The Bogan Councillors have been transported to a German prisoner of war camp in the year 1943. It is a time-displaced location occupying exactly the same position as a Jimboomba playschool. The playschool operates normally in 2009 and the staff and children have no idea what a fractionally different perspective would reveal. The Bogan Councillors are equally unaware that the surly, broken nosed guard screaming at them is, from another point of view, a petite young lady singing “The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round” to a mob of 3-year-olds. In the meantime, the special agents with extraordinary powers are settling in to their task at the Bogan Council Offices.
BOGAN COUNCIL OFFICES.
(The first council meeting of the Allied task force takes place and they are anxious to clear the backlog of council work so that they can concentrate on the missing testicles of Emperor Clump the One’th.)
Windy Woman: I replace the Mayor so I suppose I’d better start things rolling.
Elastic Lass: That hardly seems fair when you consider I have the most experience in this situation. I have actually served on this council, you know.
Blob the Boulder: Don’t any of you forget that I am here in a supervisory role to oversee the return of our sacred relics. Perhaps I should take the lead.
Invisible Woman: Surely it doesn’t matter. We will each contribute according to our gifts. There is no one actually “in charge”, but we must still appear to be the council we have replaced. As far as that council is concerned, Mayor Porker is the presiding officer and must appear to continue in that role. Therefore, Windy Woman must be our perceived leader, regardless of the true decision making process which will involve us all equally.
Green Garbo: I have no idea who said that, but it makes sense.
(And so it was agreed. The special council meeting continues under the leadership of Windy Woman. Meanwhile, 30 kilometres away in 1943……….)
STALAG LUFT FUNF.
(The Bogan councillors are standing in a straggling line under the fierce glare of floodlights. They are in a muddy compound and are being contemptuously inspected by Camp Commandant Friedreich von Guntschniffer.)
Commandant von Guntschniffer: You have already been welcomed to this camp by Ober-ointment Pishfeeler, so I won’t bother with any more heavy irony about your new home etcetera. Instead, I should like to acquaint you with a few simple rules.
Rule 1 – Follow the orders of any German officer or guard.
Rule 2 – Do not attempt to escape because you will be shot.
Rule 3 – There is no rule 3.
Do you have any questions?
Mayor Porker: I don’t know who you are or what organization you belong to but you should know that we are an important local council with some extremely powerful connections. What you have done, and continue to do, is criminal and I promise that you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Commandant von Guntschniffer: You all seem to be under some sort of misapprehension. There is no longer any law for British commando units. Your pathetic armed forces have been annihilated by German might and now, cowardly creatures like you are sent by the British to skulk in the dark and stab us in the back. I can tell by your ridiculous accent that you are from Australia – a backwater of the decaying British Empire. I am told that Australians are fierce fighters but poorly disciplined. Please be assured that in the short time you have left here before your execution, you will at least come to understand the meaning of discipline.
Mayor Porker: This is ridiculous. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just don’t know what to tell you………..! Look, the best thing you can do is let us go and we will do what we can to help you. I am sure there are mitigating circumstances.
Sean Bean: Like your fucking mental health for instance.
(Commandant von Guntschniffer raises one eyebrow and glances over his shoulder. Ober-ointment Pishfeeler emerges from the shadows and whips a backhanded blow across Sean’s face. The German then begins to beat Sean systematically. Sean squeals and desperately tries to protect his head but Pishfeeler then changes his attack to the body. The beating is brutal and Pishfeeler is impassive. He studies, selects and strikes at the head then body, head then body, again and again until Sean falls, only to be kicked with the same viscous disregard for life. Eventually, the Commandant holds up a languid hand. Pishfeeler steps back into the shadows. The Bogan councillors are panting and gasping with shock as they stare wild eyed at the bloody, broken wreck that was Sean Bean.)
Commandant von Guntschniffer: Unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated here. Prisoner Bean will now spend 15 minutes on the naughty seat, but first – Ober-ointment Pishfeeler!
Pishfeeler: Mine Commandant?
Commandant von Guntschniffer: You know that we do not wish there to be bad feeling left to simmer in this camp. You will hug the prisoner Bean and say you are sorry.
Pishfeeler: Ya vole mine Commandant!
Commandant von Guntschniffer: Prisoner Bean, you will return the hug and also say you are sorry, then that will be an end to this nonsense.
(Pishfeeler drags Sean upright and gives him a bone-crushing hug. After a brief apology, the thug throws Sean onto a red packing crate positioned against the wall of a hut. After a few moments of intent listening, Pishfeeler props Sean’s limp body against the wall and turns to the Commandant.)
Pishfeeler: The prisoner refuses to say sorry, mine Commandant.
Commandant von Guntschniffer: Then he will spend an extra half an hour on the naughty seat and after that you will all be taken to your quarters. You will remain there at all times except for a one hour exercise period in a restricted out-door compound. You will each wear a hat at all times when you are outside – no hat, no play. You will not mix with the other prisoners. This is not a new rule – it is merely Rule 1 in action. You will be fed in the morning and at night. During daylight hours, you will engage in creative exercises and you will be taught suitable songs and nursery rhymes. At night you will sleep, although there will be an additional nap period during the day with a soft wool ‘Adolf’ doll provided for those who have forgotten their teddy. That is all that is required of you. Ober-ointment Pishfeeler will arrange for you to receive a bowl of water and a cloth so that you may treat your wounded and clean up after finger painting. Heil Hitler!
(There is a sound like the tweet of a happy bird or perhaps like the squeak of a rusty wheel. Whatever the sound is like, it accompanies a sudden time lock and the scene in the room freezes. Only one figure moves. It is one of the German guards but we can see it is actually ‘Dark Suit’, the man who interrupted the Bogan council meeting and drove them to this place. Dark Suit wanders through this snapshot of a moment in time. He is obviously astonished and horrified by the events that have just taken place. He shakes his head and mutters continuously and then snatches a small devise from his pocket and speaks into it.)
Dark Suit: Crudman, speak to me Crudman.
Devise: Crudman.
Dark Suit: Who the fracket chose this prison camp?
Devise: Why?
Dark Suit: I thought so. It was you, wasn’t it?
Devise: Yes, but what’s the problem?
Dark Suit: I don’t know how much research you did on this place, Crudman, but the poor bastards I brought here are being beaten to death and the Commandant’s talking about executions!
Devise: What’s the difference between being beaten to death and execution?
Dark Suit: Don’t fracket about, you prak! This is fracketing serious; we have to get them out of here.
Devise: You know we can’t do that. This is real time stuff; we can’t just rub it out and start again. We would end up with an extra universe, a mob of schizophrenics and anomalies that would make Earth’s Kennedy conspiracy look like a little problem with the next-door neighbour. You will just have to adjust the situation by persuasion at your end.
Dark Suit: There are enough anomalies already! There seems to be some information bleed between this camp and the play school - have you been monitoring the kids in 2009?
Devise: Yeah, there…uh…ok, I think.
Dark Suit: You think? What’s happening there, Crudman?
Devise: Well, there’s no harm done but the kids do seem to be marching up and down rather a lot and…uh…a group of them have started a tunnel in the sand pit.
Dark Suit: A fracketing tunnel? Crudman, what have you done?
Devise: Nothing. It’s all right, honestly. The kids seem happy enough and the tunnel crew are doing very well. They’re half way to the fence already. The crafty little devils are smuggling the dirt out in their lunch boxes – quite smart really.
Dark Suit: Get it sorted out, Crudman, before one of the mothers gets shot trying to spring their kid out of playschool. In the meantime, I’ll try to fix this end.
Device: Right, I’m on it – but you will have to do something quickly about the Bogan mob. Bean’s readings indicate he will die if he doesn’t get medical treatment soon and Mower isn’t too good either.
Dark Suit: Fracket! ….. Ok, I think I know what to do. When I first contacted the Commandant and gave him instructions, I was posing as a Gestapo agent. Tell Wardrobe to have my black Gestapo outfit ready at the perception anomaly gateway. I’ll be right over.
(As far as Von Guntschniffer is concerned, there has been no interruption. He was merely aware of a brief tiredness that caused him to hesitate and close his eyes for a moment. The door to the room crashes back against the wall and the same sinister Gestapo Officer he had met previously stalks into the room.)
Gestapo Officer: Commandant von Guntschniffer! I believe you are exceeding your authority! Who gave you permission to torture these prisoners?
Commandant von Guntschniffer: I….I don’t understand. You said they were enemy commandos and the orders direct from the Furrier indicate that……
Gestapo Officer: SCIENTIFIC commandos - that is what I said. Do you think, even the British would use women among their cowardly commando raiders? I credited you with a little more intelligence than that. I can see we will have to review your position but in the meantime, these prisoners are to be treated with the utmost courtesy and respect. They are to be isolated from the other prisoners but not harmed in any way. They have vital scientific information that the Gestapo will extract from them using our own methods. These are the wishes of our beloved Furrier. Do you understand, Commandant?
Commandant von Guntschniffer: Yes sir.
Gestapo Officer: I will take the prisoner Bean, to Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin where he will receive special medical treatment. You! – Pishfeeler! You can carry him to the main gate where I have transport waiting. Hair Mower, are you able to walk?
Dicky Mower: Uh…yes, yes I can walk.
Gestapo Officer: Then you will come with us and get treatment for your injuries. Commandant von Guntschniffer, I have a further request.
Commandant von Guntschniffer: Yes sir?
Gestapo Officer: I would like to take Ober-ointment Pishfeeler with me. I believe his talents can be put to better use elsewhere. I will, of course send you a replacement. This replacement will be more suitable for the delicate task of caring for these special prisoners. Ober-ointment Schwartzenklobber will serve you well and he will also keep me fully informed of everything that goes on here. Agreed Commandant?
Commandant von Guntschniffer: Of course.
*****************************************
(The Alliance ‘anomaly gate controllers’ act in frantic haste to repair the damage. Bean and Mower are transported to universe 5(6) where they are given accelerated medical treatment and Crudman arranges a baby sitter to oversee the playschool project. Later, Crudman and Dark Suit meet to discuss the amendments to the plan.)
Crudman: We found someone trustworthy who was looking for a bit of part-time work so we’ve moved her onto the playschool staff. She’s semi-aware of what we’re doing but knows nothing about the time anomaly itself. She’s just been briefed to protect the kids from any strange activity.
Dark Suit: Good. I’m going back into Stalag Luft Funf as the replacement Schwartzenklobber. I should be able to keep things on an even keel. I hope the baby sitter you’ve picked is up to the job.
Crudman: Should be - she’s a pretty impressive looking woman, even for Earth.
Dark Suit: Just in case I have to swap zones for any reason, whom should I ask for if I want to speak to this baby sitter?
Crudman: Arnell Shizeknicker.
TO BE CONTINUED.
9/26/09
9/22/09
Heroes - Part 2
The fossilised remains of Emperor Clunk the One’th of universe 1(2) are missing seven sacred testicles. Two have turned up in the Beaudesert township of universe 236(237) but the others are still not accounted for. An alliance of the 12 most advanced universes have formed a task force of remarkable beings who have been charged with recovering the sacred items. These special agents intend to enter 236(237) via a dimensional instability generated by a Jimboomba shopping centre ATM machine. But first, they must sort out their tactics at a special operations meeting. Alliance Agent Windy Woman from universe 4(5) is chairing the meeting.
(The meeting room is a vast dome filled with gasses and volatile liquids that could strip a normal being to whatever kind of structure they call their skeleton. But the occupants are not normal beings. They sit patiently waiting for the dimensional paradox software to complete the link between their respective universes allowing them to communicate in a common real-time. [This is particularly important for communicating with Boulders that would otherwise just be something to sit on.] There is an electronic ‘bong’ followed by a ‘bing’ and the link is complete.)
Windy Woman: Welcome and Parsnips to you all. I am Windy Woman and I will be leading this task force. I (oh, I do beg your pardon) will begin by explaining the basics of our operation. In order that we can be free to search the prime target area in universe 236(237) for the missing artefacts, we will need suitable undercover identities. These identities must enable us to move freely in the target area and be exempt from any responsibilities that may limit our actions. (Oops, sorry about that.) The Alliance has chosen a minor group of officials from the Bogan region of 236(237). This group is a local government council with limited authority and very few duties therefore they will suit our requirements as a cover group perfectly. It has been arranged for this group to be abducted and incarcerated for as long as we need them to be. A time displacement zone is to be set up near the dimensional instability in Jimboomba. Into this zone, (Phew, that was wicked) a prison camp from a similar time segment will be temporarily linked to a location near Jimboomba. This will re-create a prison camp hidden in plain sight. To those in Bogan’s contemporary time segment the camp will be in an impossible position and, therefore, will not exist. In the meantime, we will replace the imprisoned group and the briefing paper in front of you indicates which particular councillor you will individually replace. We will quickly despatch the councillors’ duties and then get on with finding the missing gonads. Any questions?
Elastic Lass: Yes, what the hell have you been eating?
Windy Woman: I did have a couple of rounds of Barked Beams on Toazd with a little bit of Cabbage Surprise but nothing else. Look, it’s part of my physiology - not a thing I can do about it. My home world is a chaotic tumult of hurricanes and we survive by adapting our bodies to stream in the wind like windsocks. The gales pass through us like gas through a ramjet and it doesn’t help when our atmosphere is methane based either. So, live with it. For now, I think it would be an idea if we go around the table and each of you introduce yourself to the others, describe your special gifts and let us know who, on the Bogan Council, you have been briefed to replace. Starting with you, Elastic Lass.
Elastic Lass: I can change size at will which is jolly useful if I see a lovely little party dress that’s a size too small for me. I can also reach things on the top shelves in the supermarket. I don’t actually replace anyone on the council because I have been in situ for a few years now and it was me that found the first two knackers. This, of course, begs the question - ‘Why am I not chairing this bloody meeting?’
Super Chook: I will replace Sean Bean and my special skill is my fowl mouth. This is used to intimidate others, I can also lay exploding eggs, and if you ever have one of those bastards stuck up your birth canal, you’ll understand the fowl mouth thing.
Blob the Boulder: I’ll take the place of Madigan Axeman and I can get cooperation from anyone by leaning on them. I am also able to out wait anyone in the 236(237) universes, so if any of you hate queuing up for test match tickets – I’m your man.
Mighty Mouse: Ann Appuladay will have to make room for me. I can search the most miniscule crevice. It has been said that I can crawl up the arse of a swimming duck without sinking it.
Cyclotron: I can ride a tricycle faster than light. I have just got myself a new, very expensive machine that has a little titanium bell and training wheels made from carbon fibre. I will replace Lizzie Borden.
Bogie Man: I have all the power of an express train and I replace Roscoe Lunchpack. I can also do many of the things while standing in the station that others cannot do.
Green Garbo: I replace Grimy Hobo and my speciality is rubbish disposal. I am a trained assassin.
Bishopric: I can make people believe anything except Channel 7 News, nobody can do that. I take over from Luke Skypilot.
The Mafia Hatman: Like Green Garbo, I am a trained killer. I kill by ramming my hat over the victim’s head and suffocating them. I replace Phil Shidehawk.
Action Man: I can disguise myself as a little plastic doll without genitals. During the operation, I can provide a genuine excuse for the search for testicles. I come with many plastic accessories, which is unnatural, but given my physical limitations, my only option. I will substitute for Dicky Mower.
Invisible Woman: I replace Winnie Quark.
Action Man: Who said that?
Invisible Woman: I did.
Action Man: Did you just say something?
Windy Woman: No, I didn’t say anything. Did you say something?
Elastic Lass: I didn’t say a word; it must have been Super Chook.
Super Chook: Not me. Must have been some other cunt.
MEANWHILE. JOHANNA STREET, JIMBOOMBA
(A series of time displacement cannons have been set up around the perimeter of a kindergarten near Jimboomba. This area is due to contain the prison camp, Stalag Luft Funf, which is even now being shifted hour-by-hour, month-by-month and year-by-year away from its position in the eastern Germany of 1943. The camp is due to consolidate at Johanna Street in fifty-four minutes. The kindergarten will continue to exist and operate normally and the Stalag Luft Funf overlay will be invisible to any except those processed through a specially adapted dimensional perception anomaly.)
MEANWHILE AT THE BOGAN COUNCIL OFFICES.
(A man in a dark suit interrupts a full council meeting.)
Dark Suit: Forgive me, your Mayorfullness, but the State Premier requires your presence at a special function in Jimboomba. It is very urgent, so if you and the rest of the councillors can move to the car park we can board the specially chartered luxury bus waiting to take you to the function.
Mayor Porker: How dare you interrupt a council meeting in this way! We are dealing with important local business and the interests of our residents comes before those of any State bureaucracy I can assure you.
Councillors: Hear, hear. You tell ‘em Primmy. Good on ya Porky – get stuck into the bastards.
Dark Suit: There is champagne on the bus and national press photographers will be at the function. TV cameras as well.
Mayor Porker: National Press?
Sean Bean: TV?
Winnie Quark: Champagne?
(There is a mad scramble as the councillors rush the door. There are protests from the public gallery.)
Lin Emhall: What about the interest of the residents?
Bistro Waiters: What do I tell our readers about the important local business?
Mayor Porker: Oh …. Um … tell them that State business can seriously affect us all and we need to be represented.
Sean Bean: Yeah, and if that doesn’t work, tell ‘em to fuck off! Wahay! TV and shampoo. Let me at it!
LATER, ON THE BUS AS IT NEARS JIMBOOMBA.
(The councillors are three parts pissed. They are plastering themselves with make up and fiddling with their hair. Even the female councillors join in the general prinking and preening.)
Sean Bean: Do you think I should gel my hair, you know, make it stand up all wild and that?
Dicky Mower: You used to do that before. It looked like you just pulled your head out of your arse.
Sean Bean: Fuck you, Mower.
Dicky Mower: You wish.
Winnie Quark: Any more of that champagne?
Dicky Mower: Who said that?
Mayor Porker: Shut up you lot. We’ve just got to Johanna Street. What’s this? I don’t remember a tunnel being here. What are all those lights? ……. Jeeeeeeeeesus!!!!
(Suddenly the luxury bus is no more. They are in a stinking, rattling, box-like truck. It shudders to a halt and the doors are wrenched open. Burly, grey uniformed men leap into the truck and begin herding the councillors out. There are screams of rage and fear. It is bitingly cold and raining. Mower begins to shout and struggle but is felled by a rifle butt to the face that breaks his cheekbone. Everyone hears the crack and Mower’s scream of agony as another of the thugs grinds his boot into Mower’s ruined face. The councillors are dragged, shoved, pummelled into a line. They are quivering – terrified. Another uniformed figure struts before them. He speaks.)
Grey Man: Gooten Morgan mine friends. Mine naben ist Ober-ointment Otto Pishfeeler unt you are mine prisoners. Welcomen to Stulag Luft Funf. If you try for escapunt, you will be shottunt. Heil Hitler!
(Christ! This writing in fluent German really fucks me up, you know.)
TO BE CONTINUED.
(The meeting room is a vast dome filled with gasses and volatile liquids that could strip a normal being to whatever kind of structure they call their skeleton. But the occupants are not normal beings. They sit patiently waiting for the dimensional paradox software to complete the link between their respective universes allowing them to communicate in a common real-time. [This is particularly important for communicating with Boulders that would otherwise just be something to sit on.] There is an electronic ‘bong’ followed by a ‘bing’ and the link is complete.)
Windy Woman: Welcome and Parsnips to you all. I am Windy Woman and I will be leading this task force. I (oh, I do beg your pardon) will begin by explaining the basics of our operation. In order that we can be free to search the prime target area in universe 236(237) for the missing artefacts, we will need suitable undercover identities. These identities must enable us to move freely in the target area and be exempt from any responsibilities that may limit our actions. (Oops, sorry about that.) The Alliance has chosen a minor group of officials from the Bogan region of 236(237). This group is a local government council with limited authority and very few duties therefore they will suit our requirements as a cover group perfectly. It has been arranged for this group to be abducted and incarcerated for as long as we need them to be. A time displacement zone is to be set up near the dimensional instability in Jimboomba. Into this zone, (Phew, that was wicked) a prison camp from a similar time segment will be temporarily linked to a location near Jimboomba. This will re-create a prison camp hidden in plain sight. To those in Bogan’s contemporary time segment the camp will be in an impossible position and, therefore, will not exist. In the meantime, we will replace the imprisoned group and the briefing paper in front of you indicates which particular councillor you will individually replace. We will quickly despatch the councillors’ duties and then get on with finding the missing gonads. Any questions?
Elastic Lass: Yes, what the hell have you been eating?
Windy Woman: I did have a couple of rounds of Barked Beams on Toazd with a little bit of Cabbage Surprise but nothing else. Look, it’s part of my physiology - not a thing I can do about it. My home world is a chaotic tumult of hurricanes and we survive by adapting our bodies to stream in the wind like windsocks. The gales pass through us like gas through a ramjet and it doesn’t help when our atmosphere is methane based either. So, live with it. For now, I think it would be an idea if we go around the table and each of you introduce yourself to the others, describe your special gifts and let us know who, on the Bogan Council, you have been briefed to replace. Starting with you, Elastic Lass.
Elastic Lass: I can change size at will which is jolly useful if I see a lovely little party dress that’s a size too small for me. I can also reach things on the top shelves in the supermarket. I don’t actually replace anyone on the council because I have been in situ for a few years now and it was me that found the first two knackers. This, of course, begs the question - ‘Why am I not chairing this bloody meeting?’
Super Chook: I will replace Sean Bean and my special skill is my fowl mouth. This is used to intimidate others, I can also lay exploding eggs, and if you ever have one of those bastards stuck up your birth canal, you’ll understand the fowl mouth thing.
Blob the Boulder: I’ll take the place of Madigan Axeman and I can get cooperation from anyone by leaning on them. I am also able to out wait anyone in the 236(237) universes, so if any of you hate queuing up for test match tickets – I’m your man.
Mighty Mouse: Ann Appuladay will have to make room for me. I can search the most miniscule crevice. It has been said that I can crawl up the arse of a swimming duck without sinking it.
Cyclotron: I can ride a tricycle faster than light. I have just got myself a new, very expensive machine that has a little titanium bell and training wheels made from carbon fibre. I will replace Lizzie Borden.
Bogie Man: I have all the power of an express train and I replace Roscoe Lunchpack. I can also do many of the things while standing in the station that others cannot do.
Green Garbo: I replace Grimy Hobo and my speciality is rubbish disposal. I am a trained assassin.
Bishopric: I can make people believe anything except Channel 7 News, nobody can do that. I take over from Luke Skypilot.
The Mafia Hatman: Like Green Garbo, I am a trained killer. I kill by ramming my hat over the victim’s head and suffocating them. I replace Phil Shidehawk.
Action Man: I can disguise myself as a little plastic doll without genitals. During the operation, I can provide a genuine excuse for the search for testicles. I come with many plastic accessories, which is unnatural, but given my physical limitations, my only option. I will substitute for Dicky Mower.
Invisible Woman: I replace Winnie Quark.
Action Man: Who said that?
Invisible Woman: I did.
Action Man: Did you just say something?
Windy Woman: No, I didn’t say anything. Did you say something?
Elastic Lass: I didn’t say a word; it must have been Super Chook.
Super Chook: Not me. Must have been some other cunt.
MEANWHILE. JOHANNA STREET, JIMBOOMBA
(A series of time displacement cannons have been set up around the perimeter of a kindergarten near Jimboomba. This area is due to contain the prison camp, Stalag Luft Funf, which is even now being shifted hour-by-hour, month-by-month and year-by-year away from its position in the eastern Germany of 1943. The camp is due to consolidate at Johanna Street in fifty-four minutes. The kindergarten will continue to exist and operate normally and the Stalag Luft Funf overlay will be invisible to any except those processed through a specially adapted dimensional perception anomaly.)
MEANWHILE AT THE BOGAN COUNCIL OFFICES.
(A man in a dark suit interrupts a full council meeting.)
Dark Suit: Forgive me, your Mayorfullness, but the State Premier requires your presence at a special function in Jimboomba. It is very urgent, so if you and the rest of the councillors can move to the car park we can board the specially chartered luxury bus waiting to take you to the function.
Mayor Porker: How dare you interrupt a council meeting in this way! We are dealing with important local business and the interests of our residents comes before those of any State bureaucracy I can assure you.
Councillors: Hear, hear. You tell ‘em Primmy. Good on ya Porky – get stuck into the bastards.
Dark Suit: There is champagne on the bus and national press photographers will be at the function. TV cameras as well.
Mayor Porker: National Press?
Sean Bean: TV?
Winnie Quark: Champagne?
(There is a mad scramble as the councillors rush the door. There are protests from the public gallery.)
Lin Emhall: What about the interest of the residents?
Bistro Waiters: What do I tell our readers about the important local business?
Mayor Porker: Oh …. Um … tell them that State business can seriously affect us all and we need to be represented.
Sean Bean: Yeah, and if that doesn’t work, tell ‘em to fuck off! Wahay! TV and shampoo. Let me at it!
LATER, ON THE BUS AS IT NEARS JIMBOOMBA.
(The councillors are three parts pissed. They are plastering themselves with make up and fiddling with their hair. Even the female councillors join in the general prinking and preening.)
Sean Bean: Do you think I should gel my hair, you know, make it stand up all wild and that?
Dicky Mower: You used to do that before. It looked like you just pulled your head out of your arse.
Sean Bean: Fuck you, Mower.
Dicky Mower: You wish.
Winnie Quark: Any more of that champagne?
Dicky Mower: Who said that?
Mayor Porker: Shut up you lot. We’ve just got to Johanna Street. What’s this? I don’t remember a tunnel being here. What are all those lights? ……. Jeeeeeeeeesus!!!!
(Suddenly the luxury bus is no more. They are in a stinking, rattling, box-like truck. It shudders to a halt and the doors are wrenched open. Burly, grey uniformed men leap into the truck and begin herding the councillors out. There are screams of rage and fear. It is bitingly cold and raining. Mower begins to shout and struggle but is felled by a rifle butt to the face that breaks his cheekbone. Everyone hears the crack and Mower’s scream of agony as another of the thugs grinds his boot into Mower’s ruined face. The councillors are dragged, shoved, pummelled into a line. They are quivering – terrified. Another uniformed figure struts before them. He speaks.)
Grey Man: Gooten Morgan mine friends. Mine naben ist Ober-ointment Otto Pishfeeler unt you are mine prisoners. Welcomen to Stulag Luft Funf. If you try for escapunt, you will be shottunt. Heil Hitler!
(Christ! This writing in fluent German really fucks me up, you know.)
TO BE CONTINUED.
9/18/09
Heroes - Part 1
Much has been written about the possibility of an infinite number of universes existing simultaneously - but this is incorrect. There are only 236 universes (237 if you count the universe where no other universes exist) and each universe is separated from all the others by nothing more than opinion. Or, to put it on a more personal level, seeing alternatives depends entirely on your point of view.
Occasionally, very occasionally, the locations blend for brief moments and we can sense other possibilities. We generally ignore these quick fancies and carry on much as before, but sometimes we are forced to take note. We are compelled to accept that something is amiss and we have been right royally fucked-up by something totally outside of our experience and control. Indeed, it is often so far outside of our experience and control it may as well be from another world, which, of course, it is.
But a pattern has been developing. An organization has been formed to make use of an inter-dimensional instability that has recently become concentrated at one single point in our particular universe. Now, I could keep the location of this instability secret but I hate that kind of shit where story-tellers, without the specific knowledge to back up their weird claims, fall back on secrecy to hide total ignorance of the complexities involved in their proposal – so I will tell you the location.
It’s the Commonwealth Bank ATM near the hairdressers in the Jimboomba shopping centre.
You may have noticed odd things about this ATM. Like when your balance is mysteriously nothing like you expect it to be. Sometimes it’s more, but mostly it’s less than anticipated and by amounts that make no sense at all. I can reveal that the reason for this is the particular exchange rate between our world and whichever universe the ATM is currently linked to. Another dead give away is the pull out tray thing at the bottom of the ATM where you dump your old transaction slips. Have you noticed that this is sometimes open and no matter how often or how hard you bang it with your knee, it just won’t close? This happens when the ATM is in use by an inter-dimensional entity that is probably wandering around Jimboomba taking notes on our life style. Sometimes this entity will even take your photograph and start to ask you really stupid questions. (If this happens to you, the best defence is to ignore it or firmly tell it to fuck off.)
Just as an interesting little aside – if you are in Jimboomba shopping centre at exactly 3am on a Saturday morning and you notice the ATM tray is open then it is highly probable the ATM is linked with Dimension 218. The exchange rate with this dimension at the moment is 2 trillion to one Australian dollar. If you put your card in at that time, then your balance will be converted but remain designated as Australian dollars - and you can keep it! Not a thing Commonwealth Bank can do about it, because you will own them! The only thing that has prevented me from doing just that is that it would be suicide to hang around an ATM in Jimboomba at 3am of a Saturday morning – and you can’t take it with you, can you.
There are a few other remarkable facts about the 236 (237) dimensions. One is that they share a common language and that language is Australian English. The reason for this is fairly obvious in that Australian English is the simplest form of communication with the least complicated grammatical structure (in that there is none). It is therefore logical to assume that this language is the most likely to evolve and predominate in any universe, given enough time. Our universe, which is the most recently formed and is designated, therefore, universe 236(237), has not yet abandoned the other, more complicated languages. There is only one language that is simpler than Australian English - that of the Black Forest Truffle, which consists of one word, representing great surprise, and Truffles use this word only once when they scream it up a pigs nose.
One other fact before we get down to business. Not only are the populations of each dimension equal, but they are also the same populations. By that, I mean there are 235 (236) other representations of me throughout the universes. The same goes for yourself and every other person in this world. The only difference between you and the family of ‘yous’ is the individual influence of each particular universe. This can have some significant effects. Clark Kent discovered these effects when he transferred from universe 3. He had been used to swimming through a universal atmosphere that had a consistency similar to owl shit so it is no wonder he now zips around our skies like a jet fighter. This also accounts for his seemingly enormous strength, because he is no longer straining against thick avian bowel movements. (By the way, he is lying about the X-ray vision, just to embarrass the girls.)
So, what about this special organization that has been formed to make use of the ATM portal in Jimboomba? Well, it’s like this. An inter-dimensional war is looming! It is clearly understood why this is happening but it is not clearly understood exactly how the why happened. Let me be brief.
The sacred testicles of Clunk, the first Emperor of universe 1(2) were stolen and two of them turned up on the central island of Brisbane Street, Beaudesert - just outside the Scenic Rim Council offices. For most male life-forms in the universes, two testes would seem to be plenty but in universe 1(2) each male has seven - so five are still missing and must be found before the Boulders get really cross.
The “Boulders” refers to the inhabitants of universe 1(2). This universe is populated by super-intelligent stones who are extremely slow to act but infinitely patient. You may well ask how stones can be described as “super-intelligent” and you would be right to have doubts but it should be remembered that universe 1(2), being the first universe, has been around for over eight hundred billion years and in that time anything can happen. Super-intelligence is a relative term of course and compared to, say, a lump of dog shit, stones are extremely bright. However, stones can only vaguely differentiate between wet and dry, light and dark, cold and hot, but, as I said before, they are extraordinarily patient and everything comes to he who waits. In this way, over the eight hundred billion years, computers, plasma TV’s, mobile phones have come and gone in the stone universe but only real ale and sex has remained consistently popular. The stones can’t actually drink the real ale (you probably already guessed that, didn’t you?) but they have been known to have some really wild times watching it evaporate.
And sex? Oh, deary me, that is their obsession. Young stones spend months downloading lithographic images from some very seedy web sites and then, for the next several hundred years, they will slowly rotate on the spot, which is the stone equivalent of a jolly good wank. If, on the other hand, a male stone wants to engage with a female stone it can be a little more complicated. Oh, there are the usual gropings and fumblings during an avalanche or fortuitous earthquake but for a decent bit of fornication the stone must take its time. First, it must trundle to the top of a hill or cliff and this can take a few million years or so depending on geological stresses, upheavals and shifts. Then the stone looks down, picks out a sexy bit of sandstone or a kinky looking slab of quartz, and manoeuvres itself above the target. By this time, several million years have past and the stone is getting very randy but it must be patient. It has to wait for just the right ground tremor or howling windstorm to tilt it beyond the balance point. This can take ten million years or more and some stones have been known to grow bored and completely change their sexual orientation to the point where they will back-scuttle a nearby pansy pebble instead. But if the stone persists then, eventually, the great day will arrive and the stone will begin to roll until it is bounding, bouncing, pounding and smashing down the slope. Then, with one last juddering crunch, it will crash onto the target, which shatters into maybe a dozen kiddie stones.
“That’s you fucked,” the stone will say and then fall asleep to dream of fast cars, real ale and a leisurely cigarette.
All this idyllic existence faded when the sacred testicles of Emperor Clunk the One’th went missing. The Boulders searched their universe for half a billion years and found nothing. Then they discovered the inter-dimensional instability and, relatively speaking, all hell broke loose. For two million years they seethed, for another six million years they ranted, and then they got nasty. They sent envoys through the instability to other dimensions and demanded the return of the holy relics but were met with blank looks of astonishment, not least because facing an angry Boulder is like looking at a sculpture by Rodin representing “woman fondling buffalo’s arse” – all a bit confusing really and, most certainly, pointless. However, some of the more advanced species began to slowly understand the problem and with this understanding came genuine fear. It was obvious the Boulders would never give up their search. It was also clear what they would do if they found the relics, they would all go and fetch them back.
To face an army of several billion Boulders that takes four months to move one millimetre may not seem particularly daunting but that would be a mistake. And it is all to do with the way the inter-dimensional instability works. Let us be clear. The 236 (237) dimensions are not separated by time or distance. They essentially occupy exactly the same space and time and the only separation is perception.
I’ll put it another way. Imagine the reflection in a mirror of a reflection in a mirror (we’ve all done that haven’t we? Dozens of little reflections of you marching off to infinity) but imagine if each reflection was unique – totally different in fact. Then imagine the reflections not apparently receding but overlaying each other and all seemingly occupying the same plane. Now, (and this is the good bit) imagine an observer looking into the mirror and seeing only the one reflection relative to that observer’s universe. A second observer stands beside the first and sees a different reflection that is relative to his universe, not only that, but he can’t see the first observer who is standing right beside him and the first observer can’t see the second bloke either. And so on for 236 (237) observers and their reflections.
See?
OH, DO COME ON! Wake up at the back there, for Goodness sake! Keep up or fuck off!
With all this in mind, it is patently obvious that a two tonne boulder suddenly turning up to occupy the same bit of space you are currently in would be a very bad move, particularly when it happens to every individual in your universe. It is possible of course, that some of us might have friends who are perceptive enough to say, “I should shift if I were you, I’ve got a feeling a two tonne boulder is about to fly up your arse.”
It is possible to have friends like that, but most unlikely.
It was at this point the leaders of some of the universes became concerned. They had first hand experience of what might happen. The Boulder envoys had already crushed some fairly important inhabitants but, apart from that, it was realised that the sudden arrival of a huge army of Boulders in one universe may have far reaching effects. The immediate increase in mass wouldn’t contravene the laws of physics because the conservation of matter applies to all possible universes, so shifting mass from one universe to another is, theoretically, not a worry. (In fact, the hidden existence of the Boulder people and their universe is the key to understanding the problem of the missing dark matter that physicists are always making such a fuss about.) However, what is a worry is that the imbalance created by the sudden transfer of mass and the subsequent conflict of opinion (or point of view) would be extremely awkward, not to say catastrophic, for the entire panoply of universes.
An alliance of 12 of the more advanced universes, including the Boulder universe 1(2), held several meetings over many years and an agreement was reached. It was decided to develop a delay system for the inter-dimensional instability to avoid proximity problems when sending agents through. It was also decided to combine forces to find the sacred testicles and to return them to universe 1(2) with the minimum of fuss. Agents were sent out from each of the allied universes and among them was Droopy Poopy from the planet Plast of universe 6(7). The planet Plast is a world of extremes and the inhabitants have to be extremely adaptable in order to survive. These life forms can change shape and colour at will and this enables them to overcome the wildly violent circumstances into which the planet Plast throws them from time to time. Droopy Poopy was allocated to the planet Earth in the most recently formed universe and it was here, working in the guise of ‘Arjy Barjy’ a simple-minded local councillor, that she discovered the first of the sacred gonads.
Droopy’s disguise was very convincing although she could not prevent her hair from changing colour at the drop of a hat, nor could she entirely rely on her size being consistent. But like all agents, she could always get instant relief by changing back into her original form for a while and this was where the superhero myth became useful. Earthlings were relaxed about superheroes – ‘seen one, seen ‘em all,’ they would say. So when Arjy Barjy quietly remarked that she was ‘off to stretch her legs’ then shot round the corner, twanged her own bra strap three times and was instantly transformed into her superhero persona, Elastic Lass, no one gave a shit.
When Droopy Poopy reported her discovery of the two testicles to the alliance, all investigations concentrated on the planet Earth. The results of those investigations were strange, unexpected in the extreme and had the potential to be universally destructive. My own part in this story was crucial and I cannot avoid a certain pride when I tell you that my involvement was the most honourable and important undertaking ever allocated to a human being in the history of our world.
I should introduce myself. My name is Friedreich von Guntschniffer and, between 1942 and 1945, I was the Commandant of the P.O.W camp Stalag Luft Funf. In February 1943, I was ordered by someone I believed to be a very senior Gestapo representative, to guard 12 members of an enemy commando unit that had just been captured. This enemy unit was delivered to me at night and I was shocked to find that five of them were women. However, my orders were clear. This group was to be kept isolated from the other prisoners and I was to guard them with my life. When I first met them and tried to explain the rules of their new home, they protested hysterically and claimed to be ‘Bogan Chitty Councillors’ (I took this to be a new enemy commando group). Furthermore, they insisted that the P.O.W camp was an elaborate charade. It was many years before I realised they were absolutely correct – but not in the way they thought.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Occasionally, very occasionally, the locations blend for brief moments and we can sense other possibilities. We generally ignore these quick fancies and carry on much as before, but sometimes we are forced to take note. We are compelled to accept that something is amiss and we have been right royally fucked-up by something totally outside of our experience and control. Indeed, it is often so far outside of our experience and control it may as well be from another world, which, of course, it is.
But a pattern has been developing. An organization has been formed to make use of an inter-dimensional instability that has recently become concentrated at one single point in our particular universe. Now, I could keep the location of this instability secret but I hate that kind of shit where story-tellers, without the specific knowledge to back up their weird claims, fall back on secrecy to hide total ignorance of the complexities involved in their proposal – so I will tell you the location.
It’s the Commonwealth Bank ATM near the hairdressers in the Jimboomba shopping centre.
You may have noticed odd things about this ATM. Like when your balance is mysteriously nothing like you expect it to be. Sometimes it’s more, but mostly it’s less than anticipated and by amounts that make no sense at all. I can reveal that the reason for this is the particular exchange rate between our world and whichever universe the ATM is currently linked to. Another dead give away is the pull out tray thing at the bottom of the ATM where you dump your old transaction slips. Have you noticed that this is sometimes open and no matter how often or how hard you bang it with your knee, it just won’t close? This happens when the ATM is in use by an inter-dimensional entity that is probably wandering around Jimboomba taking notes on our life style. Sometimes this entity will even take your photograph and start to ask you really stupid questions. (If this happens to you, the best defence is to ignore it or firmly tell it to fuck off.)
Just as an interesting little aside – if you are in Jimboomba shopping centre at exactly 3am on a Saturday morning and you notice the ATM tray is open then it is highly probable the ATM is linked with Dimension 218. The exchange rate with this dimension at the moment is 2 trillion to one Australian dollar. If you put your card in at that time, then your balance will be converted but remain designated as Australian dollars - and you can keep it! Not a thing Commonwealth Bank can do about it, because you will own them! The only thing that has prevented me from doing just that is that it would be suicide to hang around an ATM in Jimboomba at 3am of a Saturday morning – and you can’t take it with you, can you.
There are a few other remarkable facts about the 236 (237) dimensions. One is that they share a common language and that language is Australian English. The reason for this is fairly obvious in that Australian English is the simplest form of communication with the least complicated grammatical structure (in that there is none). It is therefore logical to assume that this language is the most likely to evolve and predominate in any universe, given enough time. Our universe, which is the most recently formed and is designated, therefore, universe 236(237), has not yet abandoned the other, more complicated languages. There is only one language that is simpler than Australian English - that of the Black Forest Truffle, which consists of one word, representing great surprise, and Truffles use this word only once when they scream it up a pigs nose.
One other fact before we get down to business. Not only are the populations of each dimension equal, but they are also the same populations. By that, I mean there are 235 (236) other representations of me throughout the universes. The same goes for yourself and every other person in this world. The only difference between you and the family of ‘yous’ is the individual influence of each particular universe. This can have some significant effects. Clark Kent discovered these effects when he transferred from universe 3. He had been used to swimming through a universal atmosphere that had a consistency similar to owl shit so it is no wonder he now zips around our skies like a jet fighter. This also accounts for his seemingly enormous strength, because he is no longer straining against thick avian bowel movements. (By the way, he is lying about the X-ray vision, just to embarrass the girls.)
So, what about this special organization that has been formed to make use of the ATM portal in Jimboomba? Well, it’s like this. An inter-dimensional war is looming! It is clearly understood why this is happening but it is not clearly understood exactly how the why happened. Let me be brief.
The sacred testicles of Clunk, the first Emperor of universe 1(2) were stolen and two of them turned up on the central island of Brisbane Street, Beaudesert - just outside the Scenic Rim Council offices. For most male life-forms in the universes, two testes would seem to be plenty but in universe 1(2) each male has seven - so five are still missing and must be found before the Boulders get really cross.
The “Boulders” refers to the inhabitants of universe 1(2). This universe is populated by super-intelligent stones who are extremely slow to act but infinitely patient. You may well ask how stones can be described as “super-intelligent” and you would be right to have doubts but it should be remembered that universe 1(2), being the first universe, has been around for over eight hundred billion years and in that time anything can happen. Super-intelligence is a relative term of course and compared to, say, a lump of dog shit, stones are extremely bright. However, stones can only vaguely differentiate between wet and dry, light and dark, cold and hot, but, as I said before, they are extraordinarily patient and everything comes to he who waits. In this way, over the eight hundred billion years, computers, plasma TV’s, mobile phones have come and gone in the stone universe but only real ale and sex has remained consistently popular. The stones can’t actually drink the real ale (you probably already guessed that, didn’t you?) but they have been known to have some really wild times watching it evaporate.
And sex? Oh, deary me, that is their obsession. Young stones spend months downloading lithographic images from some very seedy web sites and then, for the next several hundred years, they will slowly rotate on the spot, which is the stone equivalent of a jolly good wank. If, on the other hand, a male stone wants to engage with a female stone it can be a little more complicated. Oh, there are the usual gropings and fumblings during an avalanche or fortuitous earthquake but for a decent bit of fornication the stone must take its time. First, it must trundle to the top of a hill or cliff and this can take a few million years or so depending on geological stresses, upheavals and shifts. Then the stone looks down, picks out a sexy bit of sandstone or a kinky looking slab of quartz, and manoeuvres itself above the target. By this time, several million years have past and the stone is getting very randy but it must be patient. It has to wait for just the right ground tremor or howling windstorm to tilt it beyond the balance point. This can take ten million years or more and some stones have been known to grow bored and completely change their sexual orientation to the point where they will back-scuttle a nearby pansy pebble instead. But if the stone persists then, eventually, the great day will arrive and the stone will begin to roll until it is bounding, bouncing, pounding and smashing down the slope. Then, with one last juddering crunch, it will crash onto the target, which shatters into maybe a dozen kiddie stones.
“That’s you fucked,” the stone will say and then fall asleep to dream of fast cars, real ale and a leisurely cigarette.
All this idyllic existence faded when the sacred testicles of Emperor Clunk the One’th went missing. The Boulders searched their universe for half a billion years and found nothing. Then they discovered the inter-dimensional instability and, relatively speaking, all hell broke loose. For two million years they seethed, for another six million years they ranted, and then they got nasty. They sent envoys through the instability to other dimensions and demanded the return of the holy relics but were met with blank looks of astonishment, not least because facing an angry Boulder is like looking at a sculpture by Rodin representing “woman fondling buffalo’s arse” – all a bit confusing really and, most certainly, pointless. However, some of the more advanced species began to slowly understand the problem and with this understanding came genuine fear. It was obvious the Boulders would never give up their search. It was also clear what they would do if they found the relics, they would all go and fetch them back.
To face an army of several billion Boulders that takes four months to move one millimetre may not seem particularly daunting but that would be a mistake. And it is all to do with the way the inter-dimensional instability works. Let us be clear. The 236 (237) dimensions are not separated by time or distance. They essentially occupy exactly the same space and time and the only separation is perception.
I’ll put it another way. Imagine the reflection in a mirror of a reflection in a mirror (we’ve all done that haven’t we? Dozens of little reflections of you marching off to infinity) but imagine if each reflection was unique – totally different in fact. Then imagine the reflections not apparently receding but overlaying each other and all seemingly occupying the same plane. Now, (and this is the good bit) imagine an observer looking into the mirror and seeing only the one reflection relative to that observer’s universe. A second observer stands beside the first and sees a different reflection that is relative to his universe, not only that, but he can’t see the first observer who is standing right beside him and the first observer can’t see the second bloke either. And so on for 236 (237) observers and their reflections.
See?
OH, DO COME ON! Wake up at the back there, for Goodness sake! Keep up or fuck off!
With all this in mind, it is patently obvious that a two tonne boulder suddenly turning up to occupy the same bit of space you are currently in would be a very bad move, particularly when it happens to every individual in your universe. It is possible of course, that some of us might have friends who are perceptive enough to say, “I should shift if I were you, I’ve got a feeling a two tonne boulder is about to fly up your arse.”
It is possible to have friends like that, but most unlikely.
It was at this point the leaders of some of the universes became concerned. They had first hand experience of what might happen. The Boulder envoys had already crushed some fairly important inhabitants but, apart from that, it was realised that the sudden arrival of a huge army of Boulders in one universe may have far reaching effects. The immediate increase in mass wouldn’t contravene the laws of physics because the conservation of matter applies to all possible universes, so shifting mass from one universe to another is, theoretically, not a worry. (In fact, the hidden existence of the Boulder people and their universe is the key to understanding the problem of the missing dark matter that physicists are always making such a fuss about.) However, what is a worry is that the imbalance created by the sudden transfer of mass and the subsequent conflict of opinion (or point of view) would be extremely awkward, not to say catastrophic, for the entire panoply of universes.
An alliance of 12 of the more advanced universes, including the Boulder universe 1(2), held several meetings over many years and an agreement was reached. It was decided to develop a delay system for the inter-dimensional instability to avoid proximity problems when sending agents through. It was also decided to combine forces to find the sacred testicles and to return them to universe 1(2) with the minimum of fuss. Agents were sent out from each of the allied universes and among them was Droopy Poopy from the planet Plast of universe 6(7). The planet Plast is a world of extremes and the inhabitants have to be extremely adaptable in order to survive. These life forms can change shape and colour at will and this enables them to overcome the wildly violent circumstances into which the planet Plast throws them from time to time. Droopy Poopy was allocated to the planet Earth in the most recently formed universe and it was here, working in the guise of ‘Arjy Barjy’ a simple-minded local councillor, that she discovered the first of the sacred gonads.
Droopy’s disguise was very convincing although she could not prevent her hair from changing colour at the drop of a hat, nor could she entirely rely on her size being consistent. But like all agents, she could always get instant relief by changing back into her original form for a while and this was where the superhero myth became useful. Earthlings were relaxed about superheroes – ‘seen one, seen ‘em all,’ they would say. So when Arjy Barjy quietly remarked that she was ‘off to stretch her legs’ then shot round the corner, twanged her own bra strap three times and was instantly transformed into her superhero persona, Elastic Lass, no one gave a shit.
When Droopy Poopy reported her discovery of the two testicles to the alliance, all investigations concentrated on the planet Earth. The results of those investigations were strange, unexpected in the extreme and had the potential to be universally destructive. My own part in this story was crucial and I cannot avoid a certain pride when I tell you that my involvement was the most honourable and important undertaking ever allocated to a human being in the history of our world.
I should introduce myself. My name is Friedreich von Guntschniffer and, between 1942 and 1945, I was the Commandant of the P.O.W camp Stalag Luft Funf. In February 1943, I was ordered by someone I believed to be a very senior Gestapo representative, to guard 12 members of an enemy commando unit that had just been captured. This enemy unit was delivered to me at night and I was shocked to find that five of them were women. However, my orders were clear. This group was to be kept isolated from the other prisoners and I was to guard them with my life. When I first met them and tried to explain the rules of their new home, they protested hysterically and claimed to be ‘Bogan Chitty Councillors’ (I took this to be a new enemy commando group). Furthermore, they insisted that the P.O.W camp was an elaborate charade. It was many years before I realised they were absolutely correct – but not in the way they thought.
TO BE CONTINUED.
9/6/09
Dastardly Doings -Part 12
By Primula Porker (Mayor of Bogan Chitty)
The Dastardly Doings cast are now political detainees. Iris Pessary has disappeared. Terence Pucker is dead and the Queensland State Government are taking advantage of Pucker’s plan to revolutionise the fresh food industry. Meanwhile, far below ground, the earth groans and a sickness seeps through the rock.
THE DEVIL’S COLON.
(It was once as dark as blindness, not just very dark but a total lack of light. If there had been eyes capable of seeing, the darkness would have touched them like a solid thing. For years counted in billions, this place was forming. From a time when fire swept through the earth and shattered new-made stone and from when molten, blood-red rock twisted a path that pressure, too massive to bear, eventually enfolded in growing mountains, this dark place was slowly being shaped. Great tubes were opening and collapsing then opening again until, eventually, the waters came and flooded through the tubes to the centre of the land and made a mighty inland sea. But layer upon layer of limestone strata at last closed up the conduit and the inland sea began to shrink until its last bright puddle dried.
The water reduced to a stream and then a trickle but for a billion years more, it wore at the limestone and, inch-by-inch, the rock was hollowed here until this place became a vast cave filled with total night. For more millions of years the cavern grew. Its roof occasionally fell and a river, grown deeper and more swift, washed the rubble away; and thus, the cave reached upward. But a day came when a lumbering beast, of a kind long vanished, placed its weight on a patch of ground too weak for the sudden stress and the ground fell through carrying the beast into the blackness. For the first time light penetrated the cave and life came with it.
Then more life hovered at the edges of the dark. Vast flying things and the booming tread of monstrosities were commonplace until a shock killed all the world and brought the blackness back. The light and the monsters fled and were gone for many seasons, then, slowly and dimly, the light returned - but the monsters never did.
Small things lived. Small things that flit and chirruped. Small things that spoke one to another and occasionally fell through. Their flesh and bone joined the mound of beasts that had dried in the darkness for so many, many years. It was simple and it was time past and passing – nothing more. Until the day that Gorman came and changed the world forever.
Gorman was just a man. He stood looking into the dark and spoke to another, as men do from time to time. He asked what the place was and was told the cave had been there forever and that other men dumped chemicals and used-up oil into it and no one knew or cared. Gorman was told that a glass could be dropped in and he could wait for hours and would not hear the break. He was told that in polite society, the hole was called The Devil’s Colon but others knew it differently. Gorman was told all these things and seemed pleased with what he heard.
Another man named Pucker had given Gorman a task to move a mountain. Money was entrusted to Gorman for the cost of extra machinery and bribes. Much had already been dumped at great expense in machines to spread the earth and bribes to local landowners, but Gorman stole the rest of the bribe money that Pucker had given him and Gorman secretly poured his mountain into The Devil’s Colon. He hoped to dispose of at least half - but the cavern took it all and after the last load thundered in, the hole was sealed with steel. Gorman was rich but, grey-faced and bent, he died a season later.
When the opening was sealed, the day was taken away but still a light remained. It was a different light, soft and green, a glow that pulsed and bathed the cave with vibrant haze. The stream mixed with this new glowing earth and a sludge was made that melted ancient mummified remains and merged the soup of genes with chemical waste still flowing down the creek. Occasionally animals were carried in and some were still alive. These thrived in the glowing ooze, but not for very long. The ooze fed flesh and bone that surged and grew apace, but often the beast’s spirit abandoned hope and the monstrous bodies died. Only simple creatures could last a while but most just faded slowly into death and added to the unnatural brew of nutrients boiling from the glow.
Many years past by, and then, into this place, Iris Pessary came, spluttering and thrashing through the ooze. She slumped on a rock and wept and called for God to help her but when she looked around, Iris saw only the pit of hell. For days she tried her best to die and only raging thirst made her drink from the pool until agony from her surging bones tore her mind away. But still she lived and talked with the beasts that shared her hell.
And she grew.
They all grew.
They continued to live and to grow for 14 days,)
UNTIL…….
(The vast open excavation that would form the base of a great dam wall thronged with engineers and convicts as well as giant digging machines that lurched and growled through the boulder strewn expanse. A small group of convicts led by Arjy Barjy toiled up the road that wound about the walls of the pit. They were on their way to the top where they could rest and be safe from the blasting that would soon bring down tonnes of stone and earth and tear a 30 metre deep gouge in the limestone cliff.
When the explosion came it was a deep and vibrant THUMP that moved the air in one huge slip. The massive rock face crumbled and was lost beneath great gouts of billowed dust that rose a hundred feet then slowly drifted down in feathered folds. It was some time before the cliff could be seen again and the gaping new scar was deep and dark except for a gathering flow of pale-green, glowing mud.)
THE DEVIL'S COLON AGAIN.
(Before the blast that changed their world, Iris moaned with abject misery. Seessaa coiled about Iris and offered comfort as best she could although she too quaked from the torture of gross mutation. Koom added his snuffling care to them both and the three wept together, but each in their own way. They were a family now. A family bonded by the suffering and agony generated by a glowing mud that kept them all alive.
When Iris first became aware of others in this place she had been badly frightened and it had been a while before she realised the others feared her more. The strange communication that developed between them began suddenly and was born of shock.
Koom the koala, had a mate he called Kaaa and there came a time when even the glow could not sustain Kaaa’s life and so she withered into the mud. Koom’s grief was loud and pitiful and he fell into Iris’s arms like a child and didn’t care if his action led to death at the hands of the hideous man-beast. But an instinct that Iris had thought impossible welled up within her and she held Koom as the son she never bore. Then Seesaa the python, wound them both about and gently squeezed, adding her pity to the mix of rare emotion. Koom spoke the name of his mate and Iris understood. Seesaa repeated the name in sibilant mimicry and it became the first time that they all wept together – each in their own way – and it was also the first time they spoke to each other and truly knew companionship.
The first explosion was dull but it was only the start of a rapid advance of destruction marching nearer to where they trembled. The last explosion, less than a second after the first, hit them like an earthquake and the great wall split. Impossible brightness speared through the cracks and blinded them. They flinched and scrabbled into the shadows to protect their burning eyes.
But the wall still held and in a while, they grew accustomed to the new light that streamed through the fractures. They saw that the glowing mud was diminishing and knew the source of their life was seeping away. Iris explained by gentle sounds and careful movement of her arms, what must be done. She manufactured a scent in her gut, which Seesaa could interpret, and they all agreed to her plan. Seesaa kept her head in the shadows and braced her tail length against the damaged wall, Iris closed her eyes and leaned in, while Koom turned his back and prepared to strike the wall with his powerful hind feet. Dismissing the need to speak in tongues, Iris merely shouted ‘NOW!’ and the three launched their power at the wall. It crumbled.)
AND THEN….
(Slowly from the mud arose a shape so awful that Arjy and her friends could only gape and tremble as it crawled then staggered from the gloom.)
Arjy: That’s impossible!
Sean: What the hell is it? And shouldn’t we be running away, screaming and doing sensible stuff like that?
Arjy: Not before we find out what’s going on. Sean, does that shape remind you of anything?
Sean: Could it be one of those advertising gimmicks? Like the giant Michelin Man or something like that.
Bistro Waiters: That’s no blow-up doll – that thing’s alive!
Sean: Don’t be stupid, it must be 30 metres high. Shit! There’s another of them crawling out.
Bistro Waiters: Christ! It’s a giant Kenny Koala. I don’t know about you buggers but I’m off, armed guards or no armed guards!
Sean: There’s something else moving now! It’s either Kenny Koala’s prick slithering towards us or the biggest snake ever seen on this Earth!
Arjy: That first thing that crawled out - It’s Iris Pessary!
Sean: What?
Arjy: I don’t know how – it’s all impossible, and maybe we’ve all gone mad – but the big bugger that crawled out first is Iris Pessary!
Sean: Arjy? Do you think we should …..
Arjy: Wait!
(The grotesquely grown Iris Pessary had spotted them and her eyes fixed on Arjy like gun sights. For a moment, no one moved until Iris raised one huge arm and pointed her fat fingers in their direction. Arjy cried out and her mind reeled as a confusion of information flooded her thoughts. Arjy was shown the wild ride on raging water that carried Iris here; she saw the meeting with the others and experienced their companionship. She felt the pain and terror as the glowing pool transformed Iris’s body and mind into another form of life. Arjy saw all these things and understood. She felt a wellspring of pity come from deep inside and, for the first time in her life, Arjy empathised. But the emotion was unbearable for her, so she was simply released from the pain regretfully and Arjy keenly felt the yearning of the hive-mind, like a hand from the window of a moving train taking a last tremulous touch, finger tip to finger tip with a loved one left behind. One thing was very clear – whatever this new life was, it meant none harm and desperately wanted help.)
Arjy: Let’s get out of here!
THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER.
Premier Fanny Bligh: I want answers. Kevin Rudd will be here in twenty minutes and I need to be able to tell him we have the situation under control.
Professor Damon Ringwood: But we don’t have anything under control and we are unlikely to have anything under control. This situation is uncontrollable.
Premier Fanny Bligh: God’s teeth! Can no one give me a positive slant? You buggers are the best we have! Now, fucking well prove it! Give me a Goddamned solution! Anything will do!
General Fishpout: Well, killing the bloody things won’t work. We’ve fired all we’ve got at ‘em. Nothing.
Professor Damon Ringwood: And that was a stupid idea wasn’t it. According to that young lass Arjy Barjy, they meant no harm. We might have tried a bit of simple communication before letting the Military try their toys!
Premier Fanny Bligh: Bollocks to Arjy bleeding Barjy. She’s just a kid with too much political ambition. She doesn’t know what truth is unless she makes it up herself.
General Fishpout: And what was your alternative to military action, Ringwood? Nobody heard you come up with any ideas. I’ve lost good people to those ‘things’ that mean no harm. Six tank crews are still missing.
Professor Damon Ringwood: Yes, because they drove for half a kilometre along a giant python before they realised it wasn’t a freeway. Then they tried to blast it to smithereens while they were still sitting on it. The poor buggers are probably being digested as we speak.
General Fishpout: Damn you, Ringwood, I’ll……..
Premier Fanny Bligh: Gentlemen! This isn’t helpful! Professor Ringwood, it’s been twelve hours since the SAS brought you those samples of the green matter from the bottom of the dam excavation. What progress have you made?
Professor Damon Ringwood: Tentative findings only. It appears to be a living organism but the DNA is so complex it defies analysis. It’s almost like a combination of hundreds of different DNA strands but each intertwined with the others. There also seem to be traces of common pesticides and other compounds we can’t identify. The whole thing is radioactive so the Maralinga connection you told me about is possible. As for its effects, well, it kills most living tissue quite quickly, some tissue not so quickly and in rare cases it combines with the tissue and replicates the host organism’s cell structures. That is – it grows the host very quickly and mutates the DNA. We’ve called this effect ‘gross immunity’ on the part of the host.
We’ve checked the spread of the organism with our own sample and with aerial observation of the dam excavation site. The growth is exponential. Helped by sunlight and by the take up of other organic material we estimate Australia will be consumed in six months. When we realised this, we checked the effect of seawater as a possible containment barrier but the organism spreads across the surface of seawater faster than across land. Present calculations suggest the organism will be worldwide within four years. All life not grossly immune will be consumed and this earth will have a new, totally dominant species. The only thing to slow down and possibly damage the organism is extreme heat. I’m not talking about just any heat such as we in Australia might be able to produce, I’m talking about the temperatures found only in the sun itself or in a nuclear explosion.
You understand, Premier Bligh, this is all just ‘best guess’.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Dear God …..I can’t…….um…..So that’s your suggestion? We nuke this organism?
Professor Damon Ringwood: Premier Bligh, you asked for a ‘Goddamned solution. Anything will do.’ Well, I can think of few things more ‘Goddamned’ than pleading with the Americans to drop a nuclear bomb on us, and it certainly comes under the general heading of ‘Anything will do’.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Professor Ringwood, would you mind explaining all that to Kevin Rudd. He’ll be here soon……… I’m going to……I think I’ll ….. go home now. Thank you Professor, Thank you General….. I’ll just …. go home.
TWO HOURS LATER.
Secureline – ASIO sub transmitter. Brisbane to Washington.
Kevin Rudd: Hello….Hello.
Barrack Obama: Hello ….Hello.
Kevin Rudd: Oh – Hi, Barrack. It’s Kevin Rudd calling from Australia.
Barrack Obama: Ahh shit! Wonder what that weasel’s asshole wants. Ok, put him on.
Kevin Rudd: No, Barrack. This is he. I’m Kevin Rudd.
Barrack Obama: Yeah sure – great. Kenny, my old friend! How’s things in Austria?
Kevin Rudd: It’s Kevin and it’s Australia, old friend. We have a bit of a problem and we’re hoping you could help.
FOURTY FIVE MINUTES LATER. – THE PENTAGON.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: It’s perfect, Mr. President! We didn’t think we would ever get an opportoonity like this. We can’t let America down, here.
Barrack Obama: I don’t know, General. It all seems kinda half-assed to me.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Half-assed it aint, Mr. President. Lookit, I’ll just run it by you with a little more detail.
We came up with Operation Vulcan’s Hammer a year ago and all the work has been done. Back dated web sites are ready to go up on the net. Some of the finest minds in the world contributed to the theory and the proofs. We are ready to quickly change school and university records to make the theory look discussed and even taught for the last five years and our allies will all go along with us on this. On your say so, Mr. President, we can make the Theory of Equatorial Slip one which has been around for a good long while.
According to the theory, there is a dangerous fault line in the Earths crust which runs north of the equator across North Korea, the Afghan/Pakistan border and I-ran. This fault line can trigger massive volcanic upheavals at any time. That’s the theory we circulate. Ok, so the good old US of A has the hardware to make this dream theory come true and solve all our global hot spot problems in one strike. The new DustBuster missile can be launched from space and hit the ground at 15,000 miles an hour – too fast to be picked up by any scanning device. The missile case is made of depleted uranium with a Klordite laminate – that’s the hardest composite known to man. It will penetrate to a depth of up to 500 metres and the nuclear explosion will be localised but totally destructive inside 50 kilometres. It’s also fairly clean with minimum fall-out and will seem more like volcanic upheaval than the real deal. It all gets blamed on The Equatorial Slip theory and we’re completely out of the picture.
Barrack Obama: But the time, General. How do we do this in the time?
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: As we speak, Mr. President, a shuttle is ready to be run out and it’s already prepped. It’s been that way since we came up with this operation scenario. The payload bay is fitted with a multi-launcher and 28 missiles just waiting to be programmed with target coordinates. We can have that bird in orbit within 48 hours. We can start launching missiles 52 hours from now and it will be all over 4 hours later.
Mr. President, we held off on Vulcan’s Hammer because we were concerned it might seem too convenient that all our problem regions were ass-wiped in one hit. But now that one of our allies needs help we can add Austria to the list of targets and nobody is gonna believe we would take out one of our own. Like I said, it’s perfect. And Austria’s just south of Korea, right? It all fits.
Barrack Obama: It’s Australia, General, not Austria and Australia is more than just south of Korea. It must be more than a thousand miles south.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Ok, so the Earth throws a curve ball with the fault line. It still fits! What do you say Mr. President? If you back down on this, people are gonna start thinking maybe you are some kinda Muslin after all. What’s it to be – Sir?
Barrack Obama: We get all US and allied personnel outa the danger zone in Afghanistan?
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Of course, Mr. President, Delta Forces and British SAS will plant fifty, maybe a hundred crude bombs in north Afghan towns. We waste a few hundred, maybe a thousand civilians and we get our guys north to beef up security there. They’ll be clear well before impact.
Barrack Obama: ……………………………………….
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Mr. President? Yes or no?
FIFTY HOURS LATER – THE SPACE SHUTTLE VULCAN.
(In flight communication between the Shuttle Commander, Frank Crudavitch and General Cokschmeer speaking from Ground Control)
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Ready to begin the ..uh ..photo shoot, Ground Control. Cameras programmed and ready. All targets zeroed in except Austria. We can find no target data for Austria.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: This is General Cokschmeer at Ground Control, Nix on Austria, Commander Crudavitch! Have you programmed in coordinates for Bromelton, Australia?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: That’s an affirmative, General.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Then what the fuck is the Austria shit about? There is no fuckin’ Austria, Commander. Have you got that?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure thing, General. There’ll sure enough be no fuckin’ Austria by the time I’ve finished photographing the shit outa the fuckin’ place.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Commander, do you have a Momma?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure, General.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: And do you love your Momma, Frank?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure I do, General. Of course I love my Momma, It’s her birthday today.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Well, Frank, if you screw up one more time I’m gonna visit with your Momma and shoot her birthday cake just as soon as she got it in her goddamned mouth! Do you believe me, Frank?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Y-Y-Yes Sir!
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: You better believe me, son, because I got my 45 in my hand with the safety off and I got a Lootenant Colonel lookin’ through the phone book findin’ your Momma’s address. Now! One more time! One photo in Australia, eight photos in North Korea, six photos along the Afghan border (plus a coupla sneaky ones deep in Pakistan to bring those assholes back inta line) and all the rest of the fuckin’ photos gotta be plastered all over I-ran. NO PHOTOS OF FUCKIN’ AUSTRIA! You got all that Frank?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Yes Sir!
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Carry on, Commander Crudavitch, make Momma proud.
FIVE HOURS LATER – BROMELTON DAM EXCAVATION.
(The bottom of the excavation was awash with the glowing mud. Some drained into old water paths but the most of it was beginning to rise up the walls of the pit at a faster and faster rate. Iris, Koom and Seesaa waded through the slurry and took strength from its pulsing power. They had no thought of destruction and were happier now that the pain had been channelled into developing nerve paths that could cope. But somehow, the glow knew or guessed the approaching danger and began to act. Iris felt unease and she moved back toward the gaping tube that passed into the ancient cavern. More rapidly she moved and then a rage of panic made her throw her bulk into the darkness while Koom and Seesaa came after her and sealed the tube with their bodies. For some moments they radiated love and comfort and in the last moment they sent Iris their sorrow before the crushing detonation seared them into dust and then pounded the dust into stray molecules of nothing much. But it was the heat that finished them off. And without Koom and Seesaa, Iris would have ended too and she came very close to that. Iris was crushed but the glow survived in scraps and tiny wisps. It soaked into the stone and ran in tendrils through the billions of new fractures until it found a deeper place to hide – and to wait – and to grow a little bit each day. )
AFTERMATH - SIX MONTHS LATER.
(Arjy wandered around the shambles that was Jimboomba. Amazingly, one of the clock towers remained though it trembled and creaked in the breeze. Most of the single story structures were still useable and recovery work was in process and funded, for the most part, by international donations. The freak volcanic eruption had destroyed the green ooze and Arjy still suspected that the ooze itself had created the blast. Perhaps, in one last gesture of self destruction to prove it meant the world no harm, the organism had shown more pity than humans ever could. Who knows.
Sean was due out of hospital tomorrow and Bistro Waiters was already back in his office writing editorials about championship strawberry jams. This part of the world was coming back together. But the same could not be said for some places. Places like Iran and North Korea had remained deserts of misery and death while Afghanistan no longer figured in the nightly news. Some said the world was a safer place but the price seemed so much greater than the gift.
As for Arjy, she had grown half a metre in the last six months but it hardly noticed as her stick thin legs bowed under the extra weight of her bloated gut. She often thought of her fathers words to her when, as a sullen child, she longed to be taller so that she could dominate the others in her school. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he had said. But Arjy had just sniffed, and dreamed of higher things.)
THE END.
(P.S. Going on holiday next week – I won’t post for a while. RY)
The Dastardly Doings cast are now political detainees. Iris Pessary has disappeared. Terence Pucker is dead and the Queensland State Government are taking advantage of Pucker’s plan to revolutionise the fresh food industry. Meanwhile, far below ground, the earth groans and a sickness seeps through the rock.
THE DEVIL’S COLON.
(It was once as dark as blindness, not just very dark but a total lack of light. If there had been eyes capable of seeing, the darkness would have touched them like a solid thing. For years counted in billions, this place was forming. From a time when fire swept through the earth and shattered new-made stone and from when molten, blood-red rock twisted a path that pressure, too massive to bear, eventually enfolded in growing mountains, this dark place was slowly being shaped. Great tubes were opening and collapsing then opening again until, eventually, the waters came and flooded through the tubes to the centre of the land and made a mighty inland sea. But layer upon layer of limestone strata at last closed up the conduit and the inland sea began to shrink until its last bright puddle dried.
The water reduced to a stream and then a trickle but for a billion years more, it wore at the limestone and, inch-by-inch, the rock was hollowed here until this place became a vast cave filled with total night. For more millions of years the cavern grew. Its roof occasionally fell and a river, grown deeper and more swift, washed the rubble away; and thus, the cave reached upward. But a day came when a lumbering beast, of a kind long vanished, placed its weight on a patch of ground too weak for the sudden stress and the ground fell through carrying the beast into the blackness. For the first time light penetrated the cave and life came with it.
Then more life hovered at the edges of the dark. Vast flying things and the booming tread of monstrosities were commonplace until a shock killed all the world and brought the blackness back. The light and the monsters fled and were gone for many seasons, then, slowly and dimly, the light returned - but the monsters never did.
Small things lived. Small things that flit and chirruped. Small things that spoke one to another and occasionally fell through. Their flesh and bone joined the mound of beasts that had dried in the darkness for so many, many years. It was simple and it was time past and passing – nothing more. Until the day that Gorman came and changed the world forever.
Gorman was just a man. He stood looking into the dark and spoke to another, as men do from time to time. He asked what the place was and was told the cave had been there forever and that other men dumped chemicals and used-up oil into it and no one knew or cared. Gorman was told that a glass could be dropped in and he could wait for hours and would not hear the break. He was told that in polite society, the hole was called The Devil’s Colon but others knew it differently. Gorman was told all these things and seemed pleased with what he heard.
Another man named Pucker had given Gorman a task to move a mountain. Money was entrusted to Gorman for the cost of extra machinery and bribes. Much had already been dumped at great expense in machines to spread the earth and bribes to local landowners, but Gorman stole the rest of the bribe money that Pucker had given him and Gorman secretly poured his mountain into The Devil’s Colon. He hoped to dispose of at least half - but the cavern took it all and after the last load thundered in, the hole was sealed with steel. Gorman was rich but, grey-faced and bent, he died a season later.
When the opening was sealed, the day was taken away but still a light remained. It was a different light, soft and green, a glow that pulsed and bathed the cave with vibrant haze. The stream mixed with this new glowing earth and a sludge was made that melted ancient mummified remains and merged the soup of genes with chemical waste still flowing down the creek. Occasionally animals were carried in and some were still alive. These thrived in the glowing ooze, but not for very long. The ooze fed flesh and bone that surged and grew apace, but often the beast’s spirit abandoned hope and the monstrous bodies died. Only simple creatures could last a while but most just faded slowly into death and added to the unnatural brew of nutrients boiling from the glow.
Many years past by, and then, into this place, Iris Pessary came, spluttering and thrashing through the ooze. She slumped on a rock and wept and called for God to help her but when she looked around, Iris saw only the pit of hell. For days she tried her best to die and only raging thirst made her drink from the pool until agony from her surging bones tore her mind away. But still she lived and talked with the beasts that shared her hell.
And she grew.
They all grew.
They continued to live and to grow for 14 days,)
UNTIL…….
(The vast open excavation that would form the base of a great dam wall thronged with engineers and convicts as well as giant digging machines that lurched and growled through the boulder strewn expanse. A small group of convicts led by Arjy Barjy toiled up the road that wound about the walls of the pit. They were on their way to the top where they could rest and be safe from the blasting that would soon bring down tonnes of stone and earth and tear a 30 metre deep gouge in the limestone cliff.
When the explosion came it was a deep and vibrant THUMP that moved the air in one huge slip. The massive rock face crumbled and was lost beneath great gouts of billowed dust that rose a hundred feet then slowly drifted down in feathered folds. It was some time before the cliff could be seen again and the gaping new scar was deep and dark except for a gathering flow of pale-green, glowing mud.)
THE DEVIL'S COLON AGAIN.
(Before the blast that changed their world, Iris moaned with abject misery. Seessaa coiled about Iris and offered comfort as best she could although she too quaked from the torture of gross mutation. Koom added his snuffling care to them both and the three wept together, but each in their own way. They were a family now. A family bonded by the suffering and agony generated by a glowing mud that kept them all alive.
When Iris first became aware of others in this place she had been badly frightened and it had been a while before she realised the others feared her more. The strange communication that developed between them began suddenly and was born of shock.
Koom the koala, had a mate he called Kaaa and there came a time when even the glow could not sustain Kaaa’s life and so she withered into the mud. Koom’s grief was loud and pitiful and he fell into Iris’s arms like a child and didn’t care if his action led to death at the hands of the hideous man-beast. But an instinct that Iris had thought impossible welled up within her and she held Koom as the son she never bore. Then Seesaa the python, wound them both about and gently squeezed, adding her pity to the mix of rare emotion. Koom spoke the name of his mate and Iris understood. Seesaa repeated the name in sibilant mimicry and it became the first time that they all wept together – each in their own way – and it was also the first time they spoke to each other and truly knew companionship.
The first explosion was dull but it was only the start of a rapid advance of destruction marching nearer to where they trembled. The last explosion, less than a second after the first, hit them like an earthquake and the great wall split. Impossible brightness speared through the cracks and blinded them. They flinched and scrabbled into the shadows to protect their burning eyes.
But the wall still held and in a while, they grew accustomed to the new light that streamed through the fractures. They saw that the glowing mud was diminishing and knew the source of their life was seeping away. Iris explained by gentle sounds and careful movement of her arms, what must be done. She manufactured a scent in her gut, which Seesaa could interpret, and they all agreed to her plan. Seesaa kept her head in the shadows and braced her tail length against the damaged wall, Iris closed her eyes and leaned in, while Koom turned his back and prepared to strike the wall with his powerful hind feet. Dismissing the need to speak in tongues, Iris merely shouted ‘NOW!’ and the three launched their power at the wall. It crumbled.)
AND THEN….
(Slowly from the mud arose a shape so awful that Arjy and her friends could only gape and tremble as it crawled then staggered from the gloom.)
Arjy: That’s impossible!
Sean: What the hell is it? And shouldn’t we be running away, screaming and doing sensible stuff like that?
Arjy: Not before we find out what’s going on. Sean, does that shape remind you of anything?
Sean: Could it be one of those advertising gimmicks? Like the giant Michelin Man or something like that.
Bistro Waiters: That’s no blow-up doll – that thing’s alive!
Sean: Don’t be stupid, it must be 30 metres high. Shit! There’s another of them crawling out.
Bistro Waiters: Christ! It’s a giant Kenny Koala. I don’t know about you buggers but I’m off, armed guards or no armed guards!
Sean: There’s something else moving now! It’s either Kenny Koala’s prick slithering towards us or the biggest snake ever seen on this Earth!
Arjy: That first thing that crawled out - It’s Iris Pessary!
Sean: What?
Arjy: I don’t know how – it’s all impossible, and maybe we’ve all gone mad – but the big bugger that crawled out first is Iris Pessary!
Sean: Arjy? Do you think we should …..
Arjy: Wait!
(The grotesquely grown Iris Pessary had spotted them and her eyes fixed on Arjy like gun sights. For a moment, no one moved until Iris raised one huge arm and pointed her fat fingers in their direction. Arjy cried out and her mind reeled as a confusion of information flooded her thoughts. Arjy was shown the wild ride on raging water that carried Iris here; she saw the meeting with the others and experienced their companionship. She felt the pain and terror as the glowing pool transformed Iris’s body and mind into another form of life. Arjy saw all these things and understood. She felt a wellspring of pity come from deep inside and, for the first time in her life, Arjy empathised. But the emotion was unbearable for her, so she was simply released from the pain regretfully and Arjy keenly felt the yearning of the hive-mind, like a hand from the window of a moving train taking a last tremulous touch, finger tip to finger tip with a loved one left behind. One thing was very clear – whatever this new life was, it meant none harm and desperately wanted help.)
Arjy: Let’s get out of here!
THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER.
Premier Fanny Bligh: I want answers. Kevin Rudd will be here in twenty minutes and I need to be able to tell him we have the situation under control.
Professor Damon Ringwood: But we don’t have anything under control and we are unlikely to have anything under control. This situation is uncontrollable.
Premier Fanny Bligh: God’s teeth! Can no one give me a positive slant? You buggers are the best we have! Now, fucking well prove it! Give me a Goddamned solution! Anything will do!
General Fishpout: Well, killing the bloody things won’t work. We’ve fired all we’ve got at ‘em. Nothing.
Professor Damon Ringwood: And that was a stupid idea wasn’t it. According to that young lass Arjy Barjy, they meant no harm. We might have tried a bit of simple communication before letting the Military try their toys!
Premier Fanny Bligh: Bollocks to Arjy bleeding Barjy. She’s just a kid with too much political ambition. She doesn’t know what truth is unless she makes it up herself.
General Fishpout: And what was your alternative to military action, Ringwood? Nobody heard you come up with any ideas. I’ve lost good people to those ‘things’ that mean no harm. Six tank crews are still missing.
Professor Damon Ringwood: Yes, because they drove for half a kilometre along a giant python before they realised it wasn’t a freeway. Then they tried to blast it to smithereens while they were still sitting on it. The poor buggers are probably being digested as we speak.
General Fishpout: Damn you, Ringwood, I’ll……..
Premier Fanny Bligh: Gentlemen! This isn’t helpful! Professor Ringwood, it’s been twelve hours since the SAS brought you those samples of the green matter from the bottom of the dam excavation. What progress have you made?
Professor Damon Ringwood: Tentative findings only. It appears to be a living organism but the DNA is so complex it defies analysis. It’s almost like a combination of hundreds of different DNA strands but each intertwined with the others. There also seem to be traces of common pesticides and other compounds we can’t identify. The whole thing is radioactive so the Maralinga connection you told me about is possible. As for its effects, well, it kills most living tissue quite quickly, some tissue not so quickly and in rare cases it combines with the tissue and replicates the host organism’s cell structures. That is – it grows the host very quickly and mutates the DNA. We’ve called this effect ‘gross immunity’ on the part of the host.
We’ve checked the spread of the organism with our own sample and with aerial observation of the dam excavation site. The growth is exponential. Helped by sunlight and by the take up of other organic material we estimate Australia will be consumed in six months. When we realised this, we checked the effect of seawater as a possible containment barrier but the organism spreads across the surface of seawater faster than across land. Present calculations suggest the organism will be worldwide within four years. All life not grossly immune will be consumed and this earth will have a new, totally dominant species. The only thing to slow down and possibly damage the organism is extreme heat. I’m not talking about just any heat such as we in Australia might be able to produce, I’m talking about the temperatures found only in the sun itself or in a nuclear explosion.
You understand, Premier Bligh, this is all just ‘best guess’.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Dear God …..I can’t…….um…..So that’s your suggestion? We nuke this organism?
Professor Damon Ringwood: Premier Bligh, you asked for a ‘Goddamned solution. Anything will do.’ Well, I can think of few things more ‘Goddamned’ than pleading with the Americans to drop a nuclear bomb on us, and it certainly comes under the general heading of ‘Anything will do’.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Professor Ringwood, would you mind explaining all that to Kevin Rudd. He’ll be here soon……… I’m going to……I think I’ll ….. go home now. Thank you Professor, Thank you General….. I’ll just …. go home.
TWO HOURS LATER.
Secureline – ASIO sub transmitter. Brisbane to Washington.
Kevin Rudd: Hello….Hello.
Barrack Obama: Hello ….Hello.
Kevin Rudd: Oh – Hi, Barrack. It’s Kevin Rudd calling from Australia.
Barrack Obama: Ahh shit! Wonder what that weasel’s asshole wants. Ok, put him on.
Kevin Rudd: No, Barrack. This is he. I’m Kevin Rudd.
Barrack Obama: Yeah sure – great. Kenny, my old friend! How’s things in Austria?
Kevin Rudd: It’s Kevin and it’s Australia, old friend. We have a bit of a problem and we’re hoping you could help.
FOURTY FIVE MINUTES LATER. – THE PENTAGON.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: It’s perfect, Mr. President! We didn’t think we would ever get an opportoonity like this. We can’t let America down, here.
Barrack Obama: I don’t know, General. It all seems kinda half-assed to me.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Half-assed it aint, Mr. President. Lookit, I’ll just run it by you with a little more detail.
We came up with Operation Vulcan’s Hammer a year ago and all the work has been done. Back dated web sites are ready to go up on the net. Some of the finest minds in the world contributed to the theory and the proofs. We are ready to quickly change school and university records to make the theory look discussed and even taught for the last five years and our allies will all go along with us on this. On your say so, Mr. President, we can make the Theory of Equatorial Slip one which has been around for a good long while.
According to the theory, there is a dangerous fault line in the Earths crust which runs north of the equator across North Korea, the Afghan/Pakistan border and I-ran. This fault line can trigger massive volcanic upheavals at any time. That’s the theory we circulate. Ok, so the good old US of A has the hardware to make this dream theory come true and solve all our global hot spot problems in one strike. The new DustBuster missile can be launched from space and hit the ground at 15,000 miles an hour – too fast to be picked up by any scanning device. The missile case is made of depleted uranium with a Klordite laminate – that’s the hardest composite known to man. It will penetrate to a depth of up to 500 metres and the nuclear explosion will be localised but totally destructive inside 50 kilometres. It’s also fairly clean with minimum fall-out and will seem more like volcanic upheaval than the real deal. It all gets blamed on The Equatorial Slip theory and we’re completely out of the picture.
Barrack Obama: But the time, General. How do we do this in the time?
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: As we speak, Mr. President, a shuttle is ready to be run out and it’s already prepped. It’s been that way since we came up with this operation scenario. The payload bay is fitted with a multi-launcher and 28 missiles just waiting to be programmed with target coordinates. We can have that bird in orbit within 48 hours. We can start launching missiles 52 hours from now and it will be all over 4 hours later.
Mr. President, we held off on Vulcan’s Hammer because we were concerned it might seem too convenient that all our problem regions were ass-wiped in one hit. But now that one of our allies needs help we can add Austria to the list of targets and nobody is gonna believe we would take out one of our own. Like I said, it’s perfect. And Austria’s just south of Korea, right? It all fits.
Barrack Obama: It’s Australia, General, not Austria and Australia is more than just south of Korea. It must be more than a thousand miles south.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Ok, so the Earth throws a curve ball with the fault line. It still fits! What do you say Mr. President? If you back down on this, people are gonna start thinking maybe you are some kinda Muslin after all. What’s it to be – Sir?
Barrack Obama: We get all US and allied personnel outa the danger zone in Afghanistan?
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Of course, Mr. President, Delta Forces and British SAS will plant fifty, maybe a hundred crude bombs in north Afghan towns. We waste a few hundred, maybe a thousand civilians and we get our guys north to beef up security there. They’ll be clear well before impact.
Barrack Obama: ……………………………………….
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Mr. President? Yes or no?
FIFTY HOURS LATER – THE SPACE SHUTTLE VULCAN.
(In flight communication between the Shuttle Commander, Frank Crudavitch and General Cokschmeer speaking from Ground Control)
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Ready to begin the ..uh ..photo shoot, Ground Control. Cameras programmed and ready. All targets zeroed in except Austria. We can find no target data for Austria.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: This is General Cokschmeer at Ground Control, Nix on Austria, Commander Crudavitch! Have you programmed in coordinates for Bromelton, Australia?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: That’s an affirmative, General.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Then what the fuck is the Austria shit about? There is no fuckin’ Austria, Commander. Have you got that?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure thing, General. There’ll sure enough be no fuckin’ Austria by the time I’ve finished photographing the shit outa the fuckin’ place.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Commander, do you have a Momma?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure, General.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: And do you love your Momma, Frank?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Sure I do, General. Of course I love my Momma, It’s her birthday today.
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Well, Frank, if you screw up one more time I’m gonna visit with your Momma and shoot her birthday cake just as soon as she got it in her goddamned mouth! Do you believe me, Frank?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Y-Y-Yes Sir!
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: You better believe me, son, because I got my 45 in my hand with the safety off and I got a Lootenant Colonel lookin’ through the phone book findin’ your Momma’s address. Now! One more time! One photo in Australia, eight photos in North Korea, six photos along the Afghan border (plus a coupla sneaky ones deep in Pakistan to bring those assholes back inta line) and all the rest of the fuckin’ photos gotta be plastered all over I-ran. NO PHOTOS OF FUCKIN’ AUSTRIA! You got all that Frank?
Commander Frank Crudavitch: Yes Sir!
General Cassius B. Cokschmeer: Carry on, Commander Crudavitch, make Momma proud.
FIVE HOURS LATER – BROMELTON DAM EXCAVATION.
(The bottom of the excavation was awash with the glowing mud. Some drained into old water paths but the most of it was beginning to rise up the walls of the pit at a faster and faster rate. Iris, Koom and Seesaa waded through the slurry and took strength from its pulsing power. They had no thought of destruction and were happier now that the pain had been channelled into developing nerve paths that could cope. But somehow, the glow knew or guessed the approaching danger and began to act. Iris felt unease and she moved back toward the gaping tube that passed into the ancient cavern. More rapidly she moved and then a rage of panic made her throw her bulk into the darkness while Koom and Seesaa came after her and sealed the tube with their bodies. For some moments they radiated love and comfort and in the last moment they sent Iris their sorrow before the crushing detonation seared them into dust and then pounded the dust into stray molecules of nothing much. But it was the heat that finished them off. And without Koom and Seesaa, Iris would have ended too and she came very close to that. Iris was crushed but the glow survived in scraps and tiny wisps. It soaked into the stone and ran in tendrils through the billions of new fractures until it found a deeper place to hide – and to wait – and to grow a little bit each day. )
AFTERMATH - SIX MONTHS LATER.
(Arjy wandered around the shambles that was Jimboomba. Amazingly, one of the clock towers remained though it trembled and creaked in the breeze. Most of the single story structures were still useable and recovery work was in process and funded, for the most part, by international donations. The freak volcanic eruption had destroyed the green ooze and Arjy still suspected that the ooze itself had created the blast. Perhaps, in one last gesture of self destruction to prove it meant the world no harm, the organism had shown more pity than humans ever could. Who knows.
Sean was due out of hospital tomorrow and Bistro Waiters was already back in his office writing editorials about championship strawberry jams. This part of the world was coming back together. But the same could not be said for some places. Places like Iran and North Korea had remained deserts of misery and death while Afghanistan no longer figured in the nightly news. Some said the world was a safer place but the price seemed so much greater than the gift.
As for Arjy, she had grown half a metre in the last six months but it hardly noticed as her stick thin legs bowed under the extra weight of her bloated gut. She often thought of her fathers words to her when, as a sullen child, she longed to be taller so that she could dominate the others in her school. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he had said. But Arjy had just sniffed, and dreamed of higher things.)
THE END.
(P.S. Going on holiday next week – I won’t post for a while. RY)
9/4/09
Dastardly Doings - Part 11
By Primula Porker (Mayor of Bogan Chitty).
It is with deep regret that I continue this narrative of events I had no part in, and have no way of changing. The task was given to me by Australian Security Services and I offer this intermediary report in the spirit honoured by all right thinking Australians - the spirit of blame and the masking of unacceptable truth. At its conclusion, this report will be sealed. Any leaked account must be considered false and any person or persons responsible for the distribution of a false account in any form will be prosecuted under the Act(s) governing Australian Security and Protection of the Political Integrity of Her Majesties Government of Australia.
Any person or persons finding any such false account should not continue to read said false account beyond the point where it may reasonably be assumed recognisable as a false account of a sealed government document. The person or persons should then report the matter to the nearest police station citing Government Security Reference: 8729900421879(B). Failure to comply with these conditions will leave person or persons so failing, open to prosecution under the Act(s) previously cited and subject to, but not limited by, penalties that include fines of up to $20,000,000 and/or imprisonment for life without benefit of trial.
**************************************************
(The direct involvement of Bogan Chitty Council began with a hysterical phone call from Councillor Barjy to Mayor Porker. At a hastily convened meeting, Barjy explained the situation and was sworn to secrecy. Following that meeting Mayor Porker quickly arranged for Councillors Barjy and Bean to be arrested and taken into custody by Australian security agents. The Mayor then spoke on the telephone to the Premier of Queensland.)
Mayor Porker: We need to meet.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Why? What’s happened?
Mayor Porker: Can’t say on the phone.
Premier Fanny Bligh: This is a secure line.
Mayor Porker: Nothing is that secure. We need to meet.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Look, Porky, I can’t drop everything – even for you.
Mayor Porker: ……………………….. Pucker. Maralinga.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Where do you want to meet?
Mayor Porker: Bogan Star Chamber – one hour.
(The Bogan Star Chamber has long been known as the most secure location in Queensland – possibly Australia. It was once home to the launch facility of Australia’s only attempt to develop intercontinental ballistic weapons. Now it is used for the most secret meetings between local or state government and their paid-up real estate developers or infrastructure asset strippers. Even the Brisbane chapter of ASSIO’s social club has been known to hold its darts night there.
The meeting with Premier Fanny Bligh began a chain of events unprecedented in Australian political history. All those associated with what became known as ‘The Maralinga Affair’ disappeared. Arjy Barjy, Sean Bean, Senior Sergeant Slideback, Constable Gruff, Bistro Waiters and Dr. Plinthmember were all presumed to have been removed to high security facilities, but no one knew exactly where those facilities might be.
The owner of a hotel called The Frill Necked Lizard met with a shooting accident. He had apparently discharged his pistol into the air and by freakish chance, the bullet travelled exactly straight up and when it returned to earth it struck the upturned face of the hotelier, entering his skull right between the eyes. Police called it a hundred million to one chance.
The international comedians Billy Colony and Robbin Millions were charged with several murders but subsequently found to be criminally insane. They are undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment and appearing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (plus a Sunday afternoon matinee) at the Queensland Cultural Centre (Adult tickets - $55, Children - $255 and Pensioners can fuck off.)
Security forces are still searching For Iris Pessary who is considered unarmed but dangerous. It is recommended that Pessary be shot on sight.)
**********************************************
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION MAY BE SUMMISED FROM EVIDENCE GAINED OVER TIME.
(When Iris Pessary leaned forward in her wheelchair at the creek to lift her laundry wash bag out of the tumbling water, her chair began to roll. She snatched at the raised wheelchair console to snap it into place across the chair arms. Her fingers fumbled for the wheel lock button but it was too late. Iris screamed with panic and terror as her chair carried her into the fast running creek that snatched her and whirled her away. The water was deep, within moments it was over her head and she knew she would drown. The fear was replaced by rage and she pounded her fists on the console with such force it activated a shock sensitive switch. The console was designed to interface with Greased Batshit making her wheelchair an extension of that powerful machine. The console also housed special safety features including an airbag that now burst from its compartment, completely blocking her view of the world as well as buoying her to the surface, gasping and crying with relief.
The creek swept her along at what seemed to be a breath taking speed but it was only the violence of the water’s chaotic currents and the tumbling through boulder-strewn valleys that gave that impression. For over an hour Iris was pounded, twisted and tormented by the wild ride through an empty land. Somehow, she gradually managed to get the wheelchair near the bank where she snatched at overhanging branches in an attempt to pull herself out of the main thrust of the waters surge. At last, the pace slowed and she had left the main creek and found herself in a slow muddy tributary that wound gently through a dark tunnel of scrub. Mosquitos came at her in clouds and she desperately waved her arms to clear them from her face. This prevented her from realising the pace was picking up again and when she did become aware, it was too late. The muddy water was funnelling between high cliffs of water worn rock. The cliffs closed over and she was in a cave where the sound of water was a crashing and a splashing and a thunderous, echoing roar. Iris screamed again but she could hear nothing except the crashing torrents and then she dropped – dropped like a stone.)
**********************************************
TWO WEEKS LATER
(A hard labour federal prison camp in South East Queensland. A group is working at a cliff face, breaking stone.)
Arjy: This is bloody ridiculous. How long do they think they can keep us here?
Gruff: As long as they like. We’ll never get a hearing, this is national security stuff.
Sean: But we haven’t done anything wrong! Sod it! I’ve got a splinter.
Trust Warder Slideback: Oy, you lot! Keep digging!
Bistro Waiters: What made you special, Senior Sergeant Slideback? Why are you a Trust Warder while we‘re flogging ourselves to death?
Trust Warder Slideback: Because I’ve got contacts, Waiters. Now get on with it. That trench has to be ready in two days. They want to test the foundation assembly on Thursday and no later.
Arjy: In that case we need to blast. This is solid rock down here. I don’t see why they need foundations anyway; this bedrock isn’t going anywhere.
Trust Warder Slideback: Because when this valley floods the wall will have to hold back millions of tonnes of water. And don’t forget we need to dig thirty metres into that cliff face to anchor the end wall. I’ll send the blasting team down in half an hour so you guys get to the top of the pit and take a break.
MEANWHILE.
(The State Premier’s private conference room, State Parliament, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Present are: Premier Fanny Bligh and various aides, Douglas Beenshuffler - CEO Woodies supermarket chain and Malcolm Lockfist - CEO Cols supermarket chain. Also present are an army of accountants and several weasel-faced PR consultants.)
Premier Fanny Bligh: Well gentlemen, that is what’s on the table.
CEO Beenshuffler: Jesus! I don’t know, Fanny.
CEO Lockfist: Well, I fucking do! I’m a blunt man, Premier Bligh, and I’m telling you that nobody is going to buy a tomato like that!
Weasel 1: With respect Mr. Lockfist, are we asking the right question of this tomato? Instead of asking if people will buy this particular product, shouldn’t we be asking what people expect from their tomato?
CEO Lockfist: Look, fella, don’t tell me my business. I know what people expect from a fucking tomato. They expect something they can slice and throw into a salad. What they don’t expect is something a metre wide, weighing a hundred kilos and with skin that would make a fucking rhino bullet proof! Christ, you’d need a bobcat to get it home! No, this just ain’t gonna work and that’s that.
Chief Government Accountant: If I may, Premier Bligh? Thank you………. Mr. Lockfist, Mr. Beenshuffler - if you will kindly look at these costings I have prepared, you can see the entire structure of our proposal, including special tax benefits, home produce incentives and exclusive export licence agreements in favour of both Woodies and Cols. The State Government merely supplies the product directly to you. You will notice, gentlemen, that production levels will far exceed national requirements. This leaves an export potential open exclusively to you. You will also notice that the humble tomato is only the first in a line of equally profitable products. You will have the option to buy these products from the State Government at similar rates. I have taken the liberty of extending these figures to give projections for the next 20 years. I would also add that the State Government is prepared to underwrite these projections up to a level of 80%. In other words – if your profit margin on these products fails to meet the projections the State Government will make up the shortfall to an extent guaranteeing at least 80% of the projected bottom line. If you check this last page, gentlemen, you will see your guaranteed results year by year.
CEO Lockfist: Wow! Well, maybe we can do some business here. Maybe we can sell it in slices like melon. Yeah, that might work. We could be ‘the fresh slice people’. How about that, Douglas?
CEO Beenshuffler: It certainly looks promising, I must admit. You have bananas listed here as a future product. How big would they be?
Premier Fanny Bligh: Present estimates suggest something in the order of 250 kilos each.
CEO Lockfist: Fuck me!
Premier Fanny Bligh: But not with a banana, eh Malcolm?
CEO Beenshuffler: Premier Bligh, will your produce be exclusively vegetable?
Premier Fanny Bligh: You don’t miss much do you Douglas? Can I say at this stage that CSIRO are testing special animal feed, as we speak.
CEO Beenshuffler: So, the next time we are invited here you might have a 50 tonne cow to show us.
Premier Fanny Bligh: All things are possible.
CEO Lockfist: Jesus! Well, just make sure you don’t have me sitting under the bastard when it takes a shit.
**************************************************
A LITTLE LATER.
(Premier Fanny Bligh has a private conversation with her CSIRO advisor, Professor Damon Ringwood.)
Ringwood: I have to advise caution, Premier Bligh. This is untried and the readings do not look good.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Damon, we have no time for caution. Queensland is going under and without this project we might as well throw in our lot with Zimbabwe. Queenslanders will die, Professor Ringwood! - Die! We have nothing left to sustain the population and very little left to hock. The Fast Food Project is our lifesaver and you are worried about a 10% increase in cancer rates? Look, wasn’t it you who told me this waste material has been in the area for over thirty years but the rate of suspected radiation induced sickness is only slightly above the national average?
Ringwood: Yes, but ……
Premier Fanny Bligh: No buts, Damon. Better we lose 10% of the population to radiation sickness and cancer than 50% to starvation and revolutionary war. Rudd is backing me up on this.
Ringwood: Very well, Premier Bligh. I just wanted to make it clear that …..
Premier Fanny Bligh: Your objections are noted, Ringwood.
Ringwood: Yes, Premier Bligh, I’ll push Fast Food ahead with all speed.
TO BE CONTINUED.
It is with deep regret that I continue this narrative of events I had no part in, and have no way of changing. The task was given to me by Australian Security Services and I offer this intermediary report in the spirit honoured by all right thinking Australians - the spirit of blame and the masking of unacceptable truth. At its conclusion, this report will be sealed. Any leaked account must be considered false and any person or persons responsible for the distribution of a false account in any form will be prosecuted under the Act(s) governing Australian Security and Protection of the Political Integrity of Her Majesties Government of Australia.
Any person or persons finding any such false account should not continue to read said false account beyond the point where it may reasonably be assumed recognisable as a false account of a sealed government document. The person or persons should then report the matter to the nearest police station citing Government Security Reference: 8729900421879(B). Failure to comply with these conditions will leave person or persons so failing, open to prosecution under the Act(s) previously cited and subject to, but not limited by, penalties that include fines of up to $20,000,000 and/or imprisonment for life without benefit of trial.
**************************************************
(The direct involvement of Bogan Chitty Council began with a hysterical phone call from Councillor Barjy to Mayor Porker. At a hastily convened meeting, Barjy explained the situation and was sworn to secrecy. Following that meeting Mayor Porker quickly arranged for Councillors Barjy and Bean to be arrested and taken into custody by Australian security agents. The Mayor then spoke on the telephone to the Premier of Queensland.)
Mayor Porker: We need to meet.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Why? What’s happened?
Mayor Porker: Can’t say on the phone.
Premier Fanny Bligh: This is a secure line.
Mayor Porker: Nothing is that secure. We need to meet.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Look, Porky, I can’t drop everything – even for you.
Mayor Porker: ……………………….. Pucker. Maralinga.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Where do you want to meet?
Mayor Porker: Bogan Star Chamber – one hour.
(The Bogan Star Chamber has long been known as the most secure location in Queensland – possibly Australia. It was once home to the launch facility of Australia’s only attempt to develop intercontinental ballistic weapons. Now it is used for the most secret meetings between local or state government and their paid-up real estate developers or infrastructure asset strippers. Even the Brisbane chapter of ASSIO’s social club has been known to hold its darts night there.
The meeting with Premier Fanny Bligh began a chain of events unprecedented in Australian political history. All those associated with what became known as ‘The Maralinga Affair’ disappeared. Arjy Barjy, Sean Bean, Senior Sergeant Slideback, Constable Gruff, Bistro Waiters and Dr. Plinthmember were all presumed to have been removed to high security facilities, but no one knew exactly where those facilities might be.
The owner of a hotel called The Frill Necked Lizard met with a shooting accident. He had apparently discharged his pistol into the air and by freakish chance, the bullet travelled exactly straight up and when it returned to earth it struck the upturned face of the hotelier, entering his skull right between the eyes. Police called it a hundred million to one chance.
The international comedians Billy Colony and Robbin Millions were charged with several murders but subsequently found to be criminally insane. They are undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment and appearing Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (plus a Sunday afternoon matinee) at the Queensland Cultural Centre (Adult tickets - $55, Children - $255 and Pensioners can fuck off.)
Security forces are still searching For Iris Pessary who is considered unarmed but dangerous. It is recommended that Pessary be shot on sight.)
**********************************************
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION MAY BE SUMMISED FROM EVIDENCE GAINED OVER TIME.
(When Iris Pessary leaned forward in her wheelchair at the creek to lift her laundry wash bag out of the tumbling water, her chair began to roll. She snatched at the raised wheelchair console to snap it into place across the chair arms. Her fingers fumbled for the wheel lock button but it was too late. Iris screamed with panic and terror as her chair carried her into the fast running creek that snatched her and whirled her away. The water was deep, within moments it was over her head and she knew she would drown. The fear was replaced by rage and she pounded her fists on the console with such force it activated a shock sensitive switch. The console was designed to interface with Greased Batshit making her wheelchair an extension of that powerful machine. The console also housed special safety features including an airbag that now burst from its compartment, completely blocking her view of the world as well as buoying her to the surface, gasping and crying with relief.
The creek swept her along at what seemed to be a breath taking speed but it was only the violence of the water’s chaotic currents and the tumbling through boulder-strewn valleys that gave that impression. For over an hour Iris was pounded, twisted and tormented by the wild ride through an empty land. Somehow, she gradually managed to get the wheelchair near the bank where she snatched at overhanging branches in an attempt to pull herself out of the main thrust of the waters surge. At last, the pace slowed and she had left the main creek and found herself in a slow muddy tributary that wound gently through a dark tunnel of scrub. Mosquitos came at her in clouds and she desperately waved her arms to clear them from her face. This prevented her from realising the pace was picking up again and when she did become aware, it was too late. The muddy water was funnelling between high cliffs of water worn rock. The cliffs closed over and she was in a cave where the sound of water was a crashing and a splashing and a thunderous, echoing roar. Iris screamed again but she could hear nothing except the crashing torrents and then she dropped – dropped like a stone.)
**********************************************
TWO WEEKS LATER
(A hard labour federal prison camp in South East Queensland. A group is working at a cliff face, breaking stone.)
Arjy: This is bloody ridiculous. How long do they think they can keep us here?
Gruff: As long as they like. We’ll never get a hearing, this is national security stuff.
Sean: But we haven’t done anything wrong! Sod it! I’ve got a splinter.
Trust Warder Slideback: Oy, you lot! Keep digging!
Bistro Waiters: What made you special, Senior Sergeant Slideback? Why are you a Trust Warder while we‘re flogging ourselves to death?
Trust Warder Slideback: Because I’ve got contacts, Waiters. Now get on with it. That trench has to be ready in two days. They want to test the foundation assembly on Thursday and no later.
Arjy: In that case we need to blast. This is solid rock down here. I don’t see why they need foundations anyway; this bedrock isn’t going anywhere.
Trust Warder Slideback: Because when this valley floods the wall will have to hold back millions of tonnes of water. And don’t forget we need to dig thirty metres into that cliff face to anchor the end wall. I’ll send the blasting team down in half an hour so you guys get to the top of the pit and take a break.
MEANWHILE.
(The State Premier’s private conference room, State Parliament, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Present are: Premier Fanny Bligh and various aides, Douglas Beenshuffler - CEO Woodies supermarket chain and Malcolm Lockfist - CEO Cols supermarket chain. Also present are an army of accountants and several weasel-faced PR consultants.)
Premier Fanny Bligh: Well gentlemen, that is what’s on the table.
CEO Beenshuffler: Jesus! I don’t know, Fanny.
CEO Lockfist: Well, I fucking do! I’m a blunt man, Premier Bligh, and I’m telling you that nobody is going to buy a tomato like that!
Weasel 1: With respect Mr. Lockfist, are we asking the right question of this tomato? Instead of asking if people will buy this particular product, shouldn’t we be asking what people expect from their tomato?
CEO Lockfist: Look, fella, don’t tell me my business. I know what people expect from a fucking tomato. They expect something they can slice and throw into a salad. What they don’t expect is something a metre wide, weighing a hundred kilos and with skin that would make a fucking rhino bullet proof! Christ, you’d need a bobcat to get it home! No, this just ain’t gonna work and that’s that.
Chief Government Accountant: If I may, Premier Bligh? Thank you………. Mr. Lockfist, Mr. Beenshuffler - if you will kindly look at these costings I have prepared, you can see the entire structure of our proposal, including special tax benefits, home produce incentives and exclusive export licence agreements in favour of both Woodies and Cols. The State Government merely supplies the product directly to you. You will notice, gentlemen, that production levels will far exceed national requirements. This leaves an export potential open exclusively to you. You will also notice that the humble tomato is only the first in a line of equally profitable products. You will have the option to buy these products from the State Government at similar rates. I have taken the liberty of extending these figures to give projections for the next 20 years. I would also add that the State Government is prepared to underwrite these projections up to a level of 80%. In other words – if your profit margin on these products fails to meet the projections the State Government will make up the shortfall to an extent guaranteeing at least 80% of the projected bottom line. If you check this last page, gentlemen, you will see your guaranteed results year by year.
CEO Lockfist: Wow! Well, maybe we can do some business here. Maybe we can sell it in slices like melon. Yeah, that might work. We could be ‘the fresh slice people’. How about that, Douglas?
CEO Beenshuffler: It certainly looks promising, I must admit. You have bananas listed here as a future product. How big would they be?
Premier Fanny Bligh: Present estimates suggest something in the order of 250 kilos each.
CEO Lockfist: Fuck me!
Premier Fanny Bligh: But not with a banana, eh Malcolm?
CEO Beenshuffler: Premier Bligh, will your produce be exclusively vegetable?
Premier Fanny Bligh: You don’t miss much do you Douglas? Can I say at this stage that CSIRO are testing special animal feed, as we speak.
CEO Beenshuffler: So, the next time we are invited here you might have a 50 tonne cow to show us.
Premier Fanny Bligh: All things are possible.
CEO Lockfist: Jesus! Well, just make sure you don’t have me sitting under the bastard when it takes a shit.
**************************************************
A LITTLE LATER.
(Premier Fanny Bligh has a private conversation with her CSIRO advisor, Professor Damon Ringwood.)
Ringwood: I have to advise caution, Premier Bligh. This is untried and the readings do not look good.
Premier Fanny Bligh: Damon, we have no time for caution. Queensland is going under and without this project we might as well throw in our lot with Zimbabwe. Queenslanders will die, Professor Ringwood! - Die! We have nothing left to sustain the population and very little left to hock. The Fast Food Project is our lifesaver and you are worried about a 10% increase in cancer rates? Look, wasn’t it you who told me this waste material has been in the area for over thirty years but the rate of suspected radiation induced sickness is only slightly above the national average?
Ringwood: Yes, but ……
Premier Fanny Bligh: No buts, Damon. Better we lose 10% of the population to radiation sickness and cancer than 50% to starvation and revolutionary war. Rudd is backing me up on this.
Ringwood: Very well, Premier Bligh. I just wanted to make it clear that …..
Premier Fanny Bligh: Your objections are noted, Ringwood.
Ringwood: Yes, Premier Bligh, I’ll push Fast Food ahead with all speed.
TO BE CONTINUED.
9/2/09
Dastardly Doings - Part 10
By Bistro Waiters
PREFACE.
I, Bistro Waiters, would like to profoundly apologise for the standard of writing thus far on this blogweb. I am, of course, a professional writist and would, therefore, (with all due humility), like to attempt to redress the balance which I have found to be profoundly imbalanced (even though, it is true, the general level of communication has been profoundly lacking in balance it is also true that this imbalance has been crucial to the immediacy of the style [in that immediacy is an appropriate metaphor in this instance {always assuming that the term metaphor can be used in this regard} but even so it is vague in its premise] but style is not everything, I feel) and to that end I will apply myself.
But first – a few acknowledgements. I was born in 1982 and my dear Mother had a profound influence on that event. Was it not Franz Kafka (born July 3, 1883 – died June 3, 1924) who said, “Mothers may be lionised but not regarded”? Well – no, it wasn’t, but that does not alter the fact that Mothers are jolly important at childbirth and my Mother was no less so because of that. Overall, it may be presumed (with profundity) that ……..
Arjy: What the fuck are you doing?
Bistro Waiters: You interrupted me!
Arjy: I repeat – what the fuck are you doing?
Bistro Waiters: I am attempting to inject a little class into this shambolic mess of vaguely linked wordage. Further, I am going to explain the role of the existentialist in this world of ….
Arjy: I thought so. Senior Sergeant Slideback?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Bistro Waiters, I am arresting you on suspicion – nay, certainty – that you are writing shit! Moreover, your choice of Franz Kafka as an example of an existentialist thinker is particularly galling when Soren Kierkegaard would be by far the better choice as champion of the individual.
Bistro Waiters: I most strongly object. I made no such assertion about Kafka but I will, however, point out that the existentialist influence on Kafka cannot be denied.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: True, but the implication That Kafka was particularly important to existentialism was there in your decision to link Kafka with your self-confessed explanation of existentialism as some kind of primary role and you can’t deny it, so ……
Arjy: Jesus! Will you both shut the fuck up! This is all bullshit! Have neither of you heard of Schopenhaur? Slideback is right to label Kafka as nothing more than a camp follower and he may also be right to claim Kierkegaard as the founder of existentialism but without Schopenhaur there would have been no ground swell to disrupt the cause of Universal Truth and the denial of power to the individual.
Sean: Excuse me, all of you. Could we concentrate on why we are here?
Bistro Waiters: Duh – that’s what we’re doing!
Sean: No, I mean the story.
Arjy: Oh, yeah. The story …. Um …. Senior Sergeant Slideback?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Right! Special Constable Gruff?
Gruff: Sir?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Put the cuffs on this arsehole Bistro Waiters and take him across to the cells. Get a few of the lads to help you to give him a good kicking and make sure he understands you are acting as individuals and that the decision to rearrange his bollocks is entirely your own. And I don’t want him released unless I say so. Perhaps you would now like to carry on, Ms. Barjy.
Arjy: Thank you, Senior Sergeant.
*********************************************
DASTARDLY DOINGS – PART 10 (PART 2)
By Arjy Barjy
It is obvious to Arjy and less so to Sean that Doctor Plinthmember is a complete idiot and doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. The fact that he is a resident of Incontinental suggests the possibility of a link with Iris Pessary and this is enough to convince Arjy that the Doctor’s explanation for the strange creature left at The Jimboomba Times office is deliberate misinformation.
(Arjy and Sean leave Doctor Plinthmember’s chambers and go off in search of Iris Pessary. In the grounds of Incontinental they come upon a pathetic little man sitting disconsolately in a goldfish pond and making a chain of wild flowers that he has picked. It is Ambrose Jockscent – sans nuts.
Ambrose was brought into this tale in order to make a weak joke about bollocks and bricks. A joke that may once have gone down in blogging history as one of the most desperately contrived jokes to ever complicate a blog for no other purpose than to justify its own inclusion in that blog. But this is no longer the case because Ambrose has important information and now has a very good reason to betray Iris Pessary. It’s amazing how things work out, isn’t it?)
Arjy: Good morning, Sir.
Ambrose Jockscent: Is it?
Arjy: I wonder if you have come across Mrs. Pessary recently.
Ambrose Jockscent: Are you taking the piss? I’ll never come across anything ever again because of that fucking old crone!
Arjy: I take it you don’t have a soft spot for Iris?
Ambrose Jockscent: Soft spot? Soft – bleeding – spot? That’s about all I do have now! Has she sent you to torment me, the evil sadistic old cow? I’ll butcher the bitch when I can get out of this pond.
Arjy: Uh …. Why are you sitting in that pond?
Ambrose Jockscent: Because its got fifty bags of ice tipped in it, that’s why. Now ask me why I’m sitting in a freezing cold goldfish pond – go on! I dare you!
Arjy: Well, I ….
Ambrose Jockscent: I’ll tell you why! Because I’ve got a scrotum like the remains of a burst barrage balloon and a prick like a dead elephant’s trunk, that’s fucking why! And another thing! There were six enormous goldfish in this pond when I got in here but they’ve disappeared! Ask me where they went! Ask me where they shot off to when they panicked as the ice hit them! You think butterflies in the stomach feels like a weird sensation? You want to try six maddened goldfish rocketing around in your colon! Now that is fucking weird, I can tell you that for nothing!
Arjy: Well, that’s ….
Ambrose Jockscent: Don’t talk to me about ‘that’s’. I’ve had all I can take of ‘that’s’ and any other word you might care to mention. If you want the lousy old bint, you’ll find her down by the creek. She usually goes down there this time of day to rinse out her incontinence pads so she can re-use them. Tight fisted old bag. Still, I suppose that’s how they keep their money. Just follow this path – you’ll find her soon enough.
(They follow the path, leaving Ambrose weeping into his iced water. Arjy and Sean are not in fact looking for Iris; they are looking for her wheelchair. Yesterday, when the anonymous tip came through about Iris’s trip to The Frill Necked Lizard, Arjy had taken the precaution of bugging Iris Pessary’s wheelchair. The ‘bug’ was in the form of an mp3 player with a record function.
It had taken all Arjy’s persuasive power to convince Sean to let her have his mp3 player and to delete the dozen or so sound-track episodes of Magic Roundabout that Sean kept on the player and listened to at night when he could not sleep. A few minutes of Dougal, Florence and Brian the Snail were enough to lull Sean into dreamland no matter how stressed the day had made him and losing those episodes was almost more than he could bear. But it was necessary to have plenty of spare memory on the mp3 player for a recording that might be hours long and it was necessary to have the recording because there was no way they would be able to stay close enough to overhear everything Iris had to say during her mysterious visit to The Frill Necked Lizard.
Sean had eventually agreed to give up his precious mp3 player and had even sneaked into Incontinental to plant the device himself while Iris had been taking her morning nap. Now, any extra information is crucial to the investigation so it is time to retrieve the recording.
Just as Ambrose had told them, Irish Pessary is rinsing the piss out of her pads. She is bending forward as far as she can get in order to reach the fast-flowing creek water and she is singing a happy, washerwoman song as she toils. Sean crawls silently through the scrub and approaches Iris from behind until he is underneath the wheelchair. The mp3 player is still in place beneath the seat and Sean carefully pulls away the tape securing it. He is about to make his way back when a swell of anger with this horrible harridan, Iris Pessary, rises up within him. She was complicit in an attempt on Sean’s life and probably thought nothing of it. Iris Pessary is a woman who has spent her entire life caring only about herself and using others for whatever purpose best suits her interests. Sean does not take kindly to being used and he slowly reaches for the wheelchair brakes - but hesitates. For all her horrible ways this is still a helpless old woman and, for all his horrible traits, Sean is not a natural killer.
His anger subsides as he reasons that Iris Pessary has not much time left anyway and, poignantly, she is innocently singing of Beaudesert days long ago when soap and suds seemed to figure largely in daily life and when clear mountain streams were turned cloudy by the washing of farmers underpants. But now Iris reaches a particularly strident part of her song and, just as she bends forward with another batch of pads, a ripping fart rattles the wheelchair seat springs an inch above Sean’s face. With a brief grimace of disgust, Sean flips the brakes to off and wriggles back the way he came.
A few minutes later, as they are making their way along the pathway, Sean and Arjy hear a shout of rage that turns to terror. There is a great splash followed by a diminishing wail. The two ignore the sounds and make their way back to the Jimboomba clock towers where they can listen to the mp3 recording in peace.)
**********************************************
TRANSCRIPT OF MP3 RECORDING.
The following transcript is part of a conversation between Iris Pessary and a man subsequently identified in this recording as Terence Pucker. Pucker, a fabulously wealthy man, was believed to have died some years before but this seems to have been a ploy to enable Pucker to secretly continue with plans that have far reaching implications for Australia. This conversation took place in the grounds of The Frill Necked Lizard, a hotel near the base of Mount Tamborine, South East Queensland.
Iris Pessary: We’re getting too old, Terry, but it’s still good to be alive. Thanks for taking the time to push me back to my buggy but you could have got one of your staff to do it.
Pucker: No, old friend, besides I need to talk to you without any chance of being overheard and the best way to do that is to keep moving and stay out in the open. Oh look, your little detective friends are sneaking back to their transport. Don’t forget to keep them fairly close as you go up the mountain. Wouldn’t want them to get lost and miss their connection with the bulldozer.
Iris Pessary: So, what did you want to tell me?
Pucker: I’ve enjoyed our relationship and I know you won’t be offended when I say I never thought to meet a woman more devious, stubborn and plain nasty. We should have met years ago; we could have ruled the world together.
Iris Pessary: You’re very kind.
Pucker: Not at all. But I haven’t always been entirely honest with you, Iris. You know about the plan to destabilise and disgrace Cols and Woodies of course, because your contacts within the police made the scheme possible. A few more murders and suicides and we can go public with the accusations. Those accusations, together with the price fixing revelations will cause the stock values to dive and we will eventually control a couple of decent food retail chains.
Iris Pessary: So where have you not been honest with me?
Pucker: I suppose I haven’t been honest about the real reason we need the food retail outlets. And I wasn’t entirely honest about our little friend strapped to your vehicle.
Iris Pessary: You said the snake would be used to discredit the local paper with a story of a mutated snake that can be later revealed as a hoax. You said we needed to neutralise any possible local opposition to the way we are handling our business.
Pucker: That’s partly, but not entirely, true.
Iris Pessary: I’m listening.
Pucker: Many years ago, when I was a relatively young man, I was just starting to feel my feet in the business world. One of my companies was a haulage operation that specialised in earth moving and waste disposal. We won a federal government contract to shift a million tonnes of waste and safely dispose of it. There was really no way we could do the job but our price was right and the government of the day just wanted something to be ‘seen’ to be done. They didn’t give a shit about the details.
I had a hundred trucks and I bought a hundred more. We met immigrants off the boats and gave them a job if they could claim to have once seen a truck let alone knew how to drive one. We worked the trucks 24 hours a day with two drivers to a truck on rotating six hour shifts. The drivers worked four days on, one day standby and one day off. It was a massive operation for us and it took five years to complete. We dumped the waste where we could, right across Australia, but it was difficult to keep things quiet – except in Queensland. Most of the million tonnes ended up here and the biggest part was dumped in the Bromelton area.
Iris Pessary: So, what was the job?
Pucker: The Maralinga clean up. A million tonnes of radioactive ground zero waste was carried north to Tennant Creek and then east to Mt. Isa where we changed the signage panels on the trucks so they looked like they came from Mt. Isa. From that point there was no documented link between the trucks and Maralinga. We then took the shit south through Longreach and on to Toowoomba. From there, it was a short trip through the back-roads to Bromelton. We raised the ground level of the whole Bromelton area by two metres. We dumped the really hot stuff first and covered it with a less active layer and then we just hoped for the best. Of course, there were pay-offs but it seemed incredible that the secret didn’t get out. It was only later we found that the main reason for the silence was that most of those who came in direct contact with the waste died within five years. The last of the drivers we assigned, died a year after the final trip.
Iris Pessary: That’s quite a story but where does the mutated snake come in?
Pucker: It’s a sort of … warning. A first shot across the bows, if you will, using a limited and easily controlled source. You see, I found out something interesting about Bromelton. An acquaintance was telling me about some excavation work he was doing on his property in the Bromelton area. He had to halt work for a while and weeds grew in the hole. The weeds were forty metres high in two weeks. I did a few little checks, bought some land nearby, scraped off the surface and started a small market garden. In eight days, I could grow tomatoes that weighed ten kilos each! It was the same no matter what crop I planted, there was phenomenal growth in a very short time. It soon became obvious that anyone who started to farm certain areas of Bromelton would make billions and if they had their own outlets for the distribution and sale of the produce, they would make billions more. We could feed the whole of Australia using only a couple of hundred acres of land. Of course, I set about trying to acquire the entire area but ran up against the State Government and the proposed Bromelton Industrial Project. Bligh is being awkward so I need to shake her up.
Iris Pessary: You threatened to spill the truth about the Maralinga clean up?
Pucker: Yes but they don’t believe I would cut my own throat and, of course, it wasn’t THEM who ordered the clean up so they think they’re fire proof. But then I asked what would happen if it became known that large areas of Queensland were radioactive waste dumps. I showed them maps of where we unloaded and that shook them up; many of the places are now covered by developments and one of the major dams is surrounded by radioactive dirt. Open knowledge of all this would be a disaster for Queensland and the state government.
Iris Pessary: How do you protect yourself in all this?
Pucker: I don’t need to protect myself. According to official records, Terrance Pucker is dead. The man who won the sham Maralinga clean-up contract is long gone. Only the living will suffer and that includes Captain Bligh and her crew. When I send her a copy of The Jimboomba Times with a story about a snake mutated by radioactive dirt from Maralinga, she will cave in. Queensland is already borderline bankrupt and a scandal like this will finish it off and the implications of that for Australia will ensure Federal pressure on Bligh. The land will be mine, we can discredit the snake story before it gets widely reported, we’ll finish Cols and Woodies off and then start making a whole new fortune as ‘the fresh food people.’
Iris Pessary: But why hasn’t this radioactive waste affected the local population before?
Pucker: Have you taken a walk around Beaudesert recently and had a really good look at the residents?
Iris Pessary: Ah yes, I see what you mean.
END OF TRANSCRIPT.
*******************************************
Arjy: Bloody hell.
Sean: Strewth.
Arjy: You’re going to ask me what we do next aren’t you?
Sean: Yes.
Arjy: I was hoping you would tell me.
Sean: Shit – that is bad, Arjy.
TO BE CONTINUED.
PREFACE.
I, Bistro Waiters, would like to profoundly apologise for the standard of writing thus far on this blogweb. I am, of course, a professional writist and would, therefore, (with all due humility), like to attempt to redress the balance which I have found to be profoundly imbalanced (even though, it is true, the general level of communication has been profoundly lacking in balance it is also true that this imbalance has been crucial to the immediacy of the style [in that immediacy is an appropriate metaphor in this instance {always assuming that the term metaphor can be used in this regard} but even so it is vague in its premise] but style is not everything, I feel) and to that end I will apply myself.
But first – a few acknowledgements. I was born in 1982 and my dear Mother had a profound influence on that event. Was it not Franz Kafka (born July 3, 1883 – died June 3, 1924) who said, “Mothers may be lionised but not regarded”? Well – no, it wasn’t, but that does not alter the fact that Mothers are jolly important at childbirth and my Mother was no less so because of that. Overall, it may be presumed (with profundity) that ……..
Arjy: What the fuck are you doing?
Bistro Waiters: You interrupted me!
Arjy: I repeat – what the fuck are you doing?
Bistro Waiters: I am attempting to inject a little class into this shambolic mess of vaguely linked wordage. Further, I am going to explain the role of the existentialist in this world of ….
Arjy: I thought so. Senior Sergeant Slideback?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Bistro Waiters, I am arresting you on suspicion – nay, certainty – that you are writing shit! Moreover, your choice of Franz Kafka as an example of an existentialist thinker is particularly galling when Soren Kierkegaard would be by far the better choice as champion of the individual.
Bistro Waiters: I most strongly object. I made no such assertion about Kafka but I will, however, point out that the existentialist influence on Kafka cannot be denied.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: True, but the implication That Kafka was particularly important to existentialism was there in your decision to link Kafka with your self-confessed explanation of existentialism as some kind of primary role and you can’t deny it, so ……
Arjy: Jesus! Will you both shut the fuck up! This is all bullshit! Have neither of you heard of Schopenhaur? Slideback is right to label Kafka as nothing more than a camp follower and he may also be right to claim Kierkegaard as the founder of existentialism but without Schopenhaur there would have been no ground swell to disrupt the cause of Universal Truth and the denial of power to the individual.
Sean: Excuse me, all of you. Could we concentrate on why we are here?
Bistro Waiters: Duh – that’s what we’re doing!
Sean: No, I mean the story.
Arjy: Oh, yeah. The story …. Um …. Senior Sergeant Slideback?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Right! Special Constable Gruff?
Gruff: Sir?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Put the cuffs on this arsehole Bistro Waiters and take him across to the cells. Get a few of the lads to help you to give him a good kicking and make sure he understands you are acting as individuals and that the decision to rearrange his bollocks is entirely your own. And I don’t want him released unless I say so. Perhaps you would now like to carry on, Ms. Barjy.
Arjy: Thank you, Senior Sergeant.
*********************************************
DASTARDLY DOINGS – PART 10 (PART 2)
By Arjy Barjy
It is obvious to Arjy and less so to Sean that Doctor Plinthmember is a complete idiot and doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. The fact that he is a resident of Incontinental suggests the possibility of a link with Iris Pessary and this is enough to convince Arjy that the Doctor’s explanation for the strange creature left at The Jimboomba Times office is deliberate misinformation.
(Arjy and Sean leave Doctor Plinthmember’s chambers and go off in search of Iris Pessary. In the grounds of Incontinental they come upon a pathetic little man sitting disconsolately in a goldfish pond and making a chain of wild flowers that he has picked. It is Ambrose Jockscent – sans nuts.
Ambrose was brought into this tale in order to make a weak joke about bollocks and bricks. A joke that may once have gone down in blogging history as one of the most desperately contrived jokes to ever complicate a blog for no other purpose than to justify its own inclusion in that blog. But this is no longer the case because Ambrose has important information and now has a very good reason to betray Iris Pessary. It’s amazing how things work out, isn’t it?)
Arjy: Good morning, Sir.
Ambrose Jockscent: Is it?
Arjy: I wonder if you have come across Mrs. Pessary recently.
Ambrose Jockscent: Are you taking the piss? I’ll never come across anything ever again because of that fucking old crone!
Arjy: I take it you don’t have a soft spot for Iris?
Ambrose Jockscent: Soft spot? Soft – bleeding – spot? That’s about all I do have now! Has she sent you to torment me, the evil sadistic old cow? I’ll butcher the bitch when I can get out of this pond.
Arjy: Uh …. Why are you sitting in that pond?
Ambrose Jockscent: Because its got fifty bags of ice tipped in it, that’s why. Now ask me why I’m sitting in a freezing cold goldfish pond – go on! I dare you!
Arjy: Well, I ….
Ambrose Jockscent: I’ll tell you why! Because I’ve got a scrotum like the remains of a burst barrage balloon and a prick like a dead elephant’s trunk, that’s fucking why! And another thing! There were six enormous goldfish in this pond when I got in here but they’ve disappeared! Ask me where they went! Ask me where they shot off to when they panicked as the ice hit them! You think butterflies in the stomach feels like a weird sensation? You want to try six maddened goldfish rocketing around in your colon! Now that is fucking weird, I can tell you that for nothing!
Arjy: Well, that’s ….
Ambrose Jockscent: Don’t talk to me about ‘that’s’. I’ve had all I can take of ‘that’s’ and any other word you might care to mention. If you want the lousy old bint, you’ll find her down by the creek. She usually goes down there this time of day to rinse out her incontinence pads so she can re-use them. Tight fisted old bag. Still, I suppose that’s how they keep their money. Just follow this path – you’ll find her soon enough.
(They follow the path, leaving Ambrose weeping into his iced water. Arjy and Sean are not in fact looking for Iris; they are looking for her wheelchair. Yesterday, when the anonymous tip came through about Iris’s trip to The Frill Necked Lizard, Arjy had taken the precaution of bugging Iris Pessary’s wheelchair. The ‘bug’ was in the form of an mp3 player with a record function.
It had taken all Arjy’s persuasive power to convince Sean to let her have his mp3 player and to delete the dozen or so sound-track episodes of Magic Roundabout that Sean kept on the player and listened to at night when he could not sleep. A few minutes of Dougal, Florence and Brian the Snail were enough to lull Sean into dreamland no matter how stressed the day had made him and losing those episodes was almost more than he could bear. But it was necessary to have plenty of spare memory on the mp3 player for a recording that might be hours long and it was necessary to have the recording because there was no way they would be able to stay close enough to overhear everything Iris had to say during her mysterious visit to The Frill Necked Lizard.
Sean had eventually agreed to give up his precious mp3 player and had even sneaked into Incontinental to plant the device himself while Iris had been taking her morning nap. Now, any extra information is crucial to the investigation so it is time to retrieve the recording.
Just as Ambrose had told them, Irish Pessary is rinsing the piss out of her pads. She is bending forward as far as she can get in order to reach the fast-flowing creek water and she is singing a happy, washerwoman song as she toils. Sean crawls silently through the scrub and approaches Iris from behind until he is underneath the wheelchair. The mp3 player is still in place beneath the seat and Sean carefully pulls away the tape securing it. He is about to make his way back when a swell of anger with this horrible harridan, Iris Pessary, rises up within him. She was complicit in an attempt on Sean’s life and probably thought nothing of it. Iris Pessary is a woman who has spent her entire life caring only about herself and using others for whatever purpose best suits her interests. Sean does not take kindly to being used and he slowly reaches for the wheelchair brakes - but hesitates. For all her horrible ways this is still a helpless old woman and, for all his horrible traits, Sean is not a natural killer.
His anger subsides as he reasons that Iris Pessary has not much time left anyway and, poignantly, she is innocently singing of Beaudesert days long ago when soap and suds seemed to figure largely in daily life and when clear mountain streams were turned cloudy by the washing of farmers underpants. But now Iris reaches a particularly strident part of her song and, just as she bends forward with another batch of pads, a ripping fart rattles the wheelchair seat springs an inch above Sean’s face. With a brief grimace of disgust, Sean flips the brakes to off and wriggles back the way he came.
A few minutes later, as they are making their way along the pathway, Sean and Arjy hear a shout of rage that turns to terror. There is a great splash followed by a diminishing wail. The two ignore the sounds and make their way back to the Jimboomba clock towers where they can listen to the mp3 recording in peace.)
**********************************************
TRANSCRIPT OF MP3 RECORDING.
The following transcript is part of a conversation between Iris Pessary and a man subsequently identified in this recording as Terence Pucker. Pucker, a fabulously wealthy man, was believed to have died some years before but this seems to have been a ploy to enable Pucker to secretly continue with plans that have far reaching implications for Australia. This conversation took place in the grounds of The Frill Necked Lizard, a hotel near the base of Mount Tamborine, South East Queensland.
Iris Pessary: We’re getting too old, Terry, but it’s still good to be alive. Thanks for taking the time to push me back to my buggy but you could have got one of your staff to do it.
Pucker: No, old friend, besides I need to talk to you without any chance of being overheard and the best way to do that is to keep moving and stay out in the open. Oh look, your little detective friends are sneaking back to their transport. Don’t forget to keep them fairly close as you go up the mountain. Wouldn’t want them to get lost and miss their connection with the bulldozer.
Iris Pessary: So, what did you want to tell me?
Pucker: I’ve enjoyed our relationship and I know you won’t be offended when I say I never thought to meet a woman more devious, stubborn and plain nasty. We should have met years ago; we could have ruled the world together.
Iris Pessary: You’re very kind.
Pucker: Not at all. But I haven’t always been entirely honest with you, Iris. You know about the plan to destabilise and disgrace Cols and Woodies of course, because your contacts within the police made the scheme possible. A few more murders and suicides and we can go public with the accusations. Those accusations, together with the price fixing revelations will cause the stock values to dive and we will eventually control a couple of decent food retail chains.
Iris Pessary: So where have you not been honest with me?
Pucker: I suppose I haven’t been honest about the real reason we need the food retail outlets. And I wasn’t entirely honest about our little friend strapped to your vehicle.
Iris Pessary: You said the snake would be used to discredit the local paper with a story of a mutated snake that can be later revealed as a hoax. You said we needed to neutralise any possible local opposition to the way we are handling our business.
Pucker: That’s partly, but not entirely, true.
Iris Pessary: I’m listening.
Pucker: Many years ago, when I was a relatively young man, I was just starting to feel my feet in the business world. One of my companies was a haulage operation that specialised in earth moving and waste disposal. We won a federal government contract to shift a million tonnes of waste and safely dispose of it. There was really no way we could do the job but our price was right and the government of the day just wanted something to be ‘seen’ to be done. They didn’t give a shit about the details.
I had a hundred trucks and I bought a hundred more. We met immigrants off the boats and gave them a job if they could claim to have once seen a truck let alone knew how to drive one. We worked the trucks 24 hours a day with two drivers to a truck on rotating six hour shifts. The drivers worked four days on, one day standby and one day off. It was a massive operation for us and it took five years to complete. We dumped the waste where we could, right across Australia, but it was difficult to keep things quiet – except in Queensland. Most of the million tonnes ended up here and the biggest part was dumped in the Bromelton area.
Iris Pessary: So, what was the job?
Pucker: The Maralinga clean up. A million tonnes of radioactive ground zero waste was carried north to Tennant Creek and then east to Mt. Isa where we changed the signage panels on the trucks so they looked like they came from Mt. Isa. From that point there was no documented link between the trucks and Maralinga. We then took the shit south through Longreach and on to Toowoomba. From there, it was a short trip through the back-roads to Bromelton. We raised the ground level of the whole Bromelton area by two metres. We dumped the really hot stuff first and covered it with a less active layer and then we just hoped for the best. Of course, there were pay-offs but it seemed incredible that the secret didn’t get out. It was only later we found that the main reason for the silence was that most of those who came in direct contact with the waste died within five years. The last of the drivers we assigned, died a year after the final trip.
Iris Pessary: That’s quite a story but where does the mutated snake come in?
Pucker: It’s a sort of … warning. A first shot across the bows, if you will, using a limited and easily controlled source. You see, I found out something interesting about Bromelton. An acquaintance was telling me about some excavation work he was doing on his property in the Bromelton area. He had to halt work for a while and weeds grew in the hole. The weeds were forty metres high in two weeks. I did a few little checks, bought some land nearby, scraped off the surface and started a small market garden. In eight days, I could grow tomatoes that weighed ten kilos each! It was the same no matter what crop I planted, there was phenomenal growth in a very short time. It soon became obvious that anyone who started to farm certain areas of Bromelton would make billions and if they had their own outlets for the distribution and sale of the produce, they would make billions more. We could feed the whole of Australia using only a couple of hundred acres of land. Of course, I set about trying to acquire the entire area but ran up against the State Government and the proposed Bromelton Industrial Project. Bligh is being awkward so I need to shake her up.
Iris Pessary: You threatened to spill the truth about the Maralinga clean up?
Pucker: Yes but they don’t believe I would cut my own throat and, of course, it wasn’t THEM who ordered the clean up so they think they’re fire proof. But then I asked what would happen if it became known that large areas of Queensland were radioactive waste dumps. I showed them maps of where we unloaded and that shook them up; many of the places are now covered by developments and one of the major dams is surrounded by radioactive dirt. Open knowledge of all this would be a disaster for Queensland and the state government.
Iris Pessary: How do you protect yourself in all this?
Pucker: I don’t need to protect myself. According to official records, Terrance Pucker is dead. The man who won the sham Maralinga clean-up contract is long gone. Only the living will suffer and that includes Captain Bligh and her crew. When I send her a copy of The Jimboomba Times with a story about a snake mutated by radioactive dirt from Maralinga, she will cave in. Queensland is already borderline bankrupt and a scandal like this will finish it off and the implications of that for Australia will ensure Federal pressure on Bligh. The land will be mine, we can discredit the snake story before it gets widely reported, we’ll finish Cols and Woodies off and then start making a whole new fortune as ‘the fresh food people.’
Iris Pessary: But why hasn’t this radioactive waste affected the local population before?
Pucker: Have you taken a walk around Beaudesert recently and had a really good look at the residents?
Iris Pessary: Ah yes, I see what you mean.
END OF TRANSCRIPT.
*******************************************
Arjy: Bloody hell.
Sean: Strewth.
Arjy: You’re going to ask me what we do next aren’t you?
Sean: Yes.
Arjy: I was hoping you would tell me.
Sean: Shit – that is bad, Arjy.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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