The Tyrant of the Rift Chapter 1

The clouds of unknowing swirled round the earth-plane like muddy vestures of decay, shielding God’s purpose from all  but the very, very wise. Two figures sat on the edge of the piazza of The Heavenly Palace and gazed down at the firmament below. Their bodies shimmered and glowed in the ethereal light and their myriad beings, garnered from many lives on Earth, coruscated across their visages.

Abraham parted the clouds and sighed. ’As God made little fishes, what on Earth is happening now?’

Adam strained his neck and nodded knowingly. ‘Aaah! It’s the dawning of a new age,’ he sighed. He knew it was all part of the cycle but still he wished for less interesting times. ‘It’s the fish-slapping dance!’

They watched as a  man as  stepped forward to the music of time and slapped a small fish into the face of the other. 'Flip, flop’ went his feet and ‘Pit-pat-pit’ went the herring in time with the music

‘An old Folk dance used by the early Christians, (hence the fish,) ’ said Adam.

The assailed dancer was now taking his turn to advance. He stepped backward and forward and then swung his huge Cod and sent the other reeling into the sea.

'The age of Pisces, symbol: fish, is changing to the age of Aquarius, symbol: water. So the man with the fish enters the water.'

‘Ah, verily! I remember now. There was all that trouble with the bull at the time of Taurus.’

‘Phwoar. Tell me about it!’

‘It always means trouble, the transition from one age to another!’

‘Like puberty, already.’

‘I suppose we’d better  have a look.’

‘I suppose we’d better.’

‘I’ll bet It’s Dionysus, again. He’s always up to something!

‘Of course he’s at it! Bound to be. It’s what he does! ’ As he spoke a whirlpool began in the clouds before them and quickly turned into a shaft in the time/space continuum (or ‘sky’ as it’s sometimes called.)

‘What’s the time?’

‘December 1963’

‘Where?

Oh, er, London.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Somewhere west of Sodom.’

‘Yeh? Due for a thunderbolt, is it?.’

'You could say that.'



The shaft of Knowing focused on an alleyway in Soho and then on a Massage Parlour and the office above it. Dionysus and Mercury are using this pokey little office to organise events. Dionysus has come over from HQ in New York because of the coming together of certain vibrations that make London ripe for an explosion. Mercury is trading as an impresario under the name of Larkin. 'Twist and shout' can be heard in the background and they are deciding whether to launch the band as the spearhead of a new thrust in vibrational manipulation of youth. In fact, the two men were discussing how to propagate an orgy. This should have been easy, given their location, but this was to be no ordinary orgy. It was to be a rather large one and would last ten years. It would leave a lot of hangovers and social mayhem in it’s wake but it would herald the Age of Aquarius.

Whether it was all necessary was a moot point.



Dionysus glared at the  hi-fi, his face screwed up. ‘It’s crap!! Gimme Sinatra, anytime!’

‘‘Frank and the Hitmen’ ? Huh?’

Dionysus gave him a sideways look. ‘It’s a family thing!’ he protested at Mercury’s sleight.

It’s ‘Beat music!’ Mercury beamed. The sound of the times.’

‘Another goddamn clichéd, meaningless catch-phrase.’

‘Yeah! But with —undertones.’

‘Undertones —undermoans—underschmones. It’s all crap.’

‘It’s The beat of the drum, the beat of the beatniks, the beat of the Beatles the beat of the third chakra.’

‘Yeah.’ Dionysus sighed. ‘So why here in Britain? Of all the straight laced, fucked-up nations you have to choose Britain. It’s a Victorian asylum! and they’ve all got broomsticks up their arses.’

‘That’s right! Can you think of any more good reasons?’ Mercury affected his smuggest smile. ‘No? Well I’ll tell you. The youth of Britain is all those things  ...and they are beginning to rebel against all that discipline  - and they’ve got money in their pockets for the first time and they have this peculiar love of black American rhythms. Probably because they don’t rub shoulders with black Americans.

The teenage revolution starts here!’ Larkin smirked with a hint of revenge for centuries of Dionysus’ boorishness.

‘There’s this kid in America who is really shoutin’ about rebellion an’ the changin’ times and there’s this whole Beat scene. It’s ready to explode. It’s gotta be America!’ Dionysus protested.

‘That’s just sexual ambivalence tryin’ to find a way out. That Dylan guy wrote an elegiac sneer about some sad-act transvestite that he obviously had a lot of energy in. The poor guy is just wrestling with his adolescent hang-ups. It’s not the stuff of revolution! Some of those beatniks don’t know if they’re men or women. And that Dylan guy only appeals to pretentious art-students and boys who want to be pretentious art-students.’

‘Are you tryin’ to tell me that these pansy Brits are better?’

‘No! But it’s all extreme and polarised in both societies. They’re ripping themselves apart with hatred and fear. Britain is mature…’

‘And decadent…..’

‘Yes!’

Dionysus nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s just that this guy has got a song in the pipeline about bein’ a social outcast that is so iconic….

‘That’s the one I mean and you ask yourself, why does your boy have so much energy in a sad screwed-up transvestite ?’

‘Hmmm!’

‘Suppressed! The guy’s suppressing it all’…..

‘Aw shit.’

‘Anyway. Britain is the heart of the world. It has to be here!’*

‘There yer go with that mystical mumbo-jumbo.’

‘You know it makes sense. And! And to the kids this new British music chimes with the vibes of the twister. You said you wanted something to suit the times. Something bigger. On a scale to suit the population explosion.’

‘OK, you’re right.’ Dionysus waggled his head. ‘We gotta think global. Not much of a God, after all, if I just have the odd revel on some lousy Greek island. I mean, have you ever tasted Retsina* for God’s sake.’ Dionysus raised his eyebrows at the long-suffering Mercury.

‘Exactly!’ Mercury hammered the point home. ’What this is about is a massive rave with all the Vibes swirling together until they create self-perpetuating miasma.’

‘And this’ll bring on a bachaeannic revel, will it?’

‘On a huge scale! It’s in the stars! Listen to the traffic and the noise of the city.

Dionysus scowled but bent his ears.

Mercury threw a switch and the noises of the city started to coalesce into a whirlpool of sound that sucked the senses into an orgiastic mesmeric state.

Dionysus pouted and nodded. ‘Huh-huh. Mmmm. It’ll do.’ He grinned at Mercury. ’Well, what a swell party this is.’

‘Or will be. And all for the rejuvenation of the Earth.’

‘Yeah, yeah…’

‘I like it! ‘Yeah, yeah.’  So positive! So affirming! Sums up the aspirations of youth: the hopes! The dreams! I’ll put it in their next song.’

‘Why them?’

‘They have the right astrological charts and they resonate with an explosion with a)  a disaffected youth with spending power for the first time b) a nation ready to explode with frustration with just about everything but mainly sex and c) a new permissiveness as they  begin to explode…’

‘Yeah? OK. OK. A new permissiveness, huh? What’s this shit I’ve been reading about this Lady Chatterley. Is she hot stuff, then?’

‘No! She is the epitome of the Victorian frustration that’s driven the nation nuts and because of her they are easing up on the law.’

‘Mmmm. OK so the time is right. Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Yep and our programme of indoctrination is the way to……’.

‘Get em by the balls!?’

‘Well,’ Mercury mused ’When you’ve got their hearts and minds, there’s no need to have ’em by the balls.’

Dionysus smiled and then cast a cynical eye over Mercury. ‘I must say, the persona you’ve chosen won’t arouse suspicion.’

‘That’s the idea.’ Larkin appraised Dionysus. ’I suppose you’re stuck with that avaricious twinkle in your eye.’ He said, savouring his smug riposte. ‘Anyway: It’s time for sexual intercourse to begin!’

‘That, I’m always ready for.’

They watched the few snowflakes fall past their window and Mercury marvelled at how London could turn snow grey, even before it had settled.

‘Where’s the kid?’

‘Safe.’

‘Oh Yeah. So how do we get him to co-operate.’

‘He won’t be able to resist co-operating. If he don’t, I tell big G about a little secret of his.’

‘Antony and Cleo? Helen of Troy?’

‘No! No! They were all in the line of duty. In the flow. No, the naughty boy went an…. Aw shucks, that’d be telling.’

‘Not Mary Magdalen?’

Dionysus smiled.

‘Thanks a lot!’

‘Aah, such bitter irony.’

‘Bollocks!’

‘Spoken like a poet.’

‘He doesn’t like the Industrial Age.’

‘Yeah? Well ain’t that why we’re holding him? He’ll come right. When he sees all those souls ready to be smitten. I told him : Just think. ‘More people are alive today than ever before. Nearly as many as ever lived  before this age. Wow!’ And what did the kid say? What did he say straight back to me? ‘And all of them with minds already fucked up’ he said back to me. So cynical! A kid of his age!’

‘Sounds like a lot of hard work. He’ll need a to carry a lot of arrows and a lot of strings for that bow of his.



’A mere twinkling of an eye in cosmic time and the year is 2005. Dionysus now owns half of Manhattan under different covering companies and spends most of his times warding off the Monopolies Commission and other rivals, by spawning new Selfs*. The Vortex has gathered intensity and hangs like swirling smog over the major cities of the world. The inhabitants carry on in grim desperation, unknowing and unseeing.

It is seen though. Eyes are watching the world as they always have and are growing concerned by the iconic miasma.

‘The Word’ is devalued again.’ Abraham said eyeing the whirlwind of industrial images polluting the ethers above London. ‘Verily they speak with forked ass.’

‘They’re losing their minds down there!’

‘Already lost ‘em!’

‘Verily Adam! They vomit ideas and, erm, concepts, like a harlot doth spew forth progeny.’

‘They’re sharp, alright! Very sharp! Too bloody sharp for their own good.’

‘Sharp as a ………….wossername.’

‘I know what you mean, Abe, it’s difficult for us to find the correct word whilst the word they want is out quicker than a serpent’s tongue.’

‘Something’ll have to be done.’

Adam raised his eyes to heaven in a gesture that indicated long-suffering. ‘Miracles take a little longer.’

‘That wasn’t blasphemy, was it?’ Abraham was more scared of association with the deed than with the fact that it was a sin.

‘Just thinking that He moves in mysterious ways and doesn’t necessarily do what we think is right.’

‘Yes. The Lord is truly ineffable.’

‘I mean,’ Abraham crept around the subject. ‘The occasional healing here, a thunderbolt at some hapless cathedral, there! It must be all part of his divine plan.’

Adam took this for a sidle around his mind. ‘Think you’d know how to do it better?’ He said carefully

‘No! No, no, no!’

‘But, I agree, why does he allow it! Think of all the b…— Love-children wreaking havoc. It’ll wreck the entire society.’ Adam said

‘They need bloody wrecking.’

‘Oh, you and your thunderbolts again.’

Abraham glanced at his grandfather. ‘Thunderbolts!? That’s Thor. Anyway I suppose it’s all part of the cycle—the Divine Plan. Industrialisation, over-population— alienation and….’ The thought hung in the air.

‘In the end they shall have everything and they shall have nothing.’ Adam filled in the blank.

Abraham was quietly impressed by this. ‘Was that one of yours?’

‘No. Elijah, probably—or maybe Ezekiel. I’m not very good at chapter and verse.’

‘Mmm. Sounds like Ezekiel. Right doom-laden bugger, he was, - er, I mean, is…. I think.’

‘Anyway, we got to do our bit. An’ I think that this bloody Abominable Vortex, or whatever it is, is sucking the essence out of our children.’

‘Verily! That is the ‘nothing’ that was mentioned.’

‘And what they’ve got is…….’

‘Things!’

‘Yeah! Things.’

‘Nothing but things.’

Adam thought of these things. ‘Mind you, you got to admire the technology.’

‘Yeah. Give credit where credit’s due.’

‘I wouldn’t mind one of them Ferraris.’

Abraham’s eyes were now glazed over. ‘Those aeroplane things! Who would have thought of it……’

‘Erhmmm…….’ Adam brought himself up sharp. ‘Abominations!’

‘Verily!’ Abraham blinked rapidly and shook his head. ‘Machinations of the Devil to hook in the unwary.

They pulled themselves together and contemplated the human condition.

‘It’s our duty to smooth things over! Are we exempt from Creation? Anyway, it wouldn’t be interfering really. I mean, after all, non-interference is interference when it comes right down to it.’

‘Try telling Him that.’ Abraham settled his jaw more firmly into his hands.

‘Still, he may want us to help out. He may be just waiting for us to act on our own initiative.’ Adam couldn’t resist talking around the subject a bit more.

‘Remember what happened to Lucifer?’ *

‘Yeah but he has given us free will.’

‘All he wanted was his own power.’

‘Yeah. Well there’s power and there’s power isn’t there.’

‘Look! Yer’ve either got free will or you haven’t!’

‘Yeah, but there are always consequences. When you’re down there, you seem to have free will, alright.’ Abraham pointed out. ‘And if you want to go down there.’ He said innocently. ‘Well, all you’ve got to do is show a bit of initiative.’

Adam looked a bit flustered. ‘Some like it down there.’ He said tentatively.

‘I don’t remember you being exactly overjoyed after you took a bite out of that apple.’

Adam didn’t hear this because a thought had already struck him. ‘Look, I think that he just say’s no when he wants us to explore for ourselves. He wants us to have freedom to Find Our Selves.’

Abraham thought about this for a bit. ‘You ain’t been reading one of them New Age mags again, have you.’

Adam looked a little guilty. ‘It’s difficult not to what with the miasma spilling into our plane all the time.’

There was a silence during which they mulled over their hatred of new ideas and also the necessity of new ideas.

‘It all adds to the Records, I suppose.’ Adam murmured.

‘The evolution of thought and Spiritual Philosophy.’ Abraham said in a resigned sort of way.

Another silence.

‘We’ll have to ask him, y’know.’

They must all be mad, down there. No-one can survive that lot without it scrambling their brains.’

Abraham nodded in agreement.

Adam glanced at Abraham. ‘Perhaps they have made their bed and now they have to lie in it.

Abraham shrugged. ‘’Spose so.’

‘So we can’t do anything about it.’

Abraham shrugged again. ‘It’s not that the doings of man aren’t full of wonder and an eternal mystery that causes awe in the minds of us ancients,’ he said carefully, ‘it’s just so vexatious watching people, usually the innocent, suffer and make such fools of themselves.’

‘The angels made the right choice said Abraham.’

Adam gave him a resigned glance and wondered how many times he’d said that.

‘I mean floating about beatifically with quiring eyes—what’s so bad about that?’

Adam shrugged. ‘The Minefields of Mind! Why bother? It’s cruel. I mean is He a sadist, already?’

Abraham cleared his throat, glanced at Adam and moved slightly away.

At about the same time as this was happening. Well, alright then, at exactly the same time, being as all events on the multi-plane happen simultaneously, Jesus was having tea with his father. They discussed matters amiably and knowledgably.

Concepts such as mercy, compassion and redemption proffered by Jesus, were met with a beatific smile and intimations of the essential freedom of will of the inhabitants of the Earth plane.

The eternal conversation reverberated through the ethers and the lesser beings were eternally affected in their thoughts, their feelings and in their very beings. One poor and rather weak-minded cherub was turned into a seraph just by being caught by a particularly strong draught of cheek-turning. Abraham swivelled as the same blast hit him, sighed and said to Adam. ‘There he goes again. ’

Adam nodded but then stopped as the idea hit him. ‘Perhaps… the Astral Plane?’ he said, thoughtfully, turning to Abraham.

Abraham nodded sagely. ‘Yes, but we’ll have to let him think that he thought of it.’

‘Of course, it wouldn’t be interfering really. I mean, after all, non-interference is interference when it comes right down to it.’

‘Try telling Him that.’ Abraham settled his jaw more firmly into his hands. ‘Y’now he doesn’t approve of the Astrals.’

‘There’s always something happening on the Astral Plane that influences the Earth plane.’ Adam murmured into his hands. ‘But it’s a lower vibration.’ he sighed wistfully.

Abraham swivelled his eyes heavenwards. ‘The Creator of the entire Universe -  and he doesn’t approve of an essential part of the Creation. What next?’ He too sighed and gazed into the middle distance.

There was a pause before Abraham said ‘We’ll have to ask him, y’know.’



‘Nothing is ever done in the name of Him that is not done by him.’ Jesus said with infinite benevolence as he gazed off into the distance.

They thought about this for a while.

‘Only…’ Adam said with a hint of pleading in his voice. ‘Only, last time I acted on my own initiative it led to all sorts of trouble.’

Abraham nodded.

‘That which is…is!’ Jesus said, ‘God does not make mistakes.

‘Yeah,’ Adam said carefully, ‘but there are always, erm, repercussions….’ He let the word fade away.

Abraham looked subdued but now he allowed his eyes to swing upwards in tentative hope.

‘Indeed there are.’ Jesus said in infinitely benign agreement.

It occurred to Adam that it was Jesus who had volunteered to clean up…. that mess. The one he didn’t like to think of.

Jesus smiled at them. ’No. My father thinks that it is not advisable but he does allow action in ….The Other Place.’ With that he disappeared.

Abraham looked at Adam.  ‘It worked. If we can believe he has the ear of  -  Him’

Adam nodded. ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing. The young are so impetuous, after all.’

Abraham nodded. ‘A mere 2000 years old and calling himself God’s son.’ He rolled his head doubtfully. ‘What does that make the rest of us.’

‘Adam nodded emphatically. ‘God’s bastards, already?’

‘Still, it’s worth a try.’

John Westhead felt at peace with the world as he sauntered up the gravel drive of his Row Green home. He often felt like this at eleven in the evening. It was his favourite time. The gravel crunched under his feet, the owl hooted from the wood, and the perfume of stock filled the air. He did count the blessing that he was lucky enough to be born here. Well, sometimes, anyway.

John’s sister Susan was leaning out of a bedroom window, enjoying the summer air, listening to the owl and watching the moon. She was also waiting for John.

A smirk played across her face as he trudged into view. ‘You can tell a man who boozes….’ she began but stopped when the front door opened and the sound of easy conversation spilled out. Susan craned her neck and saw her mother, Lydia, and her guests ease themselves slowly onto the gravel.

Westhead shot a malevolent glance at Susan, but quickly turned his attention to his mother.

‘Ah, John,’ Lydia smiled, doubtfully, eyeing his loosened tie and his creased, unbuttoned suit. ‘Pity you didn’t arrive back sooner. Oliver and Penelope have just told us that Gilly's going to have a baby.’

‘Oh, congratulations. What good news!’ John said, smiling. ‘Was it intentional?’

Lydia sighed, Oliver smiled ruefully and his wife pouted and cast her eyes to the ground. They had known John since he was a baby and had learnt to tolerate him.

Lydia said pointedly ‘Gilly and James have been married for three years. Of course it was.’

John pretended to be surprised by their reaction. ‘Oh, sorry! No offence meant.’ he said conversationally. ‘After all, not all babies are planned.’ He said glibly and glancing wickedly up added, ‘Susan wasn’t, you know.’

Lydia was normally very patient with him but this was too much, even for her. ‘Oh, don’t be so bloody rude, John.’ she said and led her friends to their waiting car.

John grimaced theatrically and decided to take coffee in his room. It seemed more diplomatic, somehow.

Lydia intercepted him in the hallway as he took his coffee from the kitchen. 'It maybe fashionable to be rude to people amongst you teenagers,'

'I'm not a teenager!' John interrupted her.

She ignored him and continued without faltering  'just as it maybe fashionable to wear an expensive Italian suit as if it's a sack '-

John ignored her speech, too. 'I'm twenty five!'

'but it stinks of immaturity, a complete lack of consideration for others and a disdain for the value of things.' She heard his protestation as she finished and immediately shouted. 'Well, bloody well grow up, then!'

Westhead lurched off up the stairs with a rigid face. He heard the creak of Susan's bed as he passed her door and knew that she had been listening. Swearing at her would have been satisfying, but he knew that he'd better lie low and, anyway, it'd be too much like bullying. He didn’t mind being a bully but it would have looked bad and he didn’t like to look undignified.

Westhead's head sank like a sockful of sand onto his pillow and he wondered if he would have another dream. They were so lucid that they were becoming slightly disturbing. He remembered them vividly and as he faded into sleep he had a feeling of that strange space again.

He gazed deeply into her eyes. There was an eternity of bliss there and he luxuriated in it, absorbing her perfect soul. Her smile became inviting and her eyes flared, questioningly. He stepped toward her and raised his arms to take her. Her lips parted into a wide welcoming smile. Kissing her hard, his tongue mingled with hers as his hand softly caressed her breast. Their legs entwined in sensuous passion and feeling her warm softness was exquisite  but there was also a feeling that reached deep inside, far beyond the realm of physical touch.

Her eyes were alight with love and he gazed deeply into them, noticing how tiny golden flecks adorned the turquoise iris, and he marvelled at their translucency and boundless colour. The iris contracted a fraction and then expanded voluptuously as her body arched under his. He gazed into her pupils, ignoring the reflected light on the surface, deep down into the shafts of luminous blackness into the pools of warm friendly tranquillity. There they mingled in unalloyed joy.

His soul withdrew slowly and he noticed the tiny blood-vessels on the white marble of her eye, and then the lashes, perfect in position and length, gracing those elastic folds of skin that shut out the day when the soul can stare no more. The eyebrow, a subtly defined comma above each eye, and hair, again, perfect in its symmetry. Then into the streaming forest of hair, it’s living roots belying the death of the fronds that moved in graceful curls around the brush of his fingers. A hair slipped down over the soft skin of her face and he thought of spun gold over ivory. This pleased him; the pureness of the precious metal against the unsullied, smooth white surface; precious metal on precious bone.

Precious metal. Precious bone. Exquisite materials. Rich and gorgeous: Ivory and gold….The irony hit him forcefully as the body beneath him raised itself stiffly  and turned to ivory as the hair  turned to gold. She lay cold and hard beneath him, a perfectly formed, but lifeless, beauty. He recoiled in horror as his mind hung suspended by a guilt and loss that he dared not feel. He stared with glassy eyes at the repulsive beauty and stepped back, his stomach churning.

‘How much, then, guv?’

His head jerked round with a surge of shame. He rolled off the opposite side and looked, with wild eyes, at the jobsworth who was gazing at him, cigarette dangling from his lower lip, with a world-weary look on his face.

John backed off, shocked and shattered, horror gripping his throat.

‘Worth a fortune in the other place but not a lot of use ‘ere. ‘nless you want her as a keepsake. Remind you of past moments of passion, like.’ He smiled comically around his cigarette and took his hat off to hold over his heart.



Westhead twitched restlessly as the dream faded and then jerked awake as the realisation of ’another-disturbing-dream’ hit him. When he found that there was a man sitting at the foot of his bed he decided that he may not have awoken after all. Anyway, he would rather it were a woman, preferably naked, and therefore said, ‘If you’re in my dream, bugger off.’ The man quietly demurred and asked ‘So, how much is she worth, then, John?’

Westhead ignored this, convinced that it was part of his dream, turned over and closed his eyes.

‘It’s no good trying to hide from yourself John!’ The man said. ‘I’m only holding up a mirror to show what’s inside of you. Those murky corners are still there whether you know it or not. Better the devil you know, John.’ The man tugged in his flowing white robe and sent a ripple of light round the room.

‘Nearly everyone’s got their price, you know. We may deny it - but it’s true. The one’s who have chosen selfish path’s have a lower price and saints have a very high price or no price at all. But most of us value things by how much they mean to us and those values are entirely selfish. For instance: How much would you give to save the life of your daughter or your wife, compared to saving the life of a woman in Africa? How much more do you value a beautiful woman than an ugly one?

But then, John, What good is an exquisite object like the woman above if she isn’t human? If she doesn’t have a soul?’

‘Three shillings and sixpence!’ John said. ‘That’s how much. Now please go away!’ He squeezed his eyes shut and tried hard to shut the dream out. But it was no good, he was now wide awake. The man obviously wasn’t a burglar and unlikely to be a ghost –so – he must be dreaming, but he knew he wasn’t. Perhaps he was mad, and thought John was the Queen or a pop star. His eyes jerked open at this thought. He may be a maniac bent on a celebrity killing.

‘I’m not a celebrity, you know.’ He said, craning his neck around to look at the man.

‘We’re all celebrities in our own Universe.’ The man said.

John thought that that was the sort of nonsense that he would come out with at ten past eleven on a Friday night. In the terrifyingly sober NOW, it wasn’t droll, witty or profound, it was plain mad. ‘I am dreaming, aren’t I?’ he finally managed to ask.

‘Isn’t Life just a dream?’

OhmyGod, he’s worse than mad he’s a monomaniacal bore. ‘What do I do to wake up.’  The direct approach seemed to be best.

‘Believe!’

John was seriously worried now. His phobia about boredom had previously driven him to extremes of behaviour and now he was trapped in a dream with the worst one ever. A man who made Jehovah’s witnesses seem  rational, reasonable and, above all, interesting..

The weak light from the window caught the hair of the man and showed a lock of curled blonde hair.  Westhead blinked his sleep-clouded eyes and peered at the shadowy figure his interest growing with his wakefulness.

‘Who the bloody hell, are you?’ he asked at last.

‘I am the one you hide from most. The one you hate most, the one you do contortions and acrobatics to get away from.’ The man said levelly.

‘Good bloody grief. You are, aren’t you? You’re boredom personified.’

‘I am, in a way.’ The man said conversationally, ‘because I am a reflection of you. You hate the mountebank of feelings that you have become and you hate the desert of conceptual contraptions that you take refuge in.’ The man moved slightly and the poverty stricken light fell across his face.

John nodded slowly and smiled wryly. The light showed those even features, the green eyes, with the same slight unevenness that caused the left eye to slant down slightly and the wart on the left side of his chin. ‘OK. Lets skip the boring bits of this dream and go straight on to the meaning.’ He said aloud.

‘Now you know that dreams never provide the meaning, they leave that for you to work out.’

John smiled. At least the ghost, or dream-man, or whoever, was talking Human, now. The evangelical bore bit was really a bit too wearying.

‘Don’t tell me! I can guess now. You’re my alter-ego* made manifest in a dream, aren’t you.’

‘Which dream?’

‘Oh bloody hell! You’re just doing that to be irritating, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Let me know when you’re ready to change.’

‘Me, ready to change?’ John asked with mock patience.

‘As you said, I’m your alter-ego.’

The light fell fully across his face and John indeed saw himself staring at himself.

‘Am I that irritating?’

‘Mmm.’ The man pursed his lips and nodded. ‘In your own way.’

John thought about it and shrugged with a nonchalance that didn’t even fool himself.

‘I’ve come because God has a task for you.’ The man had now tranformed himself to a glowing white robed form with white hair fringing a shining pate that sat like a halo above his radiant countenance.

‘He wants you to find the Citadel on the Rift and kill the Tyrant who lives there.’

John was rather disconcerted by the man’s face changing to an older more rounded visage but he still managed to show a glib façade. ‘Why, has he lost it?’ he asked.

The man smiled indulgently. ‘Well, perhaps we should start with a few riddles.’

‘Riddles! Bloody hell, we are sticking to form, aren’t we. First the Spiritual Task and then the bloody riddles! You are obviously a Zen master!’

‘Well, I’ve never been called one of those before.’

‘St. Peter!’ John pointed at him with a triumphant grin on his face. ‘You’re St. Peter!’

‘If you really thought that you’d be a little more humble.’

John weighed this up by nodding his head from side to side. ‘Anyway, how come he’s lost this Citadel? I thought he was supposed to be the infallible bloody holy creator, Lord of Heaven and Earth and Creator of the Universe. Seems to me that he’s rather absent minded! First he loses a Grail, whatever one of them is, and now he’s lost a Tyrant.’

‘Now, please don’t be facetious and shallow.’ He-who-denies-that-he-is-St.-Peter was suddenly serious. The world is in a state and you are helping to rectify it. The insatiable desire for human-kind’s own power, has addled your mind so much that you no longer know what you are. You build Ramshackle neon palaces! Castles in the air! Silicone dreams!’

‘Is that all?’

‘That and the wild rambling of your fecund imagination. Your grandiose schemes together with an opposable thumb to realise them has alienated you from your soul and has rendered you out of touch with your centre!’

‘It's what the right hands for!’ John chuckled. ‘Brilliant. I love it!’

His alter-ego smiled. ‘Yes. It was one of yours.’

‘One of mine? I don’t remember that one.’

‘Yes. You thought of it one night when you were drunk and immediately forgot it.’

‘No wonder it resonated so perfectly for me,’ said John, laughing.

‘It is the will of the almighty that his disciples learn to think for themselves.’

‘So he’s not going to interfere?’

‘I’m afraid that divine intervention is not in the cards.’

‘Oh, God consulted the Tarot did he? How about sending Jesus again. He said that he’d return again.’

‘No! There’ll be no second coming. Why give you free will and then take it away by arriving in splendour?’

‘I couldn’t put it better myself.’

‘So, you’ll have to perform the task yourself.’

John looked a little more serious. ‘Self?’ he said tilting his head and looking at his alter-ego with narrowed eyes. ‘Singular? Me? Save the world? Sorry, don’t do Super-heroing. I think that you’ve got the wrong house. What you need is a cross between Super-Man and the vicar.’

The Guide smiled and nodded.

Given the Beings insouciance, John reverted to facetious banter. ‘Aah. Now you’ve done it! I’ve reverted to cynical scepticism. I’m quite sure that God would not choose me to be a lone hero in the regeneration of the world. I am dreaming aren’t I? Come on! Out with it. And you were doing so well!’ John turned over and tried to go back to sleep.

‘God works in mysterious ways. Don’t make assumptions about his method of choice. His terms of reference are often unusual. God certainly has a path for you and you know it, so stop playing hard to get.’

‘I know no such thing!’ John sat up and frowned. ‘I mean what a cock up! First he plants a tree that any self-respecting child is bound to want to sample the fruits of and then he allows a serpent into the garden and then when the poor innocents are well and truly trapped, he sets them adrift on a planet full of disease, hunger, death and destruction, gives them minds capable of the most outrageous madness and sadism and them makes them fanatical about football teams. Now, you tell me, he’s lost this Citadel, thing.’ John was pleased with his speech but wondered where the eloquence, and some of the content, had come from. He’d never given any of it much thought before, but it just poured from him.

The man just smiled indulgently and then said. ‘The first riddle is : What is the one-handed clap?’

John merely stared at him. He knew that it was a question that Zen masters asked their acolytes in order to stretch their awareness, (or possibly, to get rid of them when they were being tiresome,) and to hear it now was just too boring.

The man broadened his smile. ‘OK. How about ‘Why was there a serpent in the Garden of Eden?’

‘Hey! I’ve just mentioned that myself!’

More smiling silence.

‘Because God put it there!’ John said truculently. ‘Can’t be any other reason!’

This time the man allowed his eyes to flick to the ceiling but he still kept the benign smile. ‘This is all to help you, you know.’

‘Is that another riddle!? Perhaps I can rephrase it and make it a question. ‘Who puts us into dire circumstances, challenges us to get out of them and then says that he is giving us a helping hand through his divine mercy?’

‘The fault, dear John, lies not in The Creation, but in that we are scared stiff of it.’ the man said with sickening prissiness and then, a little more sourly, ‘Well, it is said that doubt is the first stirring of faith, and I am sure that you are protesting too much, so….we’ll let the process take it’s course.’

With that he vanished.

Oh, shit!’ Westhead said as he sat up in bed. He was alone now and, rather surprisingly, could instantly recall his nocturnal conversation. He felt the blankets around him and surmised whether this was an indication that he was completely conscious. It was a distant, meaningless thought and even then he wondered which variety of aliveness he was experiencing. A stream of images skittered through his mind  as he focused on this question and, as he concentrated the stream became more vivid and he felt as if he wanted to press a button to choose the reality that suited him.

‘Dammit. That one will do!’ he said theatrically and stabbed the air with a flourish.  Nothing happened so he got up, had a coffee, returned to bed and then slept fitfully.



Daylight ushered grim consciousness into his head and dark thoughts crept in as he fought for his lost mindlessness. On other occasions he had failed and had been stuck with sober reality in those dire hours of early morning. This time, however, he managed to find sweet slumber once again and sustained a happy blankness until he emerged into a hung-over world at 11am.          

The kitchen was, mercifully, empty and he managed to make himself coffee and toast which he took to the dark, seldom used study, at the end of the corridor. There he callously dislodged an equally lazy cat from his favourite leather armchair, flopped into it and drooped one leg over the arm.

He was now strategically placed to await the hour that he could decently go down to the Westhead Arms for the hair of the dog.

‘J-o-o-hn’ The low drone insinuated itself into the sitting room, avoided a shaft of sunlight, caused the cat to half open it’s eyes, and got lost in the heavy curtains.

‘Jo-o-o-o-ohn.’ Again the plaintive cry went unheeded. A pig-tailed girl took another step into the room, lowered her brow and pursed her lips.

‘John!’ she whispered breathily.

This time her more forceful whisper was met by a muted retort. ‘Silence, brat!’

She frowned, closed her eyes, clenched her fists and shouted ‘JOHN!’

Westhead opened one eye, gazed balefully across the room, said ‘Bugger off, child,’ and closed it again.

The girl scowled. ‘Profanity is the sign of a dissolute mind.’ she said, as if reading it from a script.

‘Where did you get that from, you prattling waif?’ Westhead asked, idly.

‘I heard you winding Amanda up with it.’

‘My, what big ears we have. You are a precocious little brat – and, next time I’m not at rest, and you are in range, I shall be very imaginative with you. Now, go away and play with your dolls.’

‘Don’t be sexist!’ she hissed, placing her hands on her hips.

Westhead half-opened his eyes, pouted maliciously and then allowed a slow smile to adorn his face. ‘Susan, dear,’ he said, softly. ‘What was it you wanted?’

Susan eyed him warily. ‘I wanted to know how to get to the Astral Plane.’ she said, tentatively.

‘Aaah!’ Westhead rolled his eyes maniacally. ‘An arcane mystery,’ he said with a quiet smile. ‘Known only to a few initiates. Come closer, my child, and I shall whisper the secret to you.’

Susan narrowed her eyes. ‘I know you’re plotting something when you talk like that.’

‘Don’t be suspicious, Susan.’ He wheedled. ‘The pre-requisite of access to the aforesaid plane is an innocent mind.’ A slow smile spread across his face.

‘I’m not coming any closer.’

‘Oh, dear. Well, I suppose I’ll have to save it up, then.’

‘I’ll go and ask Miss Partridge.’ Susan said, gazing innocently round the room. ‘She’ll know.’

Westhead’s eyes opened fully and he turned his head slowly to fix his full gaze on the ten-year-old who stood smiling demurely at him. He was now fully awake and his tone moved sharply from the languid to the severely measured. ‘You have tried my patience too much, you sawn-off poltroon. You shall be punished!’

‘I thought that would do it.’ She grinned triumphantly.

‘Nothing to do with it, brat. You have aroused me and I shall be avenged.’

‘I’ll go straight to…..’ She suddenly stopped speaking, backed toward the door and then shrieked as John catapulted out of his chair and shot across the room. The rug on the hallway floor skidded under her feet but her momentum enabled her to stay upright as she ran up the passageway.

‘Aieeek!’

John caught her at the foot of the stairs and dug his fingers into her ribs.

‘Eeee-aah-aieeeeee-aaagh!’ She screamed as John rubbed his fingers up and down. ‘That’s child abuse, you pervertttaargh!’

‘It’s pest control! – And, anyway, I have the upper hand and that’s ten parts of the law!’

‘Aieeeeeee – Bugger!’ She shrieked but lapsed into embarrassed giggles as the door opened and a tall, handsome woman looked out with an indulgent smile on her face. ‘Please try to scream more quietly, Susan,’ Lydia chided mildly, ‘and don’t use that word. We may have guests in the house.’

‘John taught me it.’ Susan said as John relaxed his grip and allowed her to wriggle away from him.

‘If I did then it’s the only thing that I’ve told you that you’ve ever taken notice of.’

‘Please stop him attacking me, Mummy.’ Susan said, looking distressed.

'We were merely having a rational discussion, mother.' John said primly.

Lydia smirked condescendingly.

'I logically deduced that she's an obnoxious little brat and took measures to remedy the situation.'

'He attacked me for no reason!' Susan said morosely.

'Look! Let's settle this like sensible human beings, little sister.' John slimed. 'Am I not bigger and stronger than you?'

Susan opened her mouth wide in exasperation.

'Well, then. There you are. The way of the world prevails!' John grinned triumphantly.

'Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!'  Susan screamed.

Lydia winced whilst John's grin broadened. 'You can't go against centuries of history, brat. It's no good trying to fight it.'

'I'll sue you for child abuse.' Susan sneered up at him.

Lydia laughed. ‘You’re right, John, she is a precocious brat.’

‘Mother! We girls must stick together!’

‘Where do you get it from, Susan?’ said her mother, smiling. ‘And who did those pig-tails for you?’ she asked, curiously.

‘They’re Mega-Dreads!’ Susan said with emphatic disdain.

John reached out and gently lifted one with a smirk on his face. ‘Ye-e-e-s..’ He eyed his sister condescendingly. ‘How amusingly retro…..’

‘They’re what?’ Lydia asked with long-suffering innocence.

‘Mega-Dreads.’ Said Susan impatiently. ‘Like Dreadlocks….but bigger. Amanda said that they are the coming fashion.’

‘Aaah.’ John said, as he suddenly understood.

His mother looked at him with a slight frown but then understanding dawned and she quickly suppressed a smile. ‘Now, then, Susan.’ Lydia decided to return to the original subject. ‘Please pay attention to why you do things. Remember what I told you about knowing yourself.’ She raised her eyebrows and Susan smiled up at her in memory of that close, intimate time with her mother. ‘So, why do you want John to torment you?’

Susan’s lips curled up into a sneer and her eyebrows rushed down to meet them. ‘Oh Mother!….’ her voice trailed away. ‘Double Disgust!’ She rolled her eyes and then said, with sneering lips, ‘I only asked him where the Astral Plane* was.’

‘Well, read ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.’ Lydia said lightly.

‘I’ve read it!’ said Susan, flatly, giving her mother a sidelong glance. ‘Anyway, that’s Narnia, not…...

‘How do you know that they aren’t the same?’ John said maliciously, flicking his eyes down to Susan and back up to their mother. ‘Spare the rod…….’

‘Yes. I dare say that that’s where we went wrong with you,’ Lydia smiled at John.

‘Well, you don’t want to repeat the mistake, do you, Mama.’ John said brightly and again eyed Susan maliciously.

Susan looked up at him from beneath a cocked eyebrow. ‘In your dreams, drongo!’ She looked up at Lydia in mute appeal, but it was too late, her mother turned on her heels with a grin and disappeared into the kitchen.