The Way

Medea woke up knowing something was wrong, but that everything would be okay. Tremors through the earth but the tremors in her heart stronger; tremors intuitive of the coming collection of time and mind. Like a little bee signing the honey from the vine. It was violent and beautiful, an orgasm fully recognized.

Atlantis shook. America shook. All worlds which are other than these intersected and created a jam session of techtonic proportion indescribable by most humans; it wasn’t a normal day. Medea stepped outside to the mind of the trees symphonic and holistically carving a new world from the clay.

We are not afraid, she thought. Even asleep on my bed, curled in my breast like the young child I’ve hugged many a time and given away, knowing what could be lost, I am not afraid. I will not be afraid.

Strange to say such things! Don’t do it!
Says Mary Kelly in another world, one where the overflowing just began and heavens! The keyboard and drums….

In the middle of the night, climbing the mountain, the Witch and the Warlock looked down from their climb and saw a thick white mist engulfing the town below.

In the middle of the night, the night that Atlantis died, the knight that the City of Angels collided with inevitable space and time metafiction, the Authoress jammed drunk on wine and pot with a few of the receptive. Stoned out of our minds, I swear we lifted something off the Zeitgeist, musically, she thought. Those tones that transport and manipulate the feeling of a room, that’s what was made. That’s what was created, and so many words not even sung.

And so the Authoress thought it dutiful to write what had happened amongst souls. Though it was said to be selfish, the desire to unite amongst souls; this, the product of years of conditioning. And so it was, and ever shall be; world without end, Amen:

We walk through the valley of the shadow of our doubt
We walk through the valley of the shadow
We walk through the valley of the shadow of the pyramid….

And the Earth Shook

I never know what to write, I just get signals, little tattle-tale rats of ideas who walk in, bust out a joint, and pass me a story. I never know what’s going to happen next, it just does. It’s like the weirdest fucking cosmic half-way house in my head sometimes, said the Authoress to the Sirian .

Somewhere, in some Universe:

“My fellow Americans,” said the President in her most reserved, sympathetic tone, “I speak to you now, not as a President, but as a citizen of this great nation in mourning. Today, November the eleventh, at three twenty-three in the morning, Los Angeles was attacked by a nuclear warhead. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. Our nation is in a state of emergency, and I know you’re all asking: What are we going to do about it? At this time, our Intelligence cannot disclose a full report, although we suspect that operatives of the enemies of Freedom, Iran, were involved in the attack…

Somewhere in another Universe:

“My fellow Atlanteans,” said the Queen Regent in her most sincere, compassionate voice, “I speak to you now, not as Queen Regent, but as a citizen of this great continent in mourning. Today, eleventh of El-Viath, at twenty three minutes Terce, Lateraline time, Lo Sarkos was attacked by a nuclear warhead. Our empire is in a state of crisis, and I know what you’re all asking: What are we going to do about it? At this time, our Intelligence cannot disclose a full report, although we suspect that operatives of the enemies of Freedom, the Uupain-Inlik are involved…”

Medea Culpa laced up her boots.

The Worlds begin shifting on a Saturday night

Most people think of worlds as floating, blue and green marbles orbiting a gravity halo around a center star. Indeed, many worlds exist this way. But what one forgets to remember is that according to the eccentricities of Quantum mechanics, these worlds also exist in many places at once. In reality, all worlds are lined up much like a city apartment building; each residing in its own space, yet all inhabiting approximately the same location. Some universes live on the 33rd floor, some in the basement. It’s a real bitch when the power goes out.

Medea Culpa drifted slowly back to sleep, her head in the gentle cusp of her lover’s shoulder. For now, all was right in her world, despite the appropriations of a crawling chaos in the heart of Atlantis that only oxcytocin and wine would numb.

At the same time, Mary Kelly swallowed two shots of tequila and poured a third; the election results had just come in: 49 to 51, and the next leader of the Free (that was a joke) world, John McJabulon, a puppet well known for his staunch ideals of a One World Militarized Zone, gave his acceptance speech. In it, he stated that recent intelligence reports showed strong evidence that the terrorist attacks on L.A. had been perpetrated by Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, and that the United States would respond with nuclear power.

At the same time, the Authoress took a very long hit of a very large water pipe filled with purple cannabis and salvia divninorum. The room swarmed with salvia sea creatures; half of them her friends, the other half, merpeople in bluejeans. Blue halos appeared over each of their heads, and a small green man seemed to be sitting on top of the dresser. When she looked him straight in the eye, he winked one giant black pupil, then disappeared. The room normalized. Fucking great pot, she thought. This is definitely going in the Novel, even though the discussion isn’t quite as surreal as I’d like. She normally didn’t party this far out, but her friend’s insistence on no less than 95 pounds of crawfish and nearly that amount in beer easily persuaded her. Even with rabid technology at the heart of America’s panic button, it took about twenty minutes longer for the information that the City of Angels was now a wasteland to reach the party house than it did everyone else.

(INRI: Igni Natura Renovata Integra, is variously translated as “All of nature is renewed by fire”, “Fire Renews Nature Completely”, or “through fire, nature is reborn whole”)

At the same time, on the eastern side of a mountain by the sea, a warlock studied the strange claw-like tentacles of a dead jellyfish washed up by a blood-red sea. His stomach growled with hunger, but the site was too disgusting to bear thought for food.

On the western side of the mountain, by the woods, a witch stepped outside her hut and looked forlornly at the bodies of ten thousand blackbirds. They looked to have hemorrhaged; blood crusted around each orifice, eyes just coagulations of brown scabs. The flies hadn’t even had time to swarm yet, but it was early.

And still, at the same time, the Sirian intelligence operative spoke to her commander through reverse-engineered Pleiadian transmitter technology:

“It seems things are getting away from us.” said the dog-like spy, who’d known about the attacks on L.A. for seven years. Every time she tried to say something, the Authoress would admonish her and bribe her with food.

“Xenu’s behind this, I know it,” said the Sirian Intelligence High Commander. If you can, get us a sample from the next reptilian you meet. Doesn’t have to be DNA; it can be a clothing item. A toe would be perfect. We need to see what their collective bio-consciousness is preparing for, and if we need to send reinforcements, we will.”

“Of course. I’ll alert you as soon as the reptiles reveal something.”

“You’re a good dog.”

“I know I am. Thank you, sir.”

And in all universes, the powerful ruling class smiled as a ripple cut them one more slice off the big cheese; people are most easily controlled when they believe their worlds may be torn apart.

Meanwhile, in Atlantis

Medea Culpa ran her fingers through the soft brown hair of the sleeping boy, feeling his dreaming mind curl under her hand like the waves that crashed against the shores of Canaan. His face twisted unpleasantly for a moment, then softened. Snoring, he dreamed of a great white whale rising out of his body and diving smoothly into a deep dark hole in the ground. A thin tremor of pleasure rose from her root as Medea remembered last night’s sweet diversion.

Life on the tiny island of Canaan at the outer edge of the Atlantean Archipelago was certainly about to get more interesting. The price of carbon-bionic fuel was rising steadily, which meant food and supplies ships were increasing their prices to haul to the tiny island, which produced only 10% of its own food. The newly elected Queen Regent Hillarious Clintori of Atlantis had threatened nuclear attack on the people of Atum if they fired on the Ishmaelites, whom Atlantis considered not just allies, but the sacred sons of the Gods. The Gods, it was commonly believed, appeared suddenly thousands of years ago, made the Ishmaelites and a few other tribes, left them with explicit instructions not to kill or rape each other and to generally act like civil human beings, and then disappeared, only to be seen by the occasional woman or child who was ‘touched’ or by the rabid dreams of Lotus-eating madmen.

The alliance between the Ishmaelites and the Atlanteans had dubious origins according to a very few fringe radicals. They called themselves The Verac, which meant “Those who long for the Truth” in Atlantean. When Media was 8, a group of Verac organized at her mother’s farm in Canaan, holding meetings and organizing boycotts and peaceful protests. But they had since been driven off the island by men with pitchforks and burning crosses who believed that Atlantis was the supreme measure of civil harmony and that any dissonant voices should be wiped off the face of the planet. Medea’s mother’s farm was burnt and Medea’s cat, Felix, mutilated by the counter-protesters. Even at 8 years old, Medea swore to Felix that she would quietly do everything in her power to destroy the type of thinking that caused such senseless death, starting with herself. Her childhood had been trying, indeed.

The alliance of Ismael and Atlantis was deemed entirely logical by the rest of the ruling elite and many of the citizens of Atlantis, who didn’t really even know where Ishmael was. And who never cared to think that in the history of the alliance, not a year had gone by in which the Ishmaelites had not fired on someone with the weapons provided by Atlantean extra-Intelligence operatives. Most Atlanteans did not notice these sorts of deep political eccentricities, as they were largely concerned with amusing themselves. Very few ever even entertained the notion that ritual and black magick played a very big role in the political, economic, and military negotiations that went on behind closed doors. Even fewer briefly entertained the radical notion that the gods who had supposedly left a long time ago were still around and were regularly attending meetings behind those same closed doors.

At twenty-three, Medea did entertain such notions. She entertained them on a daily basis, and liked to believe that she was well on her way to becoming a small, quiet thorn in the side of the massive dragon death cult that secretly ruled Atlantis.