1. Words of the wise
Hey, Curtis, Curtis…? -is that you? The familiar voice of the Hawaiian. Curtis T-, Derek half replied, and they hugged, burying their mouths in each other’s shoulders. Is Kyoko also here? A brief pause, then he said, yes, softly but firmly. She’s- is she-, he began. Boss replied, she’s totally alright but still shaken. We don’t know if she’ll ever be the same.
Stacy and Derek were in the back room of the abandoned fire station flats. They were under 2 feet of water at ground level and sinkholes had appeared here and there. See what you’ve missed, said the blonde Tailor. Every island and mountain moved from their place. They had each packed a small bag of possessions. Derek saw she had SYRN underwear. It’s because I’m from California. The lot of us, we voted in Governor Chelsea. You missed that too. Derek scratched his head, now covered with stubble. Stacy, I need to learn how to think better -and I need it now. His friends knew he was living on borrowed time. If only God had taken everyone’s powers. God wasn’t playing fair but to be fair -He had His reasons. That last thought resonated through Derek’s mind. He’s unfair -I’m fair -his reasons -my irrelevance -He’s the boss now, so who am I? Stacy giggled. Maybe it’s better that you be low IQ. Why? Everyone pities you. He turned away from her. A man can’t always run away, hide, concede defeat by default. Stacy, I want to be more than this -this... But she stopped him.
Wisdom begins with competency, she taught. Competency begins with circumcision of the mind. Who said this? Koang deLambé. He was our founder. That which impedes is removed. There are many myths about physical circumcision to ensure it begins early, thereby being most painful, thus memorable, as is most easy to forgive and most aesthetic. But being now grown, it is simply a nick. Stacy showed Derek the thin stretch of skin underside of his manhood that impeded his full functioning. Forgive God and your life is blessed. So what happens after you’re competent? Experience -the unlocked mind craves learning through doing. That is all. Derek sat on the edge of the bed. There was a small container of alcohol in which a rough pumice stone was steeping. Also a new unwrapped scalpel blade, and a pack of gauze bandage. Stacy watched to see what he would do. What do these things mean? You decide. Circumcise your mind before your flesh. And he knew it was a test.
With the blade he had to be dead sure, which he wasn’t. With the stone, he could be brutal yet highly accurate. You appreciate the irony. He nodded. One of the ways the mind is circumcised is by understanding your actions and their consequences don’t always succeed. We need God to tell us about our bodies, our souls. He will only tell the circumcised else it falls on deaf ears. Stacy took the stone and broke it in half. She held his strip of skin by her teeth and stretched it out. If this were anesthesia, it sure worked. Derek didn’t even feel the rip.
2. Johore
Derek sat in on a village gathering. The locals approved of his wife (at least they assumed she was), because she covered up her face and hair as stipulated by Moslem tradition. They ate with their hands from one large dish of rice and gravy, served on a tray. They drank rose-scented essence stirred carelessly with milk and ice cubes. Derek opened up and asked them, who’s the boss here? Penghulu, they answered -the village headman. And who’s above the Penghulu? The Penchadang. He’s called the proposer, a brother with glasses and a stringy goatee answered. Johore now extends beyond the strait -we’ve taken over Singapore and Battam. And you are a nation? Essentially, loosely speaking. We’re not officially a country. Can we meet him? Certainly, he would be glad to see people from far away.
The proposer of the Federal administration was a lowly, Ghandi-like figure. I’m now in Singapore, but only a weekend, then I fly to Kuala Lumpur. Brother, let me first walk across the causeway. We shall meet in Johore Baharu.
Derek found out that the man was poor and mostly vegan. He loved monkey head mushrooms and carrot cooked with baby corn in a soy-based gravy. You’re Chinese. Yes. And Christian. The whole purpose of electing an unlikely, minority proposer is that he cannot gather support to rise up against the Sultan -the true leader. Then what good are you? An instrument of the King’s soft power. You have brought us international clout by coming here. You and your wife both have powers. Derek, yours is the gift of knowledge and interpretation. With that, the proposer placed his hands on Derek’s temples and freed him from decades of emotional binding by his western compatriots. What you seek, you shall know.
Derek chose to sleep in a pondok. A small top-covered platform, raised above ground on stilts. Around him, the sporadic thuds of falling ripe Durian. It was night, and he and Stacy were in near darkness if not for the kerosene lamp between them. He had exchanged his watch for a checkered sarong to sleep in. He rolled a length of it into a pillow and the rest was a blanket. Stacy floated in her cloak, touching nothing. Far away, the hoot of a barn owl, tasked with killing cobras. Nobody would look for him here.
What is safety? I don’t know, Master, answered Pete. It’s because you’re whole, and I am not. Your ignorance is increasingly willful. Master, my service to you is impeded but by yourself. We have traced Derek. He is among Moslems. The last thing we need now is to trigger a jihaad. The amount of weight Mark had lost had shriveled him, surviving mainly on pitted olives and yogurt. Pete, go there -to Johore. Do what you feel. Do it before Hoag sows there. The last words came wavering, forced, as if through tears.
Derek and Stacy floated over the village, the Johoreans called their kampung. They spotted the sarong and Pagoda tee-clad proposer, hitching a ride on the back of a bio-fueled scooter towards where blimps were docked, between the leaning coconut trees and birdsong. They have DeLambé vessels, said Stacy. Master Koang designed them, woven from a thread, outwards, according to the exact structure of space. Derek made an effort to understand. Shall we fly one? Stacy smiled. He had developed genuine curiosity over his normally blunt reactions.
3. Politicos vs faith
Stacy, being a Tailor, had measured the small Chinese man they called the proposer, who was barely taller than herself -and she was petite. He had granny glasses with Transition lenses, and a tuft of white hair on light brown skin. His sarong was woven with dark checks and his shirt, bleached clean cotton. It had buttons under the neck, unfastened, she read its label: ‘Garuda Pagoda’, above the embroidered logo of an eagle atop a temple spire. Otherwise, the 60 miles per hour clip they were doing suited her just fine. She would have time to ask him some questions.
Is Johore truly a sovereign state? Yes, currently. The federation is divided. Only the south is strong enough to be peaceful. There is civil war in Borneo, and north of here, the federal territory, Kuala Lumpur lies in ruins, under the rule of Moslem militia. Fallout of the Middle East wars. Control over the Malacca Strait by your government. Stacy stared at her feet and so too Derek. His newly released powers feeding him jumbled streams of information. He glanced out the window and thought he caught Pete hanging in the air. It gave him goosebumps. Maybe it was a premonition.
What your Hoag has done -mix politics and form a spiritual executive is essentially wrong, said the proposer. All attempts to discipline a heart though letting it see what it wants and chooses leads to calamity. I know what you tailors are about. And you’re not the only one of them who’s going to land in Kuala Lumpur. Pete, whispered Stacy. The proposer nodded.
And Derek asked, is violence wrong? Why wrong? Using force upon someone, is it sustainable? The only measures that fail are ones that eventually weaken. I should have killed Mark. Possibly, the Ghandi-like figure of the Penchadang seemed to retreat. Derek, nobody gets to decide who lives or dies who in effect lives and dies. It’s a dirty solution that leaves behind knots and rips once it catches on. A madness. Then should someone destroy me for my self-worth or lack of it? It seems to be my fate. A slew of bad decisions is what earned you that fate. Wisdom can only delay it.
Derek’s heart started thumping in his breast and he got up to walk to the end of the cabin, pour himself an Americano. Stacy asked the Penchadang about the end of times. Religion proper started with Ibrahim. If you imagine the world as a rectangle with 4 sections left-right, up-down, the top right would be the actions of the Jews as they fled the center line which represents prophecy. Fleeing thus, they filled that section with essentially the Law. When Jesus died, it introduced a gap between left and the new covenant right. Miss, the push to the left essentially failed and was filled up with darkness, ignorance. But it was the only way that through that thin strip -the middle ages, that Jews could transition under cover to the left and into the bottom left section where they were persecuted until the time of Mohammed, when they were let to enter again the right position. Following that, key thinkers among God’s people shaped human history both leftist and rightmost, entwining around the center line which is God’s will. So the Enlightenment occurred, the Renaissance, and the Great Wars. So touching is human history from the point of view of salvation.
Money is running out. It is not what you think. Dollars are not being flushed down the toilet. People are just not working hard in key industries, synchronously with the rise of AI which will replace such jobs. Here in Malaysia, money is given out with or without work being done. Stacy thought a while. Is the economy broken? It’s exhausted. She looked at Derek. He was listening.
4. A new future
The airship docked to the sky bridge connecting the green and silver Twin Towers, decapitated halfway up by western missiles. DeLambé Wau kite drones swirled around them, above the lush tropical greenery that had overgrown the city. And as they disembarked, they saw a cloaked figure standing atop the bridge’s roof, a large pair of scissors in his hand. Stacy knew there would be no mercy. Where was the proposer? Was he safe?
The sky turned pale blue, the descent of a time bubble. Stacy, stay out of this. The scissors blades began to glow red-hot. Pete, remember when we were friends? We were never truly friends, Derek. Tailors tolerated your insolence and ungratefulness. We remember who a traitor is as well. Pete lunged at now defenseless Derek and the once superman’s life scrolled past his eyes. Was he worthless as a janitor’s mop bucket? A or B, son? His thoughts began to separate into yes or no, true or false. And the simple mind he had started working faster than Pete’s. He saw the Tailor’s preternatural leap in slow motion. His left shoulder dipped. Pete’s blades grazed its flesh. It burnt like a hot soldering iron. There would be scars to admire later. He thought of Stacy, making love to her. Would she still oblige after he finished off her fellow believer? He was aware of his hands, holding back the press of the hot steel gradually poisoning his blood. It smelt of lead and sulfur. It wouldn’t be long before he blacked out from toxic shock. *Turn around, Derek* came the voice of his mother. *Yes, like a dance* Dad’s voice. Where are you? Derek sought his folks with his last ounces of strength. There was no reply. Mindlessly, Derek obeyed. Left or right? Came the question. And the answer filtered through his simple brain. Right it was. He cried out as the blades tore through muscle and tendon but at least he was free, Pete’s arm tucked below his, he dragged the Tailor towards the skin of the airship. Here’s some cloth for your scissors. He kicked Pete towards the craft. Pete’s head turned to him with a look of pity and frustration, the deLambé vessel wobbled as Derek free-falled off the docking ladder. He saw the hole in space-time roll and ripple as it consumed his friend. Once they were. Now they shared the same fate -death. And as he fell, he saw again, in slow motion, the Tailor, ripped apart by the very structure of space itself.
You see, our airships aren’t dangerous. There are never explosions, just gentle, slow implosions. We fly at low altitude to prevent casualties. Derek opened his eyes. His shoulder had been bandaged, and his head lay in the proposer’s lap. Who caught me? Where’s Pete? But the wise man put 2 fingers on his forehead and he knew to be silent.
Stacy hovered over the wreck of the airship. *Pete can you hear me? Are you alive?* She knew Hoag would send his dogs if he weren’t. They had a saying, very often decisions cut both ways. The lesson of the levered blades. Amidst the thread left behind, she found his weapon, fizzing against the juicy tropical grass. Thread gathering itself into a perfect sphere the size of a baseball. She picked both these up. A feeling of being watched from the trees, so many of them. And she was alone. Cut it off right here, Stacy, she told herself. Unused to shouting, she raised her voice, Pete, if you’re still alive, go home! Abruptly, a breeze rustled the treetops, sweeping dried leaves as it passed. She left, unsure. Perhaps the matter was closed.
5. War writ large
The FEED lord, Hoag received Master Mark. Pete had returned. How is he doing? Mark didn’t reply. After a time, the Tailor admitted, Derek seems to have developed a new power, a power from God just like ours. Except his is raw, dangerous, not being bound by a profession. Mark, if your man was harmed, we will revisit Kuala Lumpur. This time, leave nothing standing. Mark nodded.
Derek’s shoulder healed rapidly under care of the Moslem magi. Stacy put her hand on it, and her little finger fitted into the deep scar. Pete isn’t a fool. He knows you want to live, he can easily take care of himself. The implosion merely chased him away -when he lost the advantage. He won’t be so easy to push off the next time.
America had split into two halves. There was the Federal Emergency Directive (FEED) run by Governor Hoag, and the Expeditionary Survival Force (the XF), which contained the military, and almost every God-fearing Christian fighter from the Anglic empire of the West, now swollen with nearly 20 million men and women.
The proposer had reported to the King. And that night, having received his gracious wage of 10 half-silver pieces, treated Derek and Stacy to kosher bakkuteh and durian. The tree bark, cinnamon and star anise stewed fatty beef was unlike anything Derek had tasted. The durian, bitter-sweet and creamy, with a garlicky after-odor. He and Stacy dug in greedily. Sorry, the Tailor said. We haven’t been eating well since we ran out of things to barter. The tanned old man nodded and smiled, pouring more broth over her rice. Eat up, he said. She could read his thoughts. This might be their last good meal before the third world war. A half-silver piece played in his palm as if he were weighing how much these Americans were worth to him and the state of his religion. Were it to be, there would be Christianity no more?
It was a rainy early morning in the muddy city, and the proposer’s ankles were covered in spatters of the brown stuff. The nanocotton sarong hung around his head and over his shoulders. Derek’s the same. Stacy’s hood was better yet, and she hovered above the slick, puddly ground spilled over with flood water from the Klang and the Gombak. Fare thee well, friends, said the old man.
On the airship back to Johore, they discussed their plans. To overfly Singapore, change over at Battam, where an Indonesian Republic heavy airship would take them to Kutai, east across the restive South China Sea, over the breadth of Borneo to its east coast. There they might find a living, and escape the hostilities.
It was nightfall when they interchanged. The lights were nearly all out in Johore and in Singapore, just the city center was lit. It was pitch dark in Battam except for the beacon of the mooring tower. Hundreds of Indonesians, a proud, diverse people, dispersed over dozens of islands waited to board the kapal besar under just a couple of flickering LED tubes. 13 minutes, said the station manager. Derek twiddled his thumbs. He was a long way from what he’d term ‘home’. He was glad for Stacy who insisted on keeping their money, now down to 3 bronze pieces which was enough to buy a couple of simple meals to share. They exchanged glances, and she put her hand in his. Maybe the XF’s million strong arms would eventually find them, FEED’s network of spirit-hungry zealots imprison and mark them. It was a masterful strategy by the Americans to break the union into just two manageable parts that did not interfere. They could see a winking in the dark. That’s the heavy airship, someone nudged Derek, as if it were the pride of his nation. Indeed it could carry as many passengers as a 747, in far greater comfort. A rushing roar filled the station. Their hearts beat faster.
6. Confrontation
Kyoko and the Hawaiian were plucking paw-paws or papayas, betik as they were called locally, when they spotted a roll on the horizon. OMG, it’s a tsunami! Did you feel a tremor? Boss spun the dial on his Apple Watch -no natural disasters on the emergencies' notifier. She rifled through her sling bag for their scope. Her jaw fell and she trembled. Kyoko, what do you see?
The tanned bikini-bodied woman was once an innocent college student, she had an American boyfriend. He was a blues musician. After he, and the other greats played by the Sumidagawa, outside the bar and grill, and he called out her name on national TV -the song she inspired him to write, she met him by that famous river. They exchanged addresses before a passing ship unloading party-goers interrupted their blossoming relationship. It was as if she were invisible to him as he played. And he only really saw the painted lips of those in tight kimono. He downed much beer that night, and she felt inferior to those practiced in the arts of hospitality. She visited America eventually, the Canyon, but all she found of him was a wreck of a mobile home with a sign ‘up for sale’. In the USA, every man is a king. Even those kings of the road. And she was lost were she not taken in by her distant cousin from Hawaii. But that’s another story to tell.
Boss plucked the scope from her hand. The wave was turning, sweeping south around the underside of Borneo. He had never seen anything like it. If it’s going after Derek, we have to warn him. But Kyoko just stood there shivering. Same as the day Gail and Jerry were murdered beside her and she, spattered with their blood, had fortuitously fainted.
At the disembarking platform in Kutai, Derek and Stacy found that they were being tailed. Two large men wearing ornate batik shirts. They didn’t seem armed, just a little bothered. Hello -hello Mr Curtis Truck. Mrs Truck? They called after them. Mr Truck, do you know the Christian name of the Penchadang? One man asked, a little out of breath. Alan, said Derek. He gave us some money, we used it to travel somewhere safer. Mr Truck, Kutai extends a warm welcome to you and your wife. They shook hands vigorously. Feel free to enjoy our national capital. You will find it ever as modern as any large city in the west. Dawn broke over East Borneo’s coast and the high rises glinted with pink overtones. Overhead, other heavy airships drifted, EV air taxis coursed between the scrapers. A lattice of enclosed pedestrian walkways overlaid the lower towers, linking up squares of multi-level public gardens and parks.
Stacy, will you marry me -for real? She nodded, silent -as if keeping back a secret. Then a smile broke over her face and she laughed. He buried her face in his chest. Tears welling in his eyes. Later that morning, they made their way to the proposer’s private suite. It was at the Hilton, maintained just for him and his friends, the hotel staff informed them. Madam, may we stow your scissors for you?
They didn’t take the collapsed deLambé sphere from her.
Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, the proposer’s suite was next to the Presidential suite but it was small, much smaller. The bathroom was tiny but well ventilated and the bed was a fold-up cot. There was a large floor to ceiling window which overlooked the coast. Derek thought he saw something like a rolling pipe wave in the distance.
7. They all fall down
Derek and Stacy had never seen a rumored arm of the Expeditionary Survival Force. Yea, that was what it was, sweeping over Kutai like a tidal wave. Men and women that marched and camped like swarms of army ants, gathering forces as they went, living off the land.
In short order, they were brought before the Praetor of the Pacific Imperium.
Huge floating tower blades, probably what churned up the man-made tsunami, now dotted the city. Are these also Tailor-made? I don’t know. They waited within the point of the central blade while the Praetor, seated on a swivel chair delicately devoured a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. You know, Derek -and Stacy, and it’s a privilege to meet both of you together. *munch munch* -I just can’t get enough of these durian custards. Right away my lord. The Praetor’s aide looked suspiciously like the girl from the flour mill / packing factory. Stacy was jealous. She eats well -we all do. Now Derek Curd, on behalf of the XF of the United States of America, with the authority of the Governor General of the Federal Emergency Directive, I hereby extend the offer of Director Lotus Yap -that you be brought to home soil -placed under her custody. Home -our town? Yes. But the Tribulation, hasn’t it taken? Tel Aviv has been destroyed. Damascus and Beirut very soon. Jerusalem, eventually. Prophecy is always rolling, has been since Jesus died. What have Hoag and his collaborators been doing about it? Derek… Sir -no lord -what have you done to America?
Derek, I’m just a guy in a plush chair given whatever he wants. I read out directives from Hoag and his supernatural administration. I don’t make the rules. I don’t write the script -thank you, Amanda. *munch* She looked at Derek a little too long and Stacy, somewhat emaciated, stared back.
Lord Praetor, Derek knelt before the Roman curule-like judgment seat, it looked like a throne made from immaculately bleached ribs. The sum of a man’s actions, as even inequity prevents the full unraveling of privilege. And missteps -are they not more useful in the end than inaction? I do not regret doing all I did, but that the power in me sustained me not, when I needed it. If anything, I failed from a particular prejudice, and that, I with love, forgiveness, attempted to triumph over. And in doing so, never one to initiate a fight, happened to lose omniscient control to those who trusted me not, hunted me down. Lord Praetor, the story of my life is unfinished. The scepter of Hoag, father of the separation of state from God, the company he keeps, choose wisely between us. What can yet grow, let grow. But trim off what is festering -the empires of the West.
A side door opened and Little Lotus strode out. She had a gas gun in her hand, clad in a white gold bodysuit. She looked as an angel. In later years, her sideways pose would be immortalized on tee shirts as she shot Derek with a toxin bead. Stacy was confronted by Pete, still recovering from the implosion. He cast a time bubble around them, moving quicker than her, flung his erstwhile apprentice into space.
8. Major Tom
Space is like a fluid. It stirs up / accelerates, gathers its density, forming mass, left stretched out, it is a vehicle of particles that hitch through the lattice of time. But time actually doesn’t exist. Waiting does. Moving does. Being in another place takes waiting. Relativity is merely replacing time in all of Newton’s calculus by the simplified concept of patience and its degrees. Thus Stacy was not harmed. Derek, however, would soon breathe his last.
The Praetor turned to face the viewport of the mother blade as Derek heaved, blood, spilling from his chest. Was this the end? Stacy, can you hear me?
Little Lotus stood over Derek. Father… But Derek could barely breathe. With his last ounce of strength, he steeled himself, looked his child in the eye. If the body’s cold, take him away. I don’t like the smell of blood with my coffee. But Little Lotus only smirked. Derek’s head flopped to the floor, breathing more laboriously. The puddle of red spreading. He tried to gather up the blood -perhaps an instinct from when a god could help, but the rusty red liquid resisted his petty flailing. He lay there, dying -something he had never expected.
