under a peeling boat, never to float again. In the distance a shadow lit a fire.
His Serendipity speaks to me in the crashing of the waves, and the sucking of the shingle. Why telephone when telepathy is possible? His Serendipity told me that his trusted cleanser Quasar had the greatest role to play. The Days of Persecution had begun, as prophesied in the 143rd Sacred Revelation. My Master told me I shall be a shepherd for the faithful during the White Nights. And after the comet ushers in the New Earth, I shall be at the right hand of His Serendipity, administering justice and wisdom in His name. I replied to His Serendipity that I was ready to die for Him. That I loved Him as a son does his father and would protect Him as a father does a son. His Serendipity, hundreds of miles away, smiled. The comet will be here by Christmas. The New Earth is not far away now. The Fellowship of Humanity will gather together on a purer island, and the survivors will call me ‘Father Quasar’. There will be no bullying. No victimising. All the selfish, petty, unbelieving unclean, they will fry in the fat of their ignorance. We will eat papayas, cashew nuts and mangos, and learn how to make traditional instruments and beautiful pottery. His Serendipity will select our mates according to our alpha quotients, and teach us advanced alpha techniques, and we will travel astrally, visiting other stars.
I knelt, and thanked my Lord for his encouragement. The moon rose over the open bay, and those same stars came on, one by one.
The baby in the woolly cap, strapped to her mother’s back, opened her eyes. They were my eyes. A disembodied voice was singing a chorus over and over again. And reflected in my eyes was her face. She knew what I was going to do. And she asked me not to. But she was fated to die anyway, Quasar, when the comet comes! You shortened her suffering in the land of the unclean! The innocents, surely, will be reborn into the Fellowship of the New Earth! Cleanse yourself, and anchor your faith, deep and fast!
The radio alarm clock glowed 1.30 a.m. Bad karaoke throbbed through the walls. I was wide awake, straitjacketed by my sweaty sheets. A headache dug its thumbs into my temples. My gut pulsed with gamma interference: I lurched to the toilet. My shit was a slurry of black crude oil. I kept thinking of the thin teacher, and what I should have said to her to put her in her place. My eyes wandered around the labyrinth on the worn lino. I took a shower, as hot as the flesh could bear.
For the first time since my initiation ceremony into the Fellowship I bought some cigarettes, from a machine in the deserted lobby. I lit one, walking back up to my room. I was going to be up for a while.
My palms have become blotchy. I clean myself eight or nine times a day, but something is wrong with my skin. I have taken to watching the television every morning. Proceedings are under way to disband the Fellowship, and make membership illegal. I have been named, and my photograph shown, ransacked from Fellowship archives. Luckily it was taken with my scalp shaved and an alpha energiser on my head, so the likeness isn’t close. I am the last of the Tokyo cleansers to evade capture. I saw my skin father and mother being chased into my skin sister’s car by a baying pack of reporters. The whole scene was lit by flashbulbs. His Serendipity has been caught and charged with conspiracy to commit genocide, and with fraud, kidnapping and possession of Category 1 nerve agents. The news showed the same clip of His Serendipity being bundled into a car by agents of the unclean and driven through a mob shouting for His blood. They showed it over and over again, to a sinister soundtrack, to tell the mindless that He is a villain, like Darth Vader, to be loathed and feared. The rest of the Cabinet have also been arrested. They are falling over themselves to denounce each other, hoping their death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment. I myself was
His Serendipity speaks to me in the crashing of the waves, and the sucking of the shingle. Why telephone when telepathy is possible? His Serendipity told me that his trusted cleanser Quasar had the greatest role to play. The Days of Persecution had begun, as prophesied in the 143rd Sacred Revelation. My Master told me I shall be a shepherd for the faithful during the White Nights. And after the comet ushers in the New Earth, I shall be at the right hand of His Serendipity, administering justice and wisdom in His name. I replied to His Serendipity that I was ready to die for Him. That I loved Him as a son does his father and would protect Him as a father does a son. His Serendipity, hundreds of miles away, smiled. The comet will be here by Christmas. The New Earth is not far away now. The Fellowship of Humanity will gather together on a purer island, and the survivors will call me ‘Father Quasar’. There will be no bullying. No victimising. All the selfish, petty, unbelieving unclean, they will fry in the fat of their ignorance. We will eat papayas, cashew nuts and mangos, and learn how to make traditional instruments and beautiful pottery. His Serendipity will select our mates according to our alpha quotients, and teach us advanced alpha techniques, and we will travel astrally, visiting other stars.
I knelt, and thanked my Lord for his encouragement. The moon rose over the open bay, and those same stars came on, one by one.
The baby in the woolly cap, strapped to her mother’s back, opened her eyes. They were my eyes. A disembodied voice was singing a chorus over and over again. And reflected in my eyes was her face. She knew what I was going to do. And she asked me not to. But she was fated to die anyway, Quasar, when the comet comes! You shortened her suffering in the land of the unclean! The innocents, surely, will be reborn into the Fellowship of the New Earth! Cleanse yourself, and anchor your faith, deep and fast!
The radio alarm clock glowed 1.30 a.m. Bad karaoke throbbed through the walls. I was wide awake, straitjacketed by my sweaty sheets. A headache dug its thumbs into my temples. My gut pulsed with gamma interference: I lurched to the toilet. My shit was a slurry of black crude oil. I kept thinking of the thin teacher, and what I should have said to her to put her in her place. My eyes wandered around the labyrinth on the worn lino. I took a shower, as hot as the flesh could bear.
For the first time since my initiation ceremony into the Fellowship I bought some cigarettes, from a machine in the deserted lobby. I lit one, walking back up to my room. I was going to be up for a while.
My palms have become blotchy. I clean myself eight or nine times a day, but something is wrong with my skin. I have taken to watching the television every morning. Proceedings are under way to disband the Fellowship, and make membership illegal. I have been named, and my photograph shown, ransacked from Fellowship archives. Luckily it was taken with my scalp shaved and an alpha energiser on my head, so the likeness isn’t close. I am the last of the Tokyo cleansers to evade capture. I saw my skin father and mother being chased into my skin sister’s car by a baying pack of reporters. The whole scene was lit by flashbulbs. His Serendipity has been caught and charged with conspiracy to commit genocide, and with fraud, kidnapping and possession of Category 1 nerve agents. The news showed the same clip of His Serendipity being bundled into a car by agents of the unclean and driven through a mob shouting for His blood. They showed it over and over again, to a sinister soundtrack, to tell the mindless that He is a villain, like Darth Vader, to be loathed and feared. The rest of the Cabinet have also been arrested. They are falling over themselves to denounce each other, hoping their death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment. I myself was
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