Fiction: Seasons of the Soul

Seasons of the Soul

For it shall attempt to change the law and the times.

“They seem to be in separate worlds, don’t they?”

“Necessitously,” I replied. The crowd about Market Square was divided into the methodical; the mechanistic; those with grace, and people whose shadows barely fell, much less lingered. “If I may ask, what’s your reference?”

“When the wife passed, and I retired, I was told to keep the hours. After the ol’ ticker went coin-op, they gave me the sundial. I noticed yours hasn’t got a seconds hand.”

“It was removed. I write songs, and some decided I wasn’t punctual, least of all prolific.”

“Well, the less you care, the more you actually achieve -don’t you think?”

I considered his philosophizing, being the son of a Parisian who eloped to paint the English weather, with a mahout re-commissioned as a sitarist. 

“Forgive me if I don’t fully process,” I said, glancing at the hand grazing the minute track, “I fear I shall be late for yet another appointment.” It was aesthetically abrupt, having formed a link between streams, one going fast, the other, very slow. Au revoir, my friend, anyhow.

“By the way, what shall we call one another?” I frowned.

“Gary to you,” quipped the old-timer.

“I’m Paco, c’est francais.”

We shook hands. I picked up my gig bag, walking briskly to the tram.

The guitar lesson was in a side auditorium of the town council building. I caught her staring at her watch. It was gold-filled but at that distance, impossible to read. I hurried down the steps, and she got up, looking my way. I took her hand and pretended to kiss it, “Enchante, mademoiselle.”

My gaze fell, and so did hers.

“I’m sorry if you don’t like the dress.” It was shimmering green, flaring all the way to her heels, off-shoulder, her skin, flecked marble, a tumble of boulders nestled in gathered silk.

“Not at all. I was comparing our times.”

“Oh this?” She laughed, “It’s the same as yours -no seconds hand.” She squeezed it to her jaw.

I smiled to myself, “You have to part your legs when you hold the guitar, and slant it upright.”

She smiled back, her lashes and lower lip dropped. She was young and I had to be careful.

Midway the span of lessons, during which I imparted all my expertise, defining the rules of music, describing each one’s peculiar beauty, I was summoned to the Bureau of Regulations for special audit.

Waiting, I heard a familiar voice. Was it my new friend?

“Gary!” I called.

“Paco, oh, my God, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been h-handed my tape!”

Everyone had tape. A single strip of it. They say it ranged anywhere from a few feet to several meters, operated over and correlated to everyone else’s by a monolithic Turing machine.

“Says here, this was where we met. Here, where I’m invited for a wedding -your wedding, Oh God, and on this end,” his fingers tugged on the strip of symbols, “Here, look...”

A life fast losing its spring. I had seen enough. “Have they removed your watch?” I offered to swipe my Kreditz across his pacemaker but Gary held me off. “I can’t take your money.” He pointed to his ear and shuddered. There it was pinned, ticking at a precise 10 beats per second. “So I’ll know when to do what.”

He fed more tape, muttering absentmindedly, “Imogen, my daughter -she’s in love with you.”

I took a mental step back, not surprised -merely dazed by the circumstances.

* * *

“Have you got your seconds, then?” She purred, setting up for the lesson.

“Why?”

I was in no hurry to reply, having arrived comfortably ahead. Things change with the granularity of what one is afforded.

“Because, if you marry me, we can both have it.”

“Then why not?” I said, as she was comely, beautiful.

“Say ‘yes’,” she drew closer. And I obliged.

“Be gentle on me,” she whispered into my ear, as our cheeks brushed, “I have my daddy’s heart.”

Once again, I saw Gary, ill, living by the hour; then diurnally; now waiting on a calendar of disjointed events unworthy of further process. In her arms, I had felt passion, swelling by the second, really they were squares on tape moved so quickly over, that nobody noticed. She spread her knees, cradling the guitar upright. And so the music lesson resumed.

...that the justification [for machines] lies in the fact that human memory [being a function of time] is necessarily limited [by it]. -Alan M. Turing

 

Fiction: Behind This Little Cafe [part 4 -the end]

4. The back of the little cafe

One day, as living on ‘MySara’ sustenance money began to drag, Mala, eating Cheezeballs from a giant no-brand family-sized packet, Jacob told her, “There’s this place where hookers hang out. I found it -behind this little cafe...”

“Jacob, WHAT do you have to do with hookers?” She was breast-feeding their child.

“See, I can’t work much, nor can you, but we could all eat better for cheap -why not go over and see?”

Mala and Jacob held hands as they walked down the row of coffee joints, sushi bistros, and trendy book clubs where everyone was in turtlenecks. These gave way to betting agencies, hole in the wall takeaways, then a thicket of mulberry trees. They pushed through up to a doorstep obscured by dense branches and the buzzing of hornets. He rapped on it nervously, and a slot slid open. “I’m Jacob Wee, this is my wife, Mala.”

“Mala, who lost the Oakleys and purse, and you, who cleaned The Alley -okay, okay, wait -ah”

They heard a shaky hand jiggle a bunch of keys, then a lock turn, and they saw the leper who ran the place. The little cafe at the end of nowhere. Behind him, walls seared by a blaze -a fire, long ago -burn them all off their town, some young guns tried. 

Instead, it facilitated a narrow, hidden stairway down to a moody basement cafe, lined with standing candles and purple stucco hung with tribal masks. It was half dark but they glimpsed his disfigurement -one of his hands, gnarled. He walked with a limp towards the back, where a sign hung, 

‘Now the Lord God planted a garden east of Eden.’

“What is this place?” She peeled back dense foliage where naked bodies were joining.

“It exists for lonely people, for clean love. In reality it is but an illusion.”

“Isn’t this illegal? Jacob, what were you thinking?”

“Mala, wait. This is a good place and Eric is trustworthy. Maybe this is where we can start again.”

Eric showed them from the mirror-windowed control room, how filtered, subtly-strobing lights created the illusion of dense 3D vegetation, while ionized vapor and a loopy audio track set the stage for the olfactory sensations. There were tall stands of artificial plants here and there to give structure to the illusion.

“The hookers, are they also illusions?” Mala whispered.

More men got up from their tables and entered the garden which now featured a realistic waterfall and tropical birdsong. “No, but they’re ugly,” Eric glared at her.

Mala looked closely and saw they were all lepers like their boss. None of them really joined in the flesh. It was all simulated.

Eric showed them to a table. “You seen 2 sick heads buying beer and condoms at the mini mart? Who’d ever give them a ride but my ladies? And dang, they knew it!”

“Where are they now? When do they visit?”

But Eric kept silent, his dark face stretched with a broad smile. “They’ll soon get what they deserve. Have some fried chicken, Texas style.”

Mala bit into the crispy battered wings. Her eyes sparkled as she held his hand. Jacob, with that same far away look. A Swipe-n-Pay card was left on the table, 'Barney Liu', it read. Beside it, her lost purse. They charged their meal to the card. 

 

Fin.

Fiction: Behind This Little Cafe [part 3]

3. Playing the blues


Mala wasn’t the same since their shameful exit from the expensive eatery. Jacob decided to take a job while she, pregnant, rested at home. He had made her pregnant. “Think of it as a gift” -and she loved it. All was forgiven.


Meanwhile, he bought a tough brush and cleaning powder from the dollar store, a pair of thick rubber gloves and boots; and proceeded to clean the stretch of back lane along where their flat was. He started at 11pm, after all the businesses had closed. The next morning, he sent out flyers to all the shops to open up al-fresco along the alley way. It was cool much of the day from its tall walls. Meanwhile, every night, he ferried trash bins to the end of the block to keep it clean. He made a lot of friends among migrant workers, and substantial money too. But there were those who were unhappy with that.


Shortly, the curtain that separated the two families was drawn back as they awaited the birth of their grandchild, and renewed prosperity.


“We have a clever son-in-law,” said Mala’s father, “And a good man.”


Jacob scrubbed the street every night past midnight most nights, as patrons were used to staying late. They were just everyday people, not wealthy, come for cheap food and beer and a comfortable space to talk. One night, as he was dragging the trash bins, he was surrounded by teenagers.


“You think we forget so easily?”


“Forget what?”


“You’re an eyesore, friend. Hey, an eyesore pervert cleaned up this street and wants a living. Shall we let him take over this turf?”


The leader, who was bigger than him shoved his chest, “I want this back alley. Mine -you understand?”


“Then I will just clean it.”


There was a tear that welled up in the leader’s eye. Out of his pocket, he fished out Jacob’s Oakleys. He put them on and slicked back his hair, “How do I look?”


Then he took them off and snapped them in half. He placed them in Jacob’s hands, looked him in the eye, and said, “Come on, let’s go.”


Mala’s family gave Jacob some fragrant oils as over time, he began to acquire an odor. He also coughed and sneezed more. And it was after their child was born, he admitted he could no longer be the trash collector of their alley, much less the janitor. He wasn’t built for such hard work.


“You shouldn’t have done it,” Mala said.


“I have no regrets. I made friends. I made business better. *cough*”


The afternoons grew increasingly hot and it seemed sometimes, like a dry dusty wind blew among the shacks and shoeboxes. People’s clothes changed. They wore checks and plaid where rips wouldn’t show so easily. Most of them, elderly, riding electric scooters that had seen better days. Their alley was an oasis in the desert of hard times. Mala’s granny gave him a harmonica. She hesitated as she placed it in his hands. It felt heavy, made fully of metal.


So he busked the blues -and became rather good at it. What his wife hadn’t told him was that money was running out on both sides of their family.

Fiction: Behind This Little Cafe [part 2]

2. Misunderstandings and Loss

Barney and K-why shopped at the supermarket behind the dollar store. They bought beer and condoms. K-why smiled conspiratorially and the cashier, polite, just replied “have a good time, sir.”

“By the way, have you seen a tall, handsome young guy in Oakleys?”

“Sure, he comes by often, buys Coke and ice cream.”

“Huh,” said Barney “He takes pictures of young girls -find out for yourself. Spread the word, he’s a lecher and a thief.”

“One on one,” K-why made 2 intersecting Vs with his fingers, and they laughed each other silly. 

Standing outside, Mala heard them, and reported it to Jacob. “You better do something,” she said, “what else have you been hiding -lah”

“I haven’t been hiding anything -it’s all lies”

“I don’t know if I should see you anymore...”

That evening, the dividing vinyl curtain was somehow locked. Jacob went up to the roof and Mala was sitting, legs dangling off the side that faced the bright lights, the entertainment businesses, and boutique eateries.

She heard him, “leave me alone.”

But he put his Oakleys over her eyes. She felt for them and smiled. Then took a selfie with her mobile. He held her, tears streaking down his face.

Very soon, he became known as ‘Jacob the Crook’, ‘Hated Jacob’. People slipped laxatives in his coffee, and talked about him on the train. Others reported him as a sex offender at the rail station.

But Mala had made a lot more since sporting his sleek Oakleys. Some things were simply worth the money -evergreen. He met her at the station, where she returned from her new job as a grid girl at the race track. They liked her slightly bigger two front teeth and ‘high class’ vibe.

“Have to stand under an umbrella, in the sun. And have to wear this,” her hands described the cut of her sexy outfit. “I’m Indian -lah, sun’s no big deal,” she propped up the expensive American-made lenses on her forehead. Her eyes were sparkling.

At her urging, they stepped into the popular boutique eatery, as she was loaded and dressed to kill. It was their first time inside.

There were whispers when the other couples saw them. “Isn’t he the handsome guy who takes and doesn’t pay? They say he likes looking girls up and down.”

“Sir, you pay up front, someone spoke over his shoulder.”

“I’m paying,” Mala said.

“Then it’s okay, " announced the manager, “his girlfriend is rich.”

Jacob looked on, emotionless. They drank the low-alcohol beer and had their fill of tapas. Mala held his hand and smiled, just like all the girls were doing. Well, if she likes it, he thought to himself. He could sense the scoffers ready to unleash.

“We’d better go now,” he took her arm.

“Why leave so soon? Air here too expensive for you; $100 a month. Drive a Proton Saga -lah. Eh -BICYCLE only,” the cozy joint broke out in a wall of laughter.

“Jacob, have you seen my purse?”

“Thieves get paid back,” someone called, but he didn’t turn to look.

So they left the $1,000 Oakleys as surety, to looks of distaste.

“How much was in your purse?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He knew, from her frown, it was wildly more than she had expected.

Fiction: Behind This Little Cafe [part 1]

1. Behind This Little Cafe

A family with a handsome young son moves into a small shoebox shack neighborhood and everyone is excited. When his sinister shadowers arrive, confusion and mistrust quickly set in. But help is there even in the darkest hours from the ones who appear dumb poor, but in fact are humble and blessed.

1. The new boy in town

There was a bustling shanty town, lying like a rough encrusted gem, about a run down repurposed cinema with its parking lot of dollar-store customers. Shacks, shoeboxes strewn around brick and mortars, increasingly taken up by millennial entrepreneurs. So it was that my friend Jacob, his mother and father, came to live in a third floor half-flat overlooking a stenching back lane strewn with mangled rats and sour rotting trash.


The flat was partitioned with a vinyl curtain that felt like the lino flooring and there were only 2 shared bathrooms. On the other side, there was a Chinese-Indian family with a daughter. He had never liked the word ‘Chindian’, but that was what Malaysians called them. Her skin was smokey and her wavy hair had natural body. But it was her almondish eyes and buck teeth that gave away what she and himself shared. Looking at her, he saw himself, it was like she was his cousin yet, being alone with her, chaperoned, office hours, only by her granny who couldn’t hear, they told each other the stories of their hearts. And they shared love in small shallow dips.


The metro station was visible from the roof of the building he lived in. And in between drawing his Christian comic strip which earned him a paltry $100 a month (besides state benefits to cover groceries), he rode the rails. And they were his window into worlds of which he never suspected existed. He saw a cash box courier with spiked gauntlets and collar; girls with boobs out to there, cosplay babes, and travellers from the west where everything was better made, from their clothes to their packs, to their hair and complexions.


His was a life on hold. He wanted a sign to hold up: ‘please don’t mind me’. But by and large, maybe because he wore Oakleys, girls did dance a little as they passed by. He didn’t protest, even if he couldn’t drive them to Uptown for dinner.


She revealed something to him one day, as they leaned against the rail of his balcony. “Call me something -lah.”


“What do you mean?”


“You’re Jacob. Pure Chinese. I’m just a rojak mixed blood. Give me a name.”


“Jesus loves you. Whatever your name, however you look.”


“Give me a name doesn’t mean Jesus anything.” she proceeded to peel off her top and unbutton her jeans. “Give me YOUR name.”


Soy forms curd on top of its milk. It was skimmed off and left to dry in the sun. And they loved, between the sheets of the delicacy, hung on the rooftop lines. Hers was wet when they had finished. And his was spent dry. There was stain like cheap school glue over the pitted concrete they lay on. And nobody cared, or would bother later.


“Where do you work?”


It came reluctantly, “I’m a food promoter. I just stand there outside the airconned shop, with makeup and a tight skirt. They pay me almost nothing except their expensive logo T-shirt.”


“I know you’re an artist and a leader.” She rolled on top of him, her fists on his chest. But her granny’s voice came calling from below.

Writing, watching too much football…

In case I die, here is the PDF for Super Derek Underpants, just roughly edited. There's a lot in it and I hope you all read it thru. It's FREE. >>> Here is the pre-final edit <<< I may add in a bit more about Derek's super kids but at a later date, and Kyoko's shark attack cybernetics as well. It's been fun. Please read and share.

I have finished polishing the final chapter of SDU and also corrected all typos and punctuation mistakes. Took a few hours, breaking for rest, overnight. Yet to begin a full read thru which is a must. Don’t think it will take longer than a day to proof with help from CoPilot as I can read and it can capture faster.

Liew witches enduring some awful nerve damage as they attempt to destroy the world and slave what remains to the beast. We must be strict about their horrendous behavior and forgiving to those who are gentle tho sinful / free-living. This is not a tight ship run by mercs, but a by-choice, sacrifice for one another world. It's time we fished out the weaklings and make them explain, point out the bullies and I will pinch their nerves accordingly.

South Africa won over Korea who were sloppy in front of goal. Worked out and am feeling refreshed. Will begin the proofreading circa noon, up to chapter 5 first, then after a break, up to the end. In July, I hope to resume coding my final app, n4s.

...

Didn't have much urge to edit or read thru my novel. I still have tonight and tomorrow to make any changes, then on Saturday, chores. Got stabbed with pain while discussing 'iS' with some potential readers. My family are slaves to the witchy Liew 6.

Remembered my Medium post on the 'house-father' ABY sutra 9d - fat wallet - SeTT - Grandpa's inheritance synchronicity that happened some month or so back, all on the same day. IIRC, 2-6-26. Jesus said I would get 'money from a house' -a lot of it. And I wanted to analyze it further. 

The value of SeTT (ΣεΤΤ) in Greek Gematria is 805. This is from greekgematria.epizy.com

δολοφονία

805

assassination

Apparently 'Lightning will strike a mountain' --Dr W K Chu

This from Wikipedia (which I donate to),

4

☳

100

4

震 zhèn

the Arousing, 'shake'

thunder 雷

wood

east

Spring Equinox

Bill Heidrick lists 805 as 'rushing towards, much rain, sneezing'. We can imagine severe storms and choking burning (mentioned in the ABY), and perhaps the Mount of Olives split in two, and an 'arousing' / resurrection. This matches the 13th of August 2026. Could God have secretly given me the timeframe of the 2nd coming of Christ? Does He forgive and trust me again?

And I have 500RM to spend and still be okay for the next 4 weeks. I nowadays do not venture out to the mall much on my own, Tomorrow, a brief run thru the park or round the block, depending on the weather. Weekly runs are good for health, working the body's systems and restoring proper function.

...

Was up too late and missed the first half of the match. Dutch won tho, which is what matters. Managed to get cleaned well. Heading out for lunch. Not sure where due to Mom's ulcers. Didn't do any editing or running. Will run before dinner and edit in the afternoon.

Back from the mall, rather tired, so may skip the run and just work out. Did a post on Medium on prophecy here, it’s free but you need to sign up for a Medium account. A creepy coincidence. Jesus may come soon.

Chapter 7 : Super Derek Underpants

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 her father. Derek could barely breathe. With his last ounce of strength, he steeled himself, looked his child in the eye. When he passes out, take him away. I don’t like the smell of blood with my coffee. Life is forever a protest, an adversarial remonstration, a defiant shout at heaven: I AM. Little Lotus wondered, as Derek’s head flopped back down to the floor, sputtering spittle. He swept at the slowly spreading pool of his blood -perhaps an instinct from when once a god could help put it back, but the rusty red liquid resisted his flailing. He lay there, dying -something he’d never once anticipated.

 

Chapter 6 : Super Derek Underpants

Wow, this was a hard chapter to write. There is a climatic fight between Derek and the Tailors, his wife is dead, and Gabriel takes away his powers. I am starting on chapter 7 tonight. It may also take a while. In the next installment, we see Derek grow in wisdom but will wisdom itself be enough to save him from the witch-hunt of Hoag?

1. Losing Esmeralda

Derek was a satellite now. Space-resistant viruses and bacteria formed a living crust about a ball of oxygenated water. Decaying cells warmed the inside of his cocoon, all regulated by the back of his mind. This was safety, solitude. And no one else could jump into it -it wasn’t on any map or in anybody’s memory but his own. In fact, the ball of cells, dark, reflected no light, nor gave off appreciable heat. In the greenish yellow glow of the Glo-Forever orbs, he observed his half-human form. Merging his cloak with his cells, as an extrapolation of his fused-on underpants wasn’t the best of ideas but the extra power it bestowed him more than made up for it. And, it bypassed the Tailors’ limiting his sexuality. You see, Derek, the less of you we see left out of you, the better. He had agreed. There were government hunters, using powerful supers to fine comb his house, the flour mill, and his wife, for pieces of his skin, or mucus they could analyze. And little Derek-Lotus, she was their bet, not having assimilated a cloak, nor the equal of his other children, including himself. He disappeared any cells they found, but he knew one day he wouldn’t be as careful, and they would turn a key on him, destroy his sweet unconventional existence.

He thought about it a long time. So long, that time bent around his thoughts. And when he awoke, realized he had lost count of how long he’d been meditating, in stasis. *Derek, can you hear me?* Master Mark? No, Derek, it’s me -your God. Oh! I have sent Gabriel who will inform you of what has transpired since you left the earth. Be at your usual place -it will be safe.

Derek, since you went into conscientious exile, the world has changed. There are people here from long ago, and much of those you knew are no more on this earth. My wife! He remembered. She is asleep. She’s dead? For now, as are most of your friends. Will they be in Heaven? Derek, this is all that I have been told to say. And with that, Gabriel departed.

He thought about it a long time. Here he was, standing at the threshold of Tribulation. An abomination in the Lord’s eyes. Not by disobedience, but by simply wanting to live -wanting to go on. And now he was alone. He could sense the rotting flesh of his friends, in a mass grave for clueless Christians. Then a chatter came from the shadows below. It was Stacy. Somehow the blonde tailor had survived. She was cold, and hungry, ill and out of her mind. How is it you’re still here? Derek asked. But there was only sobbing. He grabbed her scrawny form up into the air. Parts of her were bruised and festering. Her face had lost its youthful vigor and her golden sparkle had all but died. They turned on us, she gibbered. Pete, Mark, the rest of them known to the government. Agents Hoag and Daphne, they gathered power through Little Lotus. Your super children, they ran for it. Derek, your powers make you dangerous to God’s purpose just as the Tribulation renders all our powers an affront to prophecy. I’m not sure anything wise and good in mortals as we are, will save us. If you heal me, they’ll sense you. Then what are we to do?

Hoag looked at Daphne. “Nak?” he asked, cackling. On his other arm hung Little Lotus, now a lusty teenager going on 18. While the former federal agent was still on the side of good, the lines between opposites were increasingly blurred. Have the final 7 years begun? Pete asked. Mark shrugged. Stacy was weak. Weak people ask too many questions. Supposedly Derek has died? He wasn’t on earth the past 5 years. Nor did I detect him. Then perhaps so. The Tailors were now just another division in the Federal Emergency Directive (FEED). Used to be we answered only to God. Now, to be told where Jesus is and what God wants by secular powers and their heathen executive. Beliefs are a lot like love. You can fall in and out of them in the space of a fart. What keeps a person coming back for more is his faith. Where he comes to get it are from people like us. Pete waited for the punchline. Master Mark looked at him solemnly. There is no logic in pursuing the matter any further.

Stacy and Derek were in his orbiting claustrum. FEED seers sensed a jump into space. Little Lotus visiting the Space Station. They laughed it off as a false positive. Inside, he healed her body easily and perfectly. I was hoping you’d appear, that’s why I hid in the islet. She pressed against him in zero-g. Her loving was like a rose bush, opposed to the dark, silky seductions of Esmeralda. He had to learn her pain and the grating sensations of her hair and skin. Raw as freshly hewn lumber. Where do we go from here? I don’t know, don’t really care either, he said.

2. The usual suspects

Little Lotus had a fan page. Just like her mother, she knew all the tricks, all the moves. In some way, she regarded Hoag, her husband-guardian as a lesser mortal. But she trusted Pete. The super man who appreciated her mother. You see, Lotus was never really bad, just disenfranchised, ironically, from her sorcerous ideology and its enforced separacy. To say the woman never had a taste of good clean fun was to say you couldn’t store water in a sponge. She leaked all the time with no regrets. Hoag had practiced the arts in isolation for 3 months, the teachings of the pawang. He had learned to gather power from withholding the taste of a fruit, as his wives enjoyed it. Sweetness, sugar -therein lies power. Salt -Hoag ate bread without it, that tasted like egg cartons. He loved Daphne like they were dolphins. And Little Lotus dreamed of being the older woman. But she was kept from his love, and she knew why. Jealousy stored power. That night, her physical dichotomy of beauty and lovelessness scored 19 million hits on TikTok.

Deep in her heart, Daphne, up till now anonymous, an accessory to Hoag’s ambitions, wondered why she trusted him. But the controlled chaos the world was descending into -which her husband moderated selflessly, stoically -their ritual lovings, and the witchling child she was tasked with bringing up, banished her thoughts of fleeing. The scourging and subjugation of the powerful supernatural tailor’s guild, The idiot, super Derek’s apparent demise, Daphne smiled to herself. She was on the winning team. Middle aged, thus far unmarried, she wasn’t about to give up her cushy life for the sake of doing what was un-obviously right, at a time when it seemed that nothing much a woman could do, mattered. It was the end times. She looked in the mirror, and it felt like a thousand gazes looked back. Her new-found beauty, perfection of form recoiled from any appreciation except her husband’s. But wasn’t this all a woman was for -to accept she were inferior, needy of a man. And all her thoughts, her deeds fell into place. The last piece of a giant historical jigsaw puzzle.

Hoag himself was never formally introduced. He and Daphne were naturals. Obedient, intelligent, persuasive. Perhaps being the right kind of man for an important job, meant he had less of a heart than those who wallowed in mediocrity and the trappings of an unstructured existence. An early death -so long, Derek. But the former federal agent, turned pawang, had once been a little boy. Grow up, son -do right things, he heard his father’s urging. The world is a hard place -his mother. Protect yourself, your family. That’s what’s important, Hoag thought -compliance to those who wielded true power, as he did. As a gumshoe, his face blended in with the crowd. He had that agent demeanor. Someone who wasn’t looking to do or say anything, no worries, nothing to sell. When he and Daphne had flown to Borneo, were almost killed, he dusted off the fear and got down to learning magic. Fear, just as Derek had rallied his dying cells, was to Hoag, like wearing socks turned inside out. Being able to conquer any emotion, what he pushed to his spiritual body’s base chakra and subverted through a mechanistic twist -it was like camouflage to his soul. And what one doesn’t see, yet knows he has through feeling it, multiplied through his charismatic wife interactions, was real power. He could have been a dark lord or a good one, but in the shades of gray that he moved in, it didn’t matter at all.

3. Some place in his heart

So too did we miss telling of how Esmeralda lost her life. Derek had been missing a long time, and the surreal events of their wedding, the mish-mash of good and evil, all letting their hair down, as if by truce, on his special day -it foamed and lathered all around her heart, meaning that her emotions, her anxiety grew the more she needed his comforting, and just as soon as they’d appeared, her feelings vanished, the popping of hundreds of tiny soap bubbles. She ran her fingers through her treacle hair. The time she went bare breasted at the rock concert after she thought he was finished. But he recovered. Perhaps it had been a mistake to trust someone with such a low IQ to hold a relationship together. But she had made her decision. Waiting for him to come home -surely there was more she could do. She called Lotus -see if she’d heard anything.

Es, came the sugary voice of the witch, the whole world is beating down the doors of those with the power to change souls, destinies. If you’re here to ask the right question, the answer is ‘yes’. Yes to what? The Tribulation is ready to begin. I bore your husband’s child. What more can I do. Lotus looked fatigued, as if she had told it many times. Used to be, whenever we found a live cell Derek left behind, he’d crush it -from his secret hiding place none of us can scry out. It’s been months since he interceded that way. Es, use your head. They’ve killed your husband.

Esmeralda called at Derek’s parents’ house. Gail and Jerry let her in. Gail, visibly holding back tears when she saw Esmeralda had come alone. He’s not with you either? Asked Jerry. No. I thought you’d know where he was. Seems no one does. I used to feel him, said Gail, as a mother, now I can’t. Shall we call Pete?

The Tailors are no more, came the voice down the line. Pete, we need you over. No. Are you in trouble? There was a long pause. Then, a ‘yes’. You can’t help us. Has Derek visited? We are privy to whatever he does. What we know will be unhelpful. You see, he won’t be around until after God takes over the world. The Tribulation is real and what you should focus on. Save yourselves before the purge. Purge? But the line had gone dead.

The streets of their small town had gone silent. Esmeralda scoped the house at the end of the cull-de-sac. It was obviously empty from the pile of letters and newspapers spilling from the mail slot. She called at the Hawaiian’s dealership, but it was closed. Things looked scattered, as if someone was in a rush to shut the shop. She pulled at the lock and it came apart. Hello? Kyoko? Boss are you in there? She flipped through the invoices on the display counter. Had her husband bought anything? He loved watches.

4. A failed arrest

Derek and Stacy were hiding in the deep shadows of the craggy slope, where it ran down into plain, into the city. You told us to meet here, said Derek. I did, came the voice of the Master tailor. Kid, we’re taking you in on orders of the Prelature. He sensed the tensing of Derek’s mind. The presence of Stacy as well. It would be two against one, male and female. Master Mark sighed. You’ve seen Gabriel. What did he say? He told me things had changed, basically. Derek, we’re being moved by God Himself, all that is good and all who are evil, uncovered by divine power. Soon we will clash over His plans for the earth versus our own designs. You can decide where your chips fall. I have, already.

Esmeralda emerged from the used-goods dealership smiling. Derek had ordered a watch, paid but had not collected. It was a rectangular automatic on a lemon yellow lizard strap. She knew it was a gift for her. She put in around her wrist. Perhaps he was at the beach cricket bowling pitch. But dry leaves littered the orange brown compacted clay. There was a notice on a lamp post with Derek’s face on it, front and in profile. ‘Wanted Alive’ it read.

Derek, we killed your wife, came the voice of the master Tailor. She was wearing this. The squarish timepiece, strap encrusted with dried blood, trickled down through the air from above him. He looked up and immediately was floored by the strike of the staff to his cranium. Help! He heard Stacy’s voice. But the blow to his head had disrupted his balance. Master Mark had been floating above them all along. It sent quivers down his spine, like finding leeches in his underwear. Slowly, he raised himself off the boulders, the spongy mass that was his head had absorbed much of the sharp attack. But as he ran a cell-check, Mark came sweeping down with a pair of scissors. If you will not die by the Lord’s measure, then He shall appoint this, cut you to pieces. They wrestled amidst the boulders. Derek found it amusing to be attacked by haberdashery. His superior strength forcing Mark to the ground. The scissors blades began to glow red-hot. It was the Master’s final deception. He smirked. But Derek twisted the glowing metal against his cheek where it burnt a V-shaped welt in his skin. Derek, stop! It was Stacy. Distracted, Mark’s cloak bellowed chalk dust at him. The Master tailor peeled the scissors off his face as Derek gasped, choking. He put one hand on Derek’s head and prepared to raise the blades, but in their struggle his other arm had lost its strength. Whimpering, Mark disappeared. Stacy wafted the dust away with her cloak, pulsing Derek’s chest with shallow Heimlichs. She didn’t tell him right away what it was he had breathed in.

Esmeralda turned, Derek! Is it you? Those were her final words.

5. Big C

The whole of his life had been a spiritual walk in the park. What was spirituality anyway, but a key to unlock a door deeper into yourself where you find an empty, undecorated room, you proceed to fill with archetypes of your functional members, of values you form from primal flight or fight interactions with the lower classes, and the original shame stoked by sneers and rebukes of the upper classes? Sometimes, such keys are better left for better people in better times. Stacy, am I a good person? No. What about yourself? See, Derek -it’s starting again. Splinters of her golden-haired goddess-ness were still stuck in his affections. And he could not decide if they needed removing. The best computer for a voyage into the blue was the human mind, to paraphrase Werner Von. Stacy, tell me if I deserve it? Derek, Mark was very cruel to you -a cell sensitive. Who knew, except him, what would happen to your body? If I were a good person, it wouldn’t have happened. He turned from her. Derek, you can’t heal your body from deconstructing Tailor chalk. It is the very Word of God -the bounds of creation. Thus you have cancer in every cell. It won’t be the end of you, but you will not be who you are much longer.

The cloak and underpants he had assimilated into his body slowed the onset of the cancer. But gradually, his flesh was turning sensitive, raw, his every function, now supported by Tailor thread woven into his being -into his very soul. This would be a test unlike any other. He would take what was still good -every cell remembered that, and grow it into the thread, the cloak. He would thus be flesh no more. Stacy watched, as Derek grew progressively thinner. His flesh melted, his muscle, and even his bones till he hung in the gloom of the sinkhole, a tattered phantom of the human form. Derek? Are you still alive? There was no reply. It wasn’t that he was sad or muted, but that the thread was weaker than he had anticipated. Slow moans escaped his hollow form. Stacy knelt in prayer as the whale songs he made washed over her.

Hoag inspected Mark’s cheek. I can barely move my jaw. The bastard. A waste of thread. The fire and brimstone scissors had taken off most of the lower right of the tailor’s face. Witches are all the same -powerless except to stoke hearts against unpopularity in the crudest of reprisals. At least Derek had a heart. I would put a rose on his grave. Pete, let’s go. Hoag looked to Little Lotus. Follow, ‘naak!’ he commanded.

6. Shadow of an angel

It was evening when Derek mustered his thread cells into proper organs of speech, but he sounded garbled, like an old transistor radio tuned a little off band. What is God waiting for? When is the Kingdom come? Derek, be patient and hide. We have to eat. I have to go buy food, hopefully not steal some. If you tell Pete where I am… Stacy nodded. They both knew. The experienced tailor with a soft spot for her lover might be of help. But to reconstruct a body, fully thread was another matter altogether. Where two or three are gathered in my name, the phrase resounded through his floating phantom form.

An hour or so passed, when he heard, Derek… Derek, a voice from Heaven calling, what ever has happened to you? Derek didn’t answer. His every word was now strained, and he felt increasingly belittled before God. Why was God so close yet so far? But the voice was that of an angel, and he was beautiful, descending into the sinkhole in robes of white and gold. He carried a scepter and in it, incense that smoked sweet and peppery. He took Derek’s limp thread body and cradled it in his arms, speaking to it and at once, he began to regrow. Powers you once had, you have no more. Wisdom shall be your strength as God now rules your thoughts. He didn’t notice Stacy standing behind him. When the angel departed, she ran and kissed him, and they ate the food she had found. It was a relief to be whole again -to be fully human.

7. Repentance

Something got Lotus out of bed late that night. The same that sent her walking down the beach, over the secret submerged coral ridge and into the islet dwelling where she had shared good love with Pete, blankly witnessed her man-in-question marry the other woman -but that she was dead now, Ha-ha. She didn’t expect to find him waiting, much less, being as he was before the troubles, before he became a super-powered freak. You came, he called to her. Yeah, is there more of this sorry story we should both act out? What she didn’t expect was his apology. When I had powers, I did things the way I wanted, whenever I felt like. I thought I would only grow more powerful. But then, and I thought of Pete, maybe he would have rescued me -from when I was a bag of thread, forced into that corner by those who knew more. I realized that it had to stop somewhere. There is a God, Lotus and I want Him on my side.

Lotus hid her smile. She and Quen were operating happily under FEED i.e. Hoag’s direction, already on path towards salvation, a carefully plotted one, made with logic and structured to account for every contingency. We’ve been absorbed into organized religion, she said. Her voice sounded care-free, genuinely well-meaning. But Derek persisted, Heaven isn’t an organizational goal -what it makes God out to be. He is the sum of our experiences which show we belong with Him. Derek, I was raped by my own horny brother thanks to you. I remember both of you every time I have a period. Derek stared at his feet. Forgive me. Huh, she turned to leave. He called after her, Lotus, get Hoag to call his dogs off. And tell Little Lotus I’ll be her father. In the gray moon-lit night, he thought he saw her shoulders slump, her steps a little more stompy. The witch was upset, but softened. Maybe he would matter to her, on some level, given time. He wondered about Master Mark. He must know God stripped me of my powers, a sitting duck for reprisals. Tears ran down Derek’s cheeks. He was truly sorry for the mad run he’d gone on.

8. A veiled message

*Derek, get up, be quick* Healing Stacy was the last lucky good deed he had done before his powers were revoked. Now she repaid the favor as the thought-sniffing doggie drones of FEED swarmed towards his islet home. Clouds in the sky, low, growing pink. There was one that looked like God -His bearded self, pronating after tossing the sun over the horizon. Derek you HAVE to wake up! But the dream he was in, was mesmerizing. In it, Esmeralda related what had happened in the first wave of the purges that deflated the power of witches, worldwide. Secret power groups like the Tailors were broken apart, assimilated. The single-minded, raw pawang truth-emotion, looped over and over eventually unnerved the fine spiritual balance of those who used other minds, who practiced the power of God through a restrictive discipline. Even gypsies weren’t spared -those who together, had the sight. Derek, I love you and I will be waiting for you. I left you a message down by the beach. It’s where you normally look -no one has found it. He woke up. Stacy, take us to the cricket pitch. She nodded.

There was a stiff wind blowing. Derek stood on the bed of clay. He wondered for a moment: ‘where I normally look’. He knelt to inspect the wicket, and it overlaid with something black and billowing, swinging off a tree further down the sand. They walked over. Stacy held his hand. And it was there they found the decapitated and shrunken head of his ex-wife. He put his fingers through her hair, it still had that lush, silky feel. He pulled on it and her scalp came off with a slight rip. On it, there was a message written in fade away ink. It disappeared before he could finish. But Stacy read all of it. It’s your friends, the Hawaiian and Kyoko -they made it out of America and are in ‘Johore’. It’s a place of villages and small towns, over sea, in the tropics. Is it far? She nodded. ‘Come be with us, the message ended’.

Esmeralda had laid down her life for her friends. And so had Gail and Jerry, tortured to death for refusing to connect with their son (while he was in orbit, in deep cellular meditation). To leave America, would that help anything? *Grow in wisdom, Derek, not in cowardice* Stacy, what is it like being wise?

Little Lotus danced for her fans. She wore a diffusing net bodysuit as cameras on stage captured her every move from a myriad of angles. Her face looked different turned left from right, and her beauty was sliced jaggedly, into choice cuts of meat, such as to obey the Fibonacci golden ratio. Vanity served only as glue did, as rivets, they held together a truth we could not bear because of the corruption in our souls. Just as pride served those whose value lagged behind their reward, so she had dispensed with both and was free. Hoag and Daphne applauded the performance. ‘Ha! ‘nak sya -bini yah!’

In the upper rooms of the North America Jerusalem complex, Master Mark lounged on a plush couch. Pete stood by the window, his face masked by the reflection of light upon it, as he looked upon his teacher’s wound. Was it right to destroy Derek that way? Why not? We killed his wife. Mark pulled his cloak hood down. He melted into its blackness. Some things are worth their sacrifice. Pete nodded. Shall we stitch up your jaw? No. The spread of bread, cheeses and herb dips laid before the master Tailor were barely touched.

Johore was indeed a land of forest and beach. As they flew overhead, small villages appeared: of houses on stilts, roofs made of tarnished zinc, pump wells, outhouses over drainage ditches. It did look like somewhere they could hide and be safe. *Here, you shall grow in spirit*. Derek smiled. Perhaps he would. Yet sleepy Johore harbored also a foreboding. They landed by a place that smelled of boiling crab. Stacy looked at him. She loved seafood. And that night, she would love him as well, for the first time -in his man-form. Soon, dusk swept over the trees and the villages like the thickening brush strokes of an angry artist, tearing away at his magnificent painting. What emotions did God feel every time His creation fled from Him into night, when men plotted with rule, with their seed, and their dreams -well, they were brazen as intentions only mattered held up to light. Dim lamps swung from the trees and the eaves of the village restaurant as Derek and Stacy snapped and hammered shell, swimming in a thick gravy of crab roe and ground chili.