The universe wants to play with you (21)

The darkness, tiredness, soullessness and accumulated crap of all the years of lies and deceit had lifted away from Gillespie, like an old coat thrown in the corner of the room.

 

It didn't even matter that he had hardly slept,

energy fired inside him, sparking off a host of plans, including some clever sabotage ideas; none of this was a way to make amends, as the past was done and over but wherever he might end up had to be an improvement.

As he showered, ate and dressed, he had music blasting out loud through the house, not something he'd done for years, part of the process of draining the poison out of himself. By 8.30, he spoken to both Aaron and Merlin about different things he needed them to do but mainly to slough off any possible backlash from what he'd said to them the day before.

 

The universe wants to play with you (20)

After Hawthorn left, Sanders decided it was time for sleep as he was working at 10.

He woke up at 8 and, first things first, went outside on the front deck for a smoke. Luckily, it was hidden by trees from the neighbours so no-one could see his spunk stained boxers or his rather neat Zappa t-shirt.
Sitting down, he thought he head a faint voice; he listened, couldn't hear anything but then heard something like a croaky whisper, 'Oi fuckface, are you ignoring me?'

The universe wants to play with you (19)

Hawthorn and Sander's big (half) day (in and) out.

 

The universe wants to play with you (omnibus edition)

Part one

I discovered something yesterday. Or at least I think I did. You can never be too sure these days with all the strange things that are happening around the place. And anyway, my grasp on reality has never been the same since reading Philip K Dick’s Exegesis. At least the weird dreams have stopped for now-I think. So I was on the side of the library waiting to cross the road to the café and through the window, I saw a girl, well, a woman who was the spitting image of me. I didn’t have my glasses on because vanity always gets the better of me but it was just like looking in a mirror; she was so identical. I moved my arms to see if she did the same; she didn’t. That got a man staring at me. I crossed the road, peering intently at her. As I went in, she looked towards me and it seemed like she quickly turned away. I got a coffee and went to sit down and she’d gone. As if by magic which is I suppose the correct thing for a doppelganger to do. I couldn’t see her through the window in either direction. I took the coffee and sat outside so I could have a smoke. It’s an uneasy feeling having a doppelganger unless I was just hallucinating again. I should have asked if anyone else saw the resemblance. It reminded me of years ago when I was crossing a busy road in London and stopped at the island in the middle and out of nowhere a girl popped up and asked me the directions to Abney Park cemetery which was about 20 metres away. If that wasn’t odd enough, the next Saturday in the same place, what seemed the same girl asked me again. I had to lie down after that. Weird coincidence with someone with short term memory loss or something else? A few days before the doppelganger cropped up, I was driving back into town in the dark-first time I’d left here for almost a year-noticed a car staying behind me which is unusual as I drive a lot slower since picking up two speeding tickets the same day last year. A bit paranoid lately despite being tooled up, especially being a woman at night and with all the stories hear about roaming mobs of Satanists or whatever this week’s scare is. I took a detour off the main drag, pulled over for a smoke for 5 minutes. No-one followed. When I got back to SH1, the same car was coming along as if it had just restarted. I put on a bit of speed but it kept the same distance behind the whole way home, even though I did a ticky tour. I think there were two men it. Haven’t seen them since. No idea what any of this means.

How’s Rick?

H

X

 

The universe wants to play with you (18)

Three hours in the lotus position, three hours meditating and visualising the room. Jackie 1 was totally transported in her mind. Body in Dunedin, mind stretching through to Wellington.

Each of the other girls had exact instructions on what to do. No disturbing her. It was hard enough as it was; if she lost focus, everything would unravel.

She was 99% certain she could do it, the 1% was why she shouldn't be able to do it, but  as her mother used to say, there’s more things you can do with your mind than there’s fleas on a dog.

The universe wants to play with you (part 17)

It was a wet, windy and cold day in Wellington but four storeys underground in the most secure set of rooms in New Zealand, it was the perfect ambience as Dame Margaret Rae Gunnarson sat waiting for her visitor. After yesterday's day long meeting she hadn't expected to be back wearing this particular hat so soon but she couldn't complain as she sat sipping a Gin and tonic, watching the Prime Minister make a fool out of himself on TV. It's like she had always thought, you can't leave the really important things to the lottery of an election because you end up with clowns who don't understand the way the real world works.

The Universe wants to play with you (part 16)

A coincidence (often stated as a mere coincidence) is a collection of two or more events or conditions, closely related by time, space, form, or other associations which appear unlikely to bear a relationship as either cause to effect or effects of a shared cause, within the observer's or observers' understanding of what cause can produce what effects.

3pm
Meanwhile, 11,850.82 miles away, Corrado Fenn was disturbed and while he'd been accused of this a number of times, including twice by high court judges, this time it was him who felt it.

The Universe wants to play with you (15)

Quigg sat on the deck in darkness, the sea distant but audible, clouds blotting out the stars and moon. He was tired after driving. after his visits, after thinking about the past. He was tired of lying; all day, everyday, for 33 years. He was tired of the emptiness, the futility, the lack of joy in his life. He'd long stopped listening to music, reading, watching movies, doing anything. Days were spent driving around the South Island, lying to people, encouraging others to lie and deceive and manipulate.

Retaking the universe

It's been a while since I've looked at the excellent website, Reality Studio, which is a great source of material about William Burroughs. One of the most exciting additions is a free download of Retaking the universe, edited by Davis Schneiderman and Philip Walsh which was instrumental in reinvigorating Burroughs' criticism. This is well worth downloading.

The universe wants to play with you (part 14)

Chapter Two   

2am. Time to do the next walkabout; Sanders closed the book. Wonder what Hawthorn will think of the comics and Zappa obsession.

                                                            Ow...A stabbing pain shot through his head and into his eyes.

Fuck. He held his head in his hands, feeling like he was constantly turning upside down; nauseous.

Then it stopped.