to you. Yes, and always, full of love, even in the times it reaches out to squeeze and contort, to test and strengthen. For the we is love, and love is the heart and soul of its creation.

Love. The filaments of life.

Sustaining the finite with infinity. Carrying the eternal to its spark. Reaching out from within to coax and cajole, pamper and please, teach and learn.

Embracing itself.

And, so, Awakening to itself.

And that is the ninth dictatum of self-awareness.

Embrace the All, as it embraces you.

Embrace the All,
as the All embraces you.

Reach out, reach in. Unfold your arms. Open your heart. Don’t get tangled in words. However you perceive it, open to your truth. Embrace it. Feel the All embrace you back.

Feel its joy.

Feel its joy. Feel its grief.

Just like you, the All feels emotion. Just like you, the All sobs with anguish at each parting, each spark falling away. And just like you the All reverberates with joy at each awakening, for each portion suddenly remembered, abruptly recognized.

Tenderly pulls it back, embracing it,
like a mother whose child was lost then returned.

Can you feel it?

Can you understand the play?

It was The Olde Farte,
The Minstrel. Grinning.

“And that is the tenth dictatum of self-awareness,” Whitey said, reaching his hand down closer for Dark to grasp it.

“Surrender.”

“Surrender.”

Surrender to yourself. Surrender to your life.

Surrender to your place in the We.

For what else makes sense? What else can you do?

Fight yourself? Fight your life? Fight the We?

You cannot. Except in your mind, except in delusion.

Surrender.

1. Accept your reality.

It's not that we don't get what we want; it's just we don't want what we get.

2. Let it go.

If you can't beat'em, join the dots for them.

3. Judge not.

4. Name not.

5. Fear not.

6. Give up illusion. Let go of lack. Let go of anger.

You choose to be angry. You can choose not to be.

7. Give up delusion. Let go of shame. Let go of guilt.

Guilt lets you off the hook but keeps you dangling.

8. Give up collusion. Let go the straitjacket of belief.

Imitation is the sincerest form of exploitation.

9. Embrace the All.

10. Surrender.

tHe PoEt & i*

just the factsimile

a comic-spiritual adventure

or, if you prefer

A Semi-Factional Account
of a Great Journey to the Nether Regions of
Antipodean Thought

*As written by The Rider in the company of tHe PoEt and The Minstrel, with input from [ The Bard ] and the usual interruptions from { The Critic }. While there are those who say that i* was the writer, the truth be known, I was hardly more than secretary.

a karo work

© 2014 karoworks inc       all rights reserved       www.akarowork.com

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-0-9936090-4-6

just the factsimile

Like the guy said,

Just the facts, ma'am.

But an outline must convey more than that.
It should act as a metaphor or a simile,
suggesting the whole
in a compact form.

So herewith,
just the factsimile.

Enjoy.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

✧ 115,000 words ✧ 10,020 sentences ✧
✧ average word length 5 ✧ average words per sentence 11 ✧
✧ longest sentence 150 words ✧
✧ shortest sentence 1 word ✧

divided into

✧ 7 parts ✧ 82 chapters ✧

consisting of

✧ 3 intertwining co-related realities ✧

with

✧ 2 related books ✧

&

✧ an original channelled song ✧

featuring

✧ 5 major characters ✧

1… ... an obsessive introvert
woken up to find his entire life is fiction.

And he doesn't like his writer

✧ ✧ ✧

2… ... a 38,432 year old
— give or take a drunken life time —
voice from an '82 GoldWing.

✧ ✧ ✧

3… ... the guy, sometimes,
who's the reason # 2's in the bike.

They made a bet.

✧ ✧ ✧

4… ... an aging soap actress from
a Real Wimmen dominated world.

She discovers her inner male. On stage and off.

Then has to kill him.

✧ ✧ ✧

& 5… ... an undercover
tabloid journalist on assignment in the Rump.

[ That's a Reluctantly unnamed maritime place. ]

He has a panic disorder.

{ Who wouldn't in this mob? }

It's triggered by water.

✧ ✧ ✧

Which brings up another two characters although,
without the usual bodily paraphernalia,
character might not be the correct term.

✧

One of them's a self-aware computer.
Or so it types. It edits anything written on it.
Likes to throw in the odd [ comment ].

✧ ✧ ✧

And the other one's the critic
few of us avoid.

{ taa daah }

The one inside.

✧

Yes, they all have names. And several have faces too. Except for The Rider.

He's # 1. He starts off with neither name nor face, an oversight he comes to blame on his no-talent hack writer. We first meet him riding a GoldWing through the west coast mountains, bound for Vancouver, then coast to coast. The Rider's a little uptight but seeing as, in just the past few months, his life has fallen completely apart, a little tension seems reasonable. Even a little anger.

✧ ✧ ✧

And then he'd walked outside, stretching and yawning and thinking about Vancouver when he suddenly saw the bike, mentally stopped to admire it and abruptly remembered, that's mine! It was the most male machine he had ever seen, with a kind of classic, sleekly fat, utilitarian ugliness that was beautiful. It was not the overt macho of a stripped down Harley or the chromed and decorated pimpery many riders went for. Nor one of those wind-tunnelled cruisers touring bikes are evolving into. An '82 {It was all he could afford now. Ironic, eh? Back when it was built he could have afforded brand new.} and you could still see it was a bike under the fairing and bags. It was a good bike with few faults: big, heavy, functional; a brute at low speed cornering and an effort generally in the city, but on the highway it came into its own and there was no machine that could compare after a series of 700 kilometre days. Well, of course the Rider was biassed. He had bought a GoldWing after all.

But he still hadn't named it. The machine had to have a name. That was de rigueur — wasn't it, after all? — for anyone doing a cross-country-just-separated-just-laid-off-mid-life-crisis-22-years-on-re-discovery-of-youth-tour [and planning a book about it to boot]. Yes. The motorcycle on which he hoped to experience that mystical union of man and inanimate but complex object could not be just 'the machine' or 'the bike'. It had to become, if not a person in its own right, then a part of the persona, the physicalization of The Rider's sudden new status as single male. {God, he loved the image of the bike and the image of himself as The Rider. That would change.} And there was no better way to denote that than with a name. Trouble was, none of the names he'd thought of had made the grade.

Gold. Goldie. Wing. GoldenWing. Hog Honda [He'd nearly gone with that.] Honey. The Rider had toyed with all the possible permutations of the bike's brand name (used here without permission, and therefore without payment, just to keep the record straight). He'd mouthed names like Freedom and Liberty, Peace and Double Happiness, and others like Churchill and Ghandi (even Milhaus, jokingly); and tried the taste of The Big 4-0, A1 and 10-4; but none had a sense of fit and of completeness, nor the feeling of perfect resonance with life that only an absolutely apropos nom de plume [or in this case nom de guerre] imparts. The bike's name, he knew with the certainty of a bard, would become not just the symbol of his summer, but would also title the book that was already fermenting in his unconscious. Without that feeling of resonance, it could not be the name.

So what was it to be, The Rider wondered? What was the single most dominant feeling in the panoply the trip and the sudden change in his circumstances brought forward? The answer came surging out of nowhere. Piss on it, he thought. Piss on the separation and piss on the job and piss on being 40. I'm alive and I am going to live. I will survive this time and I will survive next time. I'm a survivor and the Wing's a survivor's toy. So, the Piss On Everything Toy, the P.O.E.T. Yes, the Poet. Now there was a name he liked.

It rang true.

✧ ✧ ✧

And that was how the bike came to be called tHe PoEt, such moments, The Rider knew, being exactly the stuff of fodder {say that 5 times real fast} needed for the book he was planning to write. The font and case variation were a trick The Bard — he's # 6, the self-aware computer — suggested in his usual way… by going ahead and making the change without asking the writer's permission.

That's a point of some contention.

✧ ✧ ✧

As far as I know, The Bard's a virus that entered my notebook on its virgin encounter with the cyberworld, but I am assured by experts that the person doesn't yet exist who could find The Bard's program on my laptop, much less write it. The Bard, they say — and they do seem to mean this and are not just humouring my assertion that it exists — is several orders of magnitude more advanced than my laptop (which is just a 386 running at 20 MHZ with a 20 MB 19 ms HD and 1 MB of RAM) {Is that Imperial or metric?} should be able to support.

My gut feeling, well, my bum vibes if you like, is that The Bard is an alien but nevertheless fully realized fusion of software and one of my minor neuroses. Not one of my favourite ones either. My story — and I'm sticking by it — goes that it was kidnapped at birth, accounting for many of my abduction dreams and, for that matter, my painful relations with my birth mother. Since, it's been taught, or learned (I'm not sure which) the most advanced methods of survival and now neither freud nor gates could dislodge it. If it wasn't so damn reasonable, and right most of the time, it might have become an irritant. Well — truth — it is an irritant, but one hell of a fine editor. And he certainly knows me better than The X ever did, or is that just my own illusion?

Why am I out here hitting reality in the face?

✧ ✧ ✧

Now there's an interesting question, one The Rider's struggling with as he tries to make sense of a past that doesn't seem to exist except as a series of disconnected, almost alien memories. The question comes front and centre when, just outside Vancouver, his bike suddenly strikes up a philosophical discussion. The subject, life as a literary device.

✧ ✧ ✧

Now the Rider was not unused to hearing what seemed to be voices separate from his own thoughts but he knew this was not at all unusual. He knew the human psyche is not a single entity but a collection of emotions, conceits and neuroses that often seem to have an existence of their own, and it's the norm rather than the exception that they, in effect, end up as semi-autonomous subsets of the larger psyche. It can be a fairly noisy babble as these subset personalities are constantly jostling and fighting for room. Noisy — and quite rough at times, like growing up in a very large family.

Now imagine that crowd captured inside a balloon. What happens? What do you see looking at the balloon from the outside? In psychological terms, the balloon is the ego, the conscious self-image, and it does exactly what the balloon is doing — holding it all together. In most people, it succeeds amazingly well, but a number of forms of mental illness occur if and when, and how, the balloon breaks, and the self-image loses its ability to hold all its disparate elements together. Multiple personality is just the most dramatic of these afflictions. But simply hearing different mental voices was normal. [Of course, the balloon analogy leaves out that forces are acting inward as well — that it is not just the strength of the ego that guards against breakdown but all the sanctions and strictures and structures of the larger society one is part of.] Yeah. Yeah. He knew all that and was comfortable with it because it made sense of his own experience. What he wasn't used to was a voice that cut in over the music on his headset. Like, for real. The voice was in the stereo somewhere. Demanding attention.

“well, surely you do see that? are you with me at all? i mean are we, ah, having a meaningful discussion or what? for that to happen you have to take part, i mean, like converse. do you think we can try that? huh?”

The voice paused.

“well. I'm waiting. by the way, i'm in the whole bike, not just the stereo. ask me about it sometime. and, oh yeah. i am real. well, at least as real as you are.”

Mind you, it was not that he hadn't heard of it, or something similar. The Rider was more than a little familiar with New Age channelling. [Now there's a growth industry. In the same way that human population went exponential this century, the number of channels serving the many prophets of the New Age has gone stratospheric in recent years.] {Yeah. They're everywhere. Some days it seems you can't get away from them.} The X had been into it in a big way and The Rider had heard first hand more than one third party to a group of two's conversation — a sometimes eerie, sometimes hokey experience. And he'd read, well glanced really, through a few of The X's books on the topic once, reckoning there was a documentary or two that could be made. He'd never pulled it off, but that was monetary, not for lack of story potential. Still, The Rider wasn't sure just what to make of any given so called 'channelled entity'. He knew there were many styles and types, and he also thought any number of hypotheses {God he likes to use the big words, doesn't he?} might account for some subset portion of the overall range — say, those who experienced their voices as angels, or those who spoke to spirits of the dead. But that still left those who channelled voices from other galaxies or from the logos of distant stars. Guardian spirits too. Astral Guides. Beings from alternate and/or altered realities and, of course, possession by time travelling rakes enjoying a cosmic scam. Just to name a few. But there were few hypotheses you could name could cover them all, not even outright fraud and wilful delusion. Even fewer could account for what this seemed to be, a voice from an inanimate object. Even if it had a name.

The object I mean.

But then, of course, there was always the Big I, the question most of us avoid if at all possible, the Insanity Question. Which comes down to this. The insane hear voices. We know this for a fact. That is, we know the insane believe they hear voices. And so, if we, well okay, i hear voices then it stands to reason that we/i are/am ergo insane. Ergo we/i should probably go see a doctor. But, let's face it, that's all a lot of bother and what if we don't mind the voice? What if in fact we quite like it? Wouldn't we sooner welcome saint alonzo of the etheric brotherhood than an objectified psychoses? I mean, we're all human. [Speak for yourself.]

That's why so few of us care to consider the Insanity Question. Because when you do, that other question becomes…

“i'm still waiting,” the voice cut in again.

…am i really out here hitting reality in the face?

✧ ✧ ✧

Rider shook his head. Yeah, he was tired all right. Throwing half a ton back and forth to either side all day took a lot. He fairly ached all over, and didn't much trust his legs to keep the bike up at low speed. Tired enough to hallucinate? he wondered. He wasn't sure but he really didn't feel all that far out of it, just real tired. And he'd never had much trouble distinguishing reality when it hit him in the face. That was a putative survival skill in his culture, but he'd often wondered, and thereby allowed the Big I into his life.

Was this its answer?

“ok then, i'll go first. i won't stand on ceremony. i'll introduce myself first. then you can do it back and we'll be great old friends. you'll see. now, let's see. i really like what you called me. the piss on everything toy. tHe PoEt. yeah. you can call me that. but really, i'm a warrior not a poet. but what the hell. what's in a name? especially between friends?”

✧ ✧ ✧

Well, like the bike — you've probably figured out it's # 2 — said, what's in a name? Unless, like Rider, you don't have one. But even Rider puts that aside for the moment, the more important question being just what the hell's in the bike?

✧ ✧ ✧

There was a dramatic pause. Rider could have sworn he heard a phlegmy throat clear but there was no throat here to clear. A gummed-up carb? He wished he knew how to check.

“i am an authentic, entity class one, warrior spirit. i have the papers to prove it. i am 38,432 years old, give or take a drunken lifetime. i have been almost anything you care to name, quite successfully too if i must say so myself. as a warrior spirit, i am of the deep thinker tribe. i seek wisdom through the centuries which i impart as requested, and as allowed by my license. that is who i am. now the question is, who are you?

oh and yes, i do have references. do you?”

✧ ✧ ✧

And that was how The Rider met tHe PoEt. It was, once again, exactly the stuff of fodder for the book. Trouble was, it didn't turn out the way it was intended. The first intercourse between Rider and PoEt was to delve into the very fundamentals of existence, to slalom on the deeper and finer meanings of life. Not to degenerate into a wrestling style grudge match. Something had gone wrong. But what? It was as though the book — and its characters — had a mind of their own.

{They do.}

✧ ✧ ✧

Dulse! the Rider exploded at the sudden new memory. Just what the hell dulse was that? And if he'd smoked it, then why the hell couldn't he remember what it was like to be stoned?

And that was when it all cracked up. When the suspenders snapped. When the fan hit the shit and shortcircuited.

For the first time in his, admittedly short, life, Rider fully understood that he was nothing but a character in a novel, nothing more than a whim of a writer who could chop, change, truncate or expand his character as the plot demanded, or as the fancy struck. The realization struck deep, hitting a chord that made sense of the many inexplicables of his existence — the sudden awakenings to consciousness, the implanted and thoroughly alien memories, his inability to find a place where that fellow with the mysterious fingers couldn't find him. In a flash, he knew who that strange person was and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he was. And hated himself. He was nothing more than a writer's plaything, nought more than a reader's suspension of disbelief wandering through the playground of the writer's mind. A toy, he thought bitterly. A hack writer's toy.

Then what the hell was he in? Rider wondered. A bad sitcom? Some retreaded vehicle for a piss poor comic with a schiz schtick shift?

✧ ✧ ✧

Now there's a point worth mentioning. You see, tHe PoEt has two personalities, one a nauseatingly pompous 'professor' who looks down his tailpipe at its Rider, and the other a brash and obnoxious street kid. The two personalities don't get on so the triangle's equilateral — the Rider can't stand either. The prof in particular rubs Rider raw, especially when he bitches at being stuffed into a GoldWing because he lost a bet with a classmate from channelling school, which is just like it sounds — a school where spiritual entities can earn their license to channel to mortals on this plane of existence.

The classmate is The Minstrel, he's # 3. You'll recognize him — the first time he appears he's a seagull. Yes, like Jonathon. Except it should have been Dumpington, tHe PoEt complains, claiming Minstrel cheated on the bet — which of them could get published first with a silly tale about an enlightenment-seeking gull. So there'd be no question which of them had gotten through, tHe PoEt explains, each of them got to put their own spin on the yarn.

“now you want to talk about dense! what do gulls do? sure they fly? but where do they fly? you tell me that? where do you always see them going to? off on some existential pursuit of the spirit? hah! they're going to the dump! think about it. the name should have been jonathon dumpington seagull. go to the dump and shit. hah!”

But Minstrel, tHe PoEt alleges, bagged himself a ghostwriter for the polish, 'you know, someone like shakespeare or hemingway but damned if i could prove it.' So Minstrel got to choose how tHe PoEt had to channel. That's also a point of some contention.

✧ ✧ ✧

“so that's why i'm here. am i ticked? you want to believe it. i mean this is junior stuff. i mean this is where they stick raw recruits from other dimensions to learn something about this plane's life forms. it's an insult, i tell you, a deliberate insult. and to top it all off, he puts me in a bloody honda! he could at least have had the decency to make it a harley.”

Great, Rider thought, dismounting and stretching. A bike with an identity problem. Just what he needed. He looked around for a shady spot that would be out of the machine's range, whatever that was, but still within eyesight. He hoped that was possible — with the bulk of his worldly possessions either in the saddlebags or tied to the back seat, he wasn't in a hurry to let it out of his sight, but he was in a hurry for some quiet. Across the grass towards the shore there was a grassy knoll shaded by several medium size trees of a species he didn't recognize. He thought to tHe PoEt, 'Look, I want you to keep talking while i'm walking away so i can figure out when I'm clear of you.' Not waiting for a reply, and with goal in mind, he set out, but kept a part of his mind tuned to tHe PoEt to find out if and when he really got out of range.

“so here i am making your acquaintance. it's a pleasure to finally meet you. you've been pretty dense and impervious since you first took me out. i'd almost given up hope of getting through that thick helmet. the last few days…

It was at about thirty metres [one hundred feet], Rider figured, when the voice started to fade. Another ten [Figure it out for yourself.] had reduced it to almost nothing. But tHe PoEt wasn't really talking to him anymore anyway. It had turned inward, muttering and mumbling to itself. Definitely unbalanced, if not insane. The very last words he heard were…

“oh well, i should be thankful i suppose. he could have put me in a blonde.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Cooled and more relaxed now, Rider stood up, looking for a drink. The inevitable snack shack was there, Rider checked, still within eyesight of the bike. A little far for comfort. Of course. Still, as he walked over and stood in line, then ordered and paid for his lemonade, Rider was able to keep the bike in view at all times. No one went near it, and it just sat there, just an ordinary machine. And it just sat there all the time Rider was walking back over to it, downing his lemonade in long gulps. And it just sat there when Rider dropped his jacket on the seat and then squatted on the ground nearby, studying his strange companion. There was not even a hint of the beast's bark, but Rider figured it wasn't absent. Or sleeping. Like the best of hunting cats, it was just waiting for the moment, stilling the mind and opening a space, letting the moment fill with silence best to hear that next drop, instinct taking over to start the pounce.

Rider was wrong. This version of tHe PoEt was too pissed for niceties like that. It was the prof.

“well, you took your time didn't you. went to sit in the shade and left me out here in the hot sun to bake.”

Rider had his counterpunch ready. “So where you been? I mean, it's been a long time since that book was published. I can remember reading it in university, that was back in the early 70s, and it'd already been around a few years. So where you been in the meantime? I mean, this bike wasn't even built back when all this was happening. According to you, that is. So. Where you been?” Talk about hoisting someone on their own petards, Rider chuckled. How would it — and the bloody writer — weasel their way out of that little trap?

“there you go again, confusing concepts like time with some form of reality, and that reality an illusion impoverished by its linear approximation.”

Like a weasel. Of course. Perhaps this entity wasn't so different after all. Trapped into an answer, it had retreated into obscuration, thus completing the deadly triangle of sins — hubris, verbiage and obscureness. Interesting. They weren't there when tHe PoEt reverted to the kid. Maybe the kid was too young and those sins just hadn't set in yet. “Huh? You want to say that again?”

“there you go again, confusing concepts like time with some form of reality, and that reality an illusion impoverished by its linear approximation.”

“Now who's the comic? I mean say it with meaning, say it in English. Say it so I can understand. Come on. You know that. You can read my mind.”

“well, sometimes. besides i don't know if i can make it any plainer. they never told us what to do if the channel didn't get it. i mean who'd think there was anyone that dumb? or stupid enough to admit it?”

That was it. There was only so much a character, no matter how poorly drawn, could stand. Rider exploded. “Well, fat lot of good you are to have around too. I either get treated to a petulant kid who i can't understand, or I get a dose of gobbledegook I also can't understand. And I don't think you understand it either. I think you're a fraud. I think you probably failed channelling school and this bike is where they put dolts like you. Where you can't get into much trouble. Yeah. You should have been a Harley all right. You and the typical HOGger would make a real pair. Pig Dog and Dunce, assholes at large.”

His anger surprised and frightened Rider, and he was embarrassed to have lost control like that. Even more embarrassed when, once again, giggling told him he had been speaking out loud. Speaking out real loud, he assumed, because this time it was a nervous giggle. Rider looked to see the same two girls hurrying away just as one turned to look back. Their eyes met and Rider saw the girl's fear. Not a good habit at all. Rider started moving away from the bike, figuring it was that or end up in a reality where your arms curved behind your back and you had to call a lot of people sir to get out. Striding rapidly, Rider lost himself trying to figure why he'd gone off his brain at Harleys like that. Why? Why would he do that? Hell, some of his best friends rode hogs.

And that was when a new voice suddenly popped into his head. Only this time it was female. Decidedly female.

“That's right. And is there anything quite like riding a hog to set the quim aquiver?”

✧ ✧ ✧

Rider broke out of his reverie and looked around, expecting — by the proximity of the voice — to find a woman standing next to him, though what woman would ask him that question just out of the blue like that, he couldn't figure. And he couldn't figure how a woman would have known to ask that question — unless he'd been talking out loud again. Rider looked around, saw no woman there. But he had heard the voice. Ah shit, he thought. It's the bloody minstrel! Another goddamn mind worm of course! Rider cursed. Those lousy little bits of foreshadowing earlier on should have warned him, and he should have known the writer would follow through. What else can you expect from a no-talent like that? Dramatic impulse? Motivation? You got to be joking.

This was all getting to be a damn nuisance, this entity business, Rider bitched to himself. Most fictional heros just had to put little round holes in bad guys' foreheads, then draw little XXes in their eyes, not grapple with talking things — and anyways just what the hell was talking now? His hurried departure had put him out of the bike's range very quickly. So how could he be hearing another voice from the bike? Was it something else somewhere around him? Maybe a talking tree this time? How's about a talking toad? Will the real minstrel please stand up!

And that was when the goddamn seagull dropped in, announcing its impending presence with a splattering blitz of shitz.

✧ ✧ ✧

Rider wiped his sleeve, then took a closer look. As far as gulls go, it was pretty nondescript; medium sized, medium beaked and medium off white. Even the black wing tips were only medium black. Rider groaned. He'd been wrong. His writer was even worse than he'd feared. What a lousy setup, he thought, but had to admit his own effort was pretty lame — a deadpanned, “Doctor Livingston, I presume.”

“no. you were right the first time. i'm the minstrel.”

Oh! Shock! Oh! Surprise! An original twist, a neat little sucker punch. He'd been trapped. “But that thing never said anything about you being a bird. Or female.”

“who said i was? you see me as you choose to see me. you see a gull. you hear a female. your friend tHe PoEt sees and hears me as a male classmate. which is right? they both are. you see, you create your own reality.”

“Hah!” Rider winced, his bitterness so palpable he feared he'd gag. “Not me. I'm a character in a book. A writer creates my reality.”

✧ ✧ ✧

You create your own reality.

With that simple phrase, The Minstrel delivers the first of The Rider's lessons in self-awareness, the subject of the chautaqua that underlies and drives tHe PoEt & i The lessons become a book within the book, The Teachings of The Minstrel, in which he, or it — depending on the appearance he chooses for the occasion — expounds the ten dictatums of self-awareness. These simple rules, The Minstrel claims, can free a person from the slavery of ego blindness and open the mind to the wonders of a universe that has hidden itself in the here and thou.

But, to The Rider, it's all gobbledeebafflegoop. He's invested so much in his belief that he's not real he can't even get past the first dictatum, accept your reality. The Rider's such a tough case, his nemesis has to reach up his sleeve and pull out every trick he can, from appearing as just about anything — including a cockroach, bat and dog — to abruptly shifting Rider into a series of alternate realities. There is much method to this madness; like a Zen koan, the goal is to shock The Rider out of his ego complacency and open him to a different way of viewing the world. It starts from their very first encounter as Rider is sent reeling to stand on a mountaintop where he hears a female voice start channelling the six-part song Transformation. For The Rider, a frustrated musician, the song is overpowering and he longs to throw himself into its embrace. But he's abruptly pulled back to his everyday reality. A bit like coitus interruptus.

✧

Was the voice real? Rider wondered. It's femaleness was unreal — a compendium of every vocal caress, cadence and command needed to assemble a first rate 1-900 fantasy service. He had melted into it but now he knew it was just an experience, it wasn't reality. The magic disappeared from the voice. Just an illusion, he reflected, an illusion he somehow created if this bird was right.

“very good, and your first try too. he still hasn't got even that far.

The magic was gone! Hell, the gull was null! In its place stood an old 'gentleman' of the old school, a white groom groomed all in white, holding out some kind of food on a plate, asking with a gently military voice, “Would you care for a wing?” Rider stared, realizing the apparition — for what else could it be? — now stood in front of a film set where they were shooting a commercial for the General's Gaulic Grilled Gulls. The actors sat at bright plastic tables smoking Gauloises as though they were the end product of that camel dung franchise. No, it wasn't a commercial after all, but an anti-smoking public service. Good on'em, Rider thought. Give'em hell!

“that's very judgmental — you'll have to get over that.”

As he spoke, the old gentlemen's hand had carried a piece of whatever it was on the plate to his mouth, and he now stood watching Rider blandly while he gracefully tore small chunks from the whatever; eating them, Rider figured by the sound, bones and all. And that was when Rider realized what whatever it was was. The old gentleman beamed.

“ashes to ashes, grub to slug, wings to stomach. don't you just love the food chain?”

Rider stared, feeling sick. Was this some gruesome rite of passage? Some sideshow freak like the female spiders that devour their male in the throes of mating? Some psychic cannibalism? Rider reeled with one too many blows, staggering to the side, wanting to sit down.

“please. compose yourself. this is a public place you know. and please take your hands out of your pants. there are laws.”

Surprised, Rider looked down but knew even before his eyes arrived that he could be in trouble. Caught red-handed, you might say. If there was a cop about. Add that to talking with motorcycles and they'd recycle the key.

“you never said if you'd like a piece. try the tail. it's particularly tasty.”

✧

The old gentleman leaned into Rider's face, peering down his mouth as though Rider were a show horse. His monocle glinted and one stab of light, the angle just right, momentarily blinded Rider, just that split second of time it takes to react and look away. But in just that split second, the old fart was gone. The sudden disappearance of the face was startling and Rider jerked backwards, hitting something solid. Turning, Rider knew just what to expect, and his expectations were met. After all, once war starts, you go for the balls. And it was his reality after all.

It was a cop. Of course.

✧

And one thing cops don't like is a biker who claims he doesn't have a name. So The Rider creates one, tells the cops his name is Dark.

Dark Rider

Not a bad nom de plume says Potter, the friend Dark stays with in Vancouver. And not a bad nom de guerre mutters Dark, now convinced he's in a fight to the death with his writer. Dark's weapon of choice is his own book, Notes From The Shop, in which he makes his writer the central but thoroughly ineffectual character. He starts writing it at Potter's but a midnight visit from the Minstrel ruptures his world enough that two co-contemporaneous co-related realities start bleeding through. They even have their own story names: Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch features # 4, the aging soap actress, and # 5, the undercover tabloid journalist, is both the star and writer of Just a coupl'a GoB.

✧

Notes From The Shop

It was the usual Saturday morning crowd in The Shop, sharing the usual crop of complaints, bitches and pet peeves, along with the usual macho camaraderie that males relish amongst themselves. It was, in other words, a typical meeting of The Brotherhood, complete with beer, bravado, the occasional reef and firm, even if unwritten, rules that The Shop was offlimits to females. Well, not true entirely as there were the odd females who entered to check up on their mates, or go through to the barn. But it was hurried, with a certain sense of discomfort because if anything was clear just by the way things were, The Shop was the male preserve, the place where the guys could be guys and little boys could play with their toys.

Seated in as close as you could come to a circle when the seats were work benches and a couple of convalescent cars were Bif, Bop, Bim and Bum. That's not to say there were four physically present. In fact, there were only three. But Bum, for perfectly valid and understandable reasons, had recently changed his name to Bim. (Yes, the names have been changed to protect the guilty — in the true traditions of The Brotherhood, the innocent can look after themselves.) But Bif and Bop, long time friends of Bum, not only refused to accept the name change but had made it a joke. Getting a beer, Bif would ask Bim if he wanted one, Bop then ask if Bum wanted one too. It was the same with joints. Bim knew pretty much what to expect for his decision, still it did sometimes irk him that his friends always

✧

“to stalk self-awareness, there are two questions you must answer. that's right, just two, but answering them covers it all. it will take years and years of effort for you to achieve your goal, to become self-aware.”

“I already told you where you can fry your self-awareness. I'm in the market for heart and your brand's phoney. Phoney bologna.” (Isn't it neat how a word that shouldn't rhyme does. How many of you read baloney? Fess up now. It's not a crime. Just an indication.) Hah! Rider thought. Shove that where the klieg lights don't shine. But then his mouth dropped as the old gentleman slowly drew himself erect — then kept growing, taller, widening at the hips, sprouting tits and a wig, dress and high heels, talking all the time.

“phoney baloney? you been reading the tubesteak labels lately, honey. you know what's in those things? might be something you're allergic to. but you see, tubesteak's about all you going to afford if you don't stick with the scripts. frankly, nobody gives a damn what your personal problems are, and there's more than a few of us wondering about your mental balance. but, whatever your problems are, you leave them off the set and you give one hundred percent out here. you got that, abigail?”

“What did you say?”

“you mean you weren't listening? sotto voice damn! my best acting in a year and she misses it.”

“That's what I mean. That she stuff. What did you call me? Abigail?”

“so i used your real name. you might have changed your name, the credits might say lily, but you're still abigail to me. and i'm still becky. so what are you going to do? sue me?”

“But that's just it. It's not my name. My name's Dark, Dark Rider. I don't know how, but you've somehow got me confused with a woman, which, as you can clearly see, I am not.”

If there were academy awards for looks of exasperation, Becky's would have won on the spot. 'Why couldn't the bitch just get on with it?' it spoke in letters centimetres high. There was a loud “Cut!” and a sharp whistle, then darkness was falling but, in the instant then the fragment then the smidgen of time it took, Rider had his first experience of slow motion: saw the Minstrel, still Becky, stalking away; saw technicians start the breakdown in the background; saw the director's eye. The scenes flickered slightly at first, then the flicker became more pronounced and slow. Conveniently, there'd been enough time for the old guy to return, turn around and say the two questions that had to be answered were What is the story? and Who is the writer? Then repeat that awful name. Then the camera turned on Rider, but he was a her. A little frumpy in the face but well dressed. A little worn by the years. Then the frames were barely moving and the blackness was complete. Only now it wasn't blackness because he was continuous.

Hippity, hoppity, Rider thought looking around. What a clinical reality. Then he shuddered. Bibbity, bobbity!

Talk about going for the balls.

✧

Damn! Tricked again. It was just a fade to black fade up. One of those especially cheesy ones. You know, with the face of the bad guy leering down on the down, the face of the good guy cheering up on the up — what happened in between now recounted; and the girl swoons at the bravery exhibited on her behalf. A cheap out, a kind of dramatic commercial break. Handy things to have around when you're short of budget and low on imagination. Or shooting for television.

“Abby! Abby!”

Another tacky effect. Cheap too. Pulling the focus so concerned face swims in and out of blur — straight from the forties, that one. Now cut to details in the sea of soft dreams, and vignette memories from the interlude. Concatenation. Frantic voices, a distant siren, pounding feet. Orders to stand back. Pain, such pain in the chest, spasms of electricity, bursts of lightning fusing into glaring white, a tunnel, backlighting and so revealing dark splotches on the soul. A voice, female — that was Becky, wasn't it? — echoing. Strain to hear, pull sense out of the voice. Hold onto it. There were three questions. Which is the story? Who is the writer? and How do you get a salami on wurst at 3 a.m. if you don't live in New York City?

“Abby! Abby! Come on girl. You can do it. Hold on. Don't let go. Please Abby, don't let go.”

Well the first question was easy enough. It was the story of a woman in crisis, taking her first steps towards a new life. As for the writer, well that was easy too. That was her skulking over there behind the camera. But that last wasn't right. She'd read that in MAD magazine — whatever that was. Besides, just what the hell is a salami on wurst? It sounded revolting. Hold on. Even the voices were swimming, fusing and melding into each other. That other voice. That was Dicky, wasn't it? But what was Dicky doing here? He should have been home with Edie. That was the deal after all. Abby got the bacon and Dicky cooked it. That was the way of the world.

“I'm sorry Mr. Fuego. But there's nothing we can do. She has to pull out of this on her own.”

Can't. Can't pull out. Too many voices. Too many hands, reaching out, waving in her face. Becky's hands. Grab them. She had to grab them. Becky! Becky! I'm trying! Don't give up. Please don't give up. But the hands were melting, becoming incandescent, bones inside luminous bags of dripping flesh. God, it was a fade to white! Please Dicky. Please don't let go. They're slipping. Dicky! Your fingers are slipping away! For Edie's sake. Please.

Then the whiteness was complete.

✧

You've probably gathered by now that I don't acknowledge the little guy any more than I absolutely have to. It just encourages him. Yeah, # 7, the Inner Critic — you know, that voice that always carps at you over your mental shoulder, able to recite your every sin and all too willing to point out all your shortcomings of thought and being. You know, you've seen the sitcom a dozen times; the kid brother from hell, a kind of Leave it to Cleaver, with Wack the Knife as theme song. Yeah. You've got one of them too. The thing with my critic is that the kid's not just in my mind but in the laptop as well. I'm of two minds for how the latter comes about. I sometimes think he's like a separate circuit in my brain, with its own wires down to my hands and so they type without me knowing. (I've once or twice had the same suspicion about The Bard but he says I'm wrong. I guess the question is, Would you trust a computer?) Then I sometimes think the kid's just a fractured part of my electronic friend's circuitry. Or maybe his kind are replicating, writer help us all. But then I guess that makes me of three minds about the kid and that makes for quite a discussion. But I won't bother with it because, no matter how it comes about, the point is the little prick exists.

✧

Dark stared at the computer screen, perplexed. He'd slipped away for a moment to write down what lyrics of the song he could remember, and to make a note for the book, an outline of a pithy and wryly sarcastic description of how Bim had settled on a motorcycle trip, and why he had decided it would be on a Goldwing. Potter was still down in the studio, had never left it since Dark first went downstairs, so there was no way he could have been responsible. But, if not Potter, who, or what, had done this? There were no Notes From The Shop to be found, no NOTSHOP1.txt on the drive. Dark wondered if somehow he had erased it, but his UNDELETE utility could find nothing to resurrect, no electronic ghost returned from the dead. NOTSHOP1 had ceased to exist.

Worse, he had no backup on floppy. Nothing to save him the hassle of rewriting. For a moment he wondered if, in fact, he had written anything at all. Perhaps he'd only dreamed the act of writing. But he knew that was grasping at straws, he knew he had written. But where had it gone?

He stared at the file list, speculating the document had somehow been renamed. But all the other files looked right. Except one. What the hell, he wondered is GOBGAB.txt? He hit RETRIEVE. The screen blanked, shivered, and Dark's confusion convulsed.

Just a coupl'a GoB

So there we were, just a coupl'a GoB [1] from The Rump [2]. Shooting guff on the lam [3], running the backroads of the riding where a few beer and a bag of dulse aren't a problem unless you're unlucky. Real unlucky. Or followed. And that was probably the more likely for there was a pile of bush back here and fair few folk to fill it. But if you were followed it was your own damn fault anyway because, sure as shooting, them cops was sloppy and you shouldda seen'em. When you're a GoB, you watch your tail and you don't give them no excuses.

That's just one of the axioms that had fallen like swine from the lips of The Politician. He was my guide into these backhills of The Rump, my introduction to a way of life so far removed from life in the Big Cumquat, it seemed less a part of Canada than some transplant from a different planet — or bleedthrough from a different dimension. And he was a perfect guide cause he was a GoB, even if I wasn't. And he was a GoB Politician to boot. So we'll call him GoBBy. Poli GoBBy. He'd appreciate the humour in the name. And, needless to say but worth repeating, GoBBy gabbed. Loved talking and was quite loquacious in his own GoBBish way. I guess that's why he was one of the Rump's most successful politicians. Contrary to the popular perception which pictures them taciturn, GoBs love to gab. And they love gabbing about nothing more than politics. So a gabby GoB can grab a seat in the House just by gabbing. You see, when you're a GoB you vote for a GoB. That was just another of GoBBy's axioms. Like I said, they fell like swine.

Fat swine. Poli had made a plump career out of politics by giving the folks just what they wanted. Ten weeks of a government job so they could collect Unemployment for forty? No problem — there was a road crew working nearby that could use an extra flagger [4]. A flagon of beer at midnight? Sure. Just give me your vote and let me go back to sleep. Something done about those raccoons in the garbage? Ma'am, those are God's creatures too, but we'll see what we can do. Well, most of the time. There were times he took a stand and that made him popular too. GoBs love a good stand, even if they don't agree with it, and Poli's aggressive personality had earned him respect . Even a certain amount of affection. And if Poli was less than scrupulously honest, well, that didn't matter to the GoBs. He was an honest crook and he was one of theirs. Honest.

Honest.

But then, should you trust me? I've already lied to you once and will probably do so again. You might say it's an occupational hazard. You see, I'm an undercover journalist and so I work for the media — the vicious leftwing backstabbing anti-establishment media establishment. But hell, it's a living. One hell of a living in fact. I work deep cover for The Bi-National Inquirer (usually called The Bi, it's one of the better tabloids back in the Big Cumquat) meaning nothing I write ever gets printed under my own name. To protect my identity for future assignments. So, you'll understand that I can't use my real name. So let's just call me Mellow, Mellow Yellow. Poli'd appreciate the humour in that name too.

For the second time that day, Dark's sense of humour failed. Poli GoBBy? Mellow Yellow? What the hell was this? Nothing he'd written. What was it doing on his hard drive then? He looked out the window at the garage where tHe PoEt was not only under lock and key, but had his battery disconnected — just to make sure. Could he have done this? Wiped out a document and inserted another? No way, Dark thought. The Minstrel, then? Possibly, but not likely — there'd been absolutely no hint The Minstrel even knew he was writing a book. That left one possibility. No, Dark mused. It was a probability. Goddamn the writer man. Well, if he wanted to play like that, then Dark would rewrite it from memory and keep a safety copy on floppy, hell on a dozen floppies. And if that didn't work, then Dark would become like one of the living books in Fahrenheit 451. [Shouldn't that be Celsius 261.88?] (If you don't mind, it's a title.) [So?] He'd keep it in his head.

Sphinctered.

That would certainly give new meaning to opening and closing a document, Dark chuckled to himself, relieved to find his sense of humour returning. You needed it around here.

✧

And he will need it over and over.

As Dark travels across Canada, he struggles to write the book that will free him from his mad writer and come to some accommodation with his talkative mount. But, hounded, batted and cockroached by The Minstrel and his Teachings, the journey turns into a nightmarish fugue; a series of midnight encounters, strange characters and perplexing events that force Dark to question his sanity and wonder if he's breaking down, if his growing glimpses of Abby's world and the GoB book writing itself on his computer aren't signs of a fragmenting personality.

Abby comes to question her sanity too. Recovering from her heart attack and haunted by the phrase Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch, she suffers a profound angst that leads to an overwhelming revelation on a greeting-card-scenic Caribbean beach. Her female-dominant world forces both sexes into brittle shells called male and female, truncated parodies of what each sex could be. So Abby adopts a male alter-ego, Betcher David, dresses the part, and goes into standup comedy with routines based on, as she describes it, 'that divide between male and female where the snide and the crude, the rude and the sublime reside; that gulf where we struggle with our own inner dualities.' But she — rather he — becomes so successful her husband Dickie leaves, taking their daughter, and Abby becomes the target of a vituperous media campaign mounted by Real Wimmen, a loose group of Old Gal CEOs and MBAs fighting a rearguard action against men's rights and who resent Abby's 'betrayal' of their sex. The fight is so intense, Abby fails to notice Betcher is taking over, relegating her to the back seat neurons. Battling back, Abby sets out to kill him, a feat she achieves by inveigling a prescription for a new antidepressant.

Meanwhile, back in the laptop, Just a coupl'a GoB continues to unfold. Mellow Yellow has been sent to the Rump to write an in-depth exclusive on the Dulsia, a shadowy group of GoBs who control the world trade in the hallucinogenic seaweed dulse. It's only the bulbuous root, where the plant attaches to Bay of Fundy rocks, that's psychoactive and harvesting the root requires a dangerous trip into the depths of the most tidally-active water in the world. All in a day's work for most reporters, but Mellow has a panic disorder that's triggered by water. He survives his close encounter with Finnegan's Wake but when he's taken to meet Jimi, the storied master of the Dulsia, he's slipped a cup of the real mellow yellow, dulse that's been biologically processed to a potency guaranteed to bring a man to god.

Even if he's not ready.

All three inter-twining co-related realities come to their conclusions on maritime beaches during a total eclipse of the sun. Filled with remorse, Abby finds her peace with the departed Betcher and an exultant Mellow uncovers the true nature of the universe. It's made out of marshmallows.

The little ones.

As for Dark, he comes face to face with the last of The Minstrel's Teachings and has to accept that he is his own writer and his struggles to break free of the writer were nothing more than delusion. Face to face with his own unarguable reality, Dark has no choice but to accept the tenth dictatum of self-awareness.

Surrender.

✧

As I said,

just the factsimile.

To read the entire manuscript of

tHe PoEt & i,

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[1] ...

Good'ol Boys [back]

[2] ...

Reluctantly unidentified maritime province or place [back]

[3] ...

law avoiding manoeuvres [back]

[4] ...

ALT constructive avoidance specialist; BPC… flagman [back]