Sitting in the Byronian waiting for my coffee, trying to read the newspaper, when four ug-boots with claws arrived near my feet and I looked up to see two koala suits holding red buckets.
It was a nuisance! I don’t mind giving to good causes and we all know how much we need forests, but I had to interrupt my reading of the paper and stretch my right leg out to take change from my pocket. God they looked hot in those furry gray suits. There was a muffled “Thanks” as my coins fell into the bucket and they shuffled off.
An old hippie-looking guy was sitting at the next table. He’d been there when I came in. No newspaper, no coffee, just sitting there. I couldn’t hear the muffled request of the koalas as they approached him, except in my memory, but I did hear his answer, because his voice was deep and clear.
“Why do you want the money?” he asked them.
“Mumble-mumble…world.” Is all I could pick up.
“That sounds like a worthy cause young fellas”, he responded, though I was sure that one of them was a girl, “and I applaud your efforts, cause I saved the world once myself.” He said with his jaw pushed out.
The expressions on the koala’s faces didn’t change, but the tall one tilted her bucket forward slightly with her knee.
“When? You might ask,” he said without anyone asking him, “Well it was in the seventies, when the world first needed saving and people like us first needed something to save.”
“How did you save it?” the shorter koala asked, sounding slightly circumspect.
“You may not believe it”, he said, scratching at his left ear lobe, “and I would understand that, because it does seem a bit hard to believe now that look back at it. But it was deadly serious then, and two of the nicest, most dedicated people I’ve ever known died for the cause. And I almost wonder whether I had let them down.” He said, looking out at the street.
“I’d first seen Steve when I was a national service recruit at Kapooka Army Camp.” He said, turning back to the koalas, resting on one elbow, “He was only there for a week while they retired him, but he made a big impression on me because he seemed to me the first person above the rank of private that was still a human being, rather than the rest of them, like the pouncy little Bombardiers, all with their teenage mustaches, round bottoms, and sadistic games.
Anyway, to make a long story short, he impressed me, and I didn’t forget him, so six months after we had been discharged when we met again in a public library I initiated a conversation, and though he seemed intent on forgetting about the army we had a good discussion which ended in him inviting me to his place for dinner. I think the books I as carrying may have interested him.
So, I met his wife Denise, ate a delicious meal, and began visiting regularly until one night, having assured themselves that I could be trusted, Steve asked me if I would like to be involved in a project to prevent the destruction of the world.
What could I say?
In brief, Steve assured me that his intelligence connections, which he’d maintained since his time as SAS commando in Vietnam, had provided hard evidence that Ronald Reagan, with Henry Kissinger in the background, were intending to use their nuclear submarines to make a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union. The missiles were to be launched from the Bay of Bengal so
Our job was to knock out the tower and command post at the
The koala’s looked at each other.
“That’s where I came in, being young and healthy and fit, like the others, I was to take an active part in their plan to grow a big patch of grass up in North Queensland, and later I discovered, swap the pot for a family fishing boat with the missiles hidden in special launch tubes inside the fiberglass hull. The intention was then to trail the boat across to
My role was to share in the hefting and watching and watering. I was happy to help in such a worthy cause and walk away with a reward for my time and effort, but as it turned out I was in it to the last. Whenever that exactly was?” he said in a different tone of voice, looking up at the sky above the two koalas…
“Did you do it? Did you grow the crop?” the short one asked.
The old hippie pursed his lips and nodded slowly a couple of times before continuing. “Yeah, we did. At first everything went well. We drove north in a Toyota troop carrier towing a specially modified boat trailer packed full of useful things, mostly tools, tarps and cooking gear, and toured around using army maps to get as close as we could to suitable locations. We knew there were no regular flight paths in the area and water was not going to be a problem, except when there was too much of it.
The place we chose was right at the end of a disused track overgrown with weeds, just back from the beach, beside a small stream which flowed out of the rainforest-covered mountains. Using the chain-saw we cut poles and erected a strong corro shelter for cooking and eating. We also had three tents.
Once of the Toyota had been emptied of equipment Steve did a trip back to the nearest big town to buy dolomite and fertilizer before we hid the Toyota and trailer not far from the camp, not far from the track, with an old brown tarp and branches thrown all over the top to camouflage it. It held the supplies of dried and canned food.
The place we chose for the patch, after almost a week of scouting, was about two kilometers from the coast on a slight rise at the bottom of a north-east slope. It was perfect. A giant brush box had fallen a year or so before and left a big open space with just palms and trash to clear out. The soil was rich and deep and once the roots were all out, easily cultivated. I’d grown put before but it as more the size of the patch that was daunting. We were preparing for a thousand plants.
We raised the seedlings in small hot-houses and while the plants were still establishing themselves we did numerous trips back and forth, being very careful not to tread a path by using many different routes to the same place; never breaking anything, always minful.
After a month the seedlings were in, the watering system was set-up, and life was getting pretty easy. We still had plenty of supplies, and Steve and I gave them a boost with our fishing skills but after two more months of good rain and sunshine things started going wrong all at once even though the plants were thick, waist high, and flourishing.
We’d begun to run short of supplies and we had very little money left so it became necessary for Steve to take three kilos of tips down to
The plants had been looking extremely good until the caterpillars attacked them, but we were soon on site and picking all those caterpillars off the plants so they were soon bouncing back better than ever.
The shimmering heat, the sweating forest, the silence of the birds. Swinging in a hammock deep in the tropical jungle with several hundred female plants growing fat before my eyes was a dope smoker’s dream. I was also reading some serious books and the things I read led to many discussions with Steve and Denise about life and society, which culminated in the three of us forming a pact; that we would not let any sentimentality or social conditioning distract or dissuade us from carrying out what we were meant to achieve. The mission was more important than any individual consideration!
That felt good to put in place but I began to think, only theoretically, about how much socialization we had carried with us to the camp? We came from the same system and each of us had been conditioned since birth to behave according to the tenets of that society, so how easy was it to cast off? And what was innate, what was constructed, and what was needed to be cast off? I’d been brought up in a hero system and that’s what had formed me. Everywhere there is hierarchy, even amongst other animals, and in our society of three Steve was number one. He was the boss and made the rules, and that was fine by me because Steve had the experience and training. He was a natural leader, but had we ever discussed that? Was my compliance simply taken for granted? Did Steve assume, even correctly, that he was superior to me? I was a helper, and subordinate, but that was okay by me. The last thing we needed was some kind of self-destructive power struggle between the males, and I realized that was one of the reasons I’d been chosen.
Still, it was interesting to consider those contradictions when I heard Steve talking about the contradictions in the larger world, so, almost as a reckless joke I confronted him on his interpretation of sharing.
”Of course we share the work, and the food. That goes without saying, but I certainly feel left out when it comes to knowing that you two share affection, while I remain alone.”
“But you do share our affection,” said Denise, “You know that. We are three of us together in this venture, and we must care for each other so that we are ensured of being successful.” She said, looking at me with the serious and compassionate face which conveyed her depth of thinking, yet her maintenance of faith in humanity.
“Well, perhaps the term affection is not quite accurate, Denise. Don’t think me disrespectful, but I was actually refering to sex, which is the same but different. I know you guys are making love in your tent while I’m alone and lonely in mine. Sometimes I can hear you Denise, and I feel like I am missing out on something. Which I am. So just for the moment, let’s speak hypothetically, about sharing.”
“Steve raised the subject, seemingly at ease about what he considered to be sharing, but how do you feel when I suggest that if we are truly in this thing together and we will be here in the jungle at least another month, it is reasonable of me don’t you think, to question whether the sharing of sexual pleasure with a fellow member of the team is a fair thing.
“Well, I’ve never been propositioned like that before!” said Denise with funny smirk on her face, which varied as she looked from Steve to me and back again.
I was waiting for Steve’s response. Denise was his wife, and I knew for my self that I would not be likely to “share” her if she were my wife, so I sat there watching him while he considered his response.
“Pete, you are young and have a lot to learn about love and marriage. I’m sure you know enough about sex, but just throwing in this bit about sharing as though it should include the intimacies Denise and I enjoy is to ignore the special significant of marriage.”
“Maybe,” I answered, “but the pivotal word you use was ‘enjoy’. You two ‘enjoy’ the sharing of your bodies, and ignoring the sacred aspects of marriage for the moment, I don’t. Simple as that. Man does not live by bread alone”, they say, and after three months he gets mighty hungry for cake.
“No offense Pete but I think you are going a bit too far to suggest that you should be able to sleep with Denise, as being inclusive of your concept of sharing.”
“What about me?” said Denise, seeming a bit chuffed that we were talking about her and not asking her what she thought of the whole idea.
“Pete has got a point there. Keeping on a theoretical level. I’ve thought about him lying alone while we cuddle up together, and I can understand why he has raised this issue. You are perfectly right what you say about out intimacies as man and wife being a special thing, quite different to carrying bags of fertilizer or deciding whose turn it is to cook, but we are all in this thing together and it is imperative that we all keep heart and soul together. I don’t have answers to the question at this stage, it is the kind of think which requires some special thought, but I do think it is legitimate for Peter to have raised the issue, and now we have an opportunity to solve the conundrum to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Steve looked at both of us. He was lost for words, but I felt unexpected weight lifted from my shoulders despite the fact that I was suggesting that Steve allow me conjugal rights to the beautiful wife he adored, and was always so protective of.
Then he spoke, slowly, “My first reaction, Peter, was to think that you had to be joking, but, as Denise would be most likely to say, I don’t own her. Being married creates a certain set of guidelines, but as we have been stressing of late, it may be a social convention, which we have brought with us into this jungle. The birds aren’t married yet many types are monogamous, the pigs aren’t married and they root each other in rows whenever they have a chance, but Denise and I are married. It is a naturally occurring phenomena as well as a social convention, which I happen to believe in, but I don’t wish to be a hypocrite. I think the best thing I can do is just let things take there own course. After all it is ultimately up to Denise. It is her body we are talking about sharing around, not mine. If you really think you should have access to Denise’s body than that is something between you and her, so let’s not talk about it anymore.”
Laying in my bunk that night I thought about the conversation we’d had concerning ‘communal’ sex and I was surprised with myself that I’d had the nerve to even suggest that I should be able to sleep with Denise. She certainly was attractive, but, the idea of having sex with her was something I hadn’t really entertained. She was Steve’s wife after all. But how far could or should we take the ideas Steve and other utopian socialists put forth. Was I just testing him or would I sleep with her if she let me? “ Of course I would! ” The pleasure principle thwarts all social engineers!
By the time the plants had matured and the heads were glowing with that fluorescence worth waiting for, we’d been living on pigeons, pigs, snakes, goanna and jungle ‘fruits’ for a month. The supplies had trickled out to where all we had left was milk powder, vegemite, and rolled oats but walking amongst the two to three meter plants as they swayed in the breeze and filled the air with their honey aromas was like a dream.
Steve announced that the next day we would begin harvesting so we strung up clothes-lines across one end of the patch and began pulling the plants, trimming the bases and hanging them up in the air to dry. The final tally was 412 plants, a big patch, and we had our work cut out for us, but it was joyful work because it had taken a lot of time and effort to get to that point, and it also meant that within a certain amount of time we would be out of the damp forest. My clothes were beginning to go moldy as I wore them, and the last thing I wanted was to sit out another week of rain. Rain was the worst.
The jack from the
The following full moon was the date for the rendezvous with our ship from New Caledonia and the nights were already getting lighter so we began carrying them to the estuary as our stockpile of 5-kilo parcels of compressed ganja wrapped in plastic grew where we would load onto the runabout when it came, and transfer to the ship as payment for the missiles.
Those days and nights were long. It was only a couple of k’s to the coast but there wasn’t a trail and we wanted to keep it that way, so like the guerrillas we were, each trip took a slightly different route.
At last we’d transferred all of the pot to the inlet where it was hidden under branches. The timing was perfect and on the full moon Steve made contact with the ship that was still a few nautical miles up the coast steaming down the shipping lane. He had a transmitter to to guide the speedboat in, and we had torches.
The dream-like state of things was finally brought into monochromatic reality by the appearance of the faces of the two guys above the windscreen of our new boat. We waded out to them, just a few meters from shore where the keel had furrowed the sand. They spoke directly yet sparingly with Steve. It was as though they knew him already. Within a dozen minutes later Steve had disappeared with them into the soft darkness with no navigation lights visible. After a long forty minutes, I was beginning to wonder whether we would ever see him again, Steve returned alone, to the cove in an apparently empty boat. “Were the missiles really in there?” I thought to myself.
The next thing was to recover the
As we were going up over a small rise, I was in front ahead of Denise, with Steve bringing up the rear, a shot rang out and the bullet flew past my ear. I hit the ground and swung my head around to see Denise diving into the undergrowth and Steve scrambling over the top, right behind me as he pulled out his nine millimeter, returning fire in a haphazard way.
I think it had surprised them that we were armed because two guys were running off back down the track that they had obviously come on. I was relieved, a bit, but then totally dismayed when Steve drew it to our attention that had been hit. They’d only fired three shots but one had gone through the inside of Steve’s thigh.
“Action! Look at the blood!”
It seemed incredible. Steve’s trousers were torn open by the bullet and already his entire right leg was saturated with blood.
“It’s severed my femoral artery! Probably aiming for my head, lucky bastard! Anyway, we’ve got a do it. If they identify me they’ll know there is more going on here than just growing grass. It means getting out a here, fast! Come-on! Help me to the truck. We’ve got a nuclear holocaust to prevent!”
“It’ll take us hours to get the truck out of there.” whispered Denise, as we carried Steve toward the place where the
“You right! But we aren’t driving. I’m staying in the vehicle. It’s the best place to hide me. Be brave Neesi. I’m as good as dead, another five minutes I’d reckon, so you must get the boat out of here. We didn’t come this far to fail!”
I was bewildered. Shocked by the whole turn of events, and amazed how cool and efficient Denise behaved under the circumstance. She listened to every word of his instructions as she helped me clear away the branches and open the back doors of the
I was in awe of her. For me it was also a major tragedy. I was losing a great friend, almost a brother, but on top of that was the panic of trying to escape from the people who had killed him and the weird feeling of betrayal, or disloyalty that came from abandoning a comrade in need of medical attention. But that was the type of sentimentally we had sworn to expunge from our stock of emotions and that was what Denise was obviously doing, as her way to be loyal to Steve. Seeing the project through to the end was what he’d always emphasized and he’d have been appalled if she’d broken down and thereby jeopardized the entire venture. From there on in it was Denise and me! So let’s go!
We couldn’t guarantee avoiding the killers by heading back along the coast to the boat so we instinctively made our way along one of the ill-defined paths that took us back to the patch. Once we were at a safe distance we quickly discussed the new situation. It was simple, according to Denise, we had to get to the boat and get out of there, post-haste.
We headed cross-country, indirectly toward the boat. Denise was leading, although I also knew the way. She had chosen a route we had never covered before, perhaps a good idea knowing that there were people looking for us, but, it meant that we were short in time and when I realized she had lost her bearings, only to be expected considering the strain she was under, there was nothing we could do but push on in a new direction until night fell.
It was dangerous to travel in the dark so Denise lay quietly on a layer of fronds she had cut while I built a tiny fire from newly fallen twigs. Denise had taken the role as leader, and that seemed a natural progression, but then I was the only male and it was up to me to protect and provide for her. Into the coals of the struggling little fire I placed some large round seeds that I had picked up while we’d been walking through the forest. Steve had shown to me many kinds and we had eaten different types of them several times. The aborigines had ground these into flour Steve had said. After half an hour of roasting I cracked the shells, and they were delicious. We needed our energy and stamina if we were going to get to the boat first thing in the morning.
After eating we settled down to sleep. I was stressed, but Denise was traumatized. She tried to smile but I could see the fear on her face. “Perhaps she’ll feel better in the morning” I thought to myself as we lay down to sleep.
When I awoke some time later all I knew was how sick I felt. Denise was already bent double, with her hand on the trunk of a tree, and I could smell the vomit. I must have picked up the wrong seeds or something, whatever, we were both very ill. I tried to comfort Denise but she was distracted by something in the dark and then extremely frightened of me, and when my hallucinations begin I could see why. I was on my knees, vomiting, almost overwhelmed by the swirling distortions when I realized that Denise was stumbling away in the dark. I made the effort to catch up to her but frightened her even more by doing so. She suddenly ran into the forest, I tried to follow her, I could hear her struggling with vines and branches but before long I had lost her, and I was in a completely dark world of strange figures and creatures. Some of them terrifying, and perhaps reflected our distraught states, but it all seemed so real it was virtually impossible not to react to the ghouls and demons which rushed out of the dark.
Some trees had rear-vision mirrors attached to them and coke bottle hung off branches but there were also some strange characters. The narrow tree I was leaning against had an odd texture and when I looked up I saw that there were a pair of knees a couple of meters further up and one big tree had a bespectacled, egg-headed fellow looking out from a little shuttered window. Huge shark’s heads littered the ground and somnambulistic women dressed in yellow gowns carried silver candelabra.
I kept walking, feeling lost, across the side of the hill to a place where I could see beyond the lowland forest to the ocean. The moon was high by then and it lit up the broad horizon. I looked over my shoulder, the aborigines ducked behind the rocks they were using for cover. They had been with me, looking after me I felt, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t really keen on trusting anything. Suddenly I decided!
If I could reach the ocean then I would be able to swim across it to somewhere else that was normal. I must have forgotten about the boat and as soon as I had a destination in mind I began to move much faster and kept aiming downhill as much as possible. There was still a lot happening that wasn’t really happening and the overall arrangement of things was rare as I stumbled down a smooth re-entry and straight into the branches of a stinging tree about three meters tall, which to me had been invisible. I burst into flames and fell onto the ground, spitting and hissing, pouring off foul-smelling black smoke with sheets of pain flaying out into space, blinding the very eyes of those who stood there watching. Some time passed for the piece of ash on the forest floor. If it had rained those ashes would have dissolved. It didn’t rain but there was movement in the moonlight. Quite a lot of it.
A dozen shining naked women moved out from the bush and formed a circle around my body lying proud on the ground. I was still stunned, and exhausted, but then I also realized I couldn’t move. The brown faces looked down at me without a hint of feeling on any one of them and then they lifted me from the ground and carried me at shoulder height to an open space in front of a huge shattered trunk of a tree which had been struck by lightning several meters above the ground. The women placed me on the ground and began dancing around as one of them rubbed some kind of unguent onto my flaccid penis which almost immediately grew to erection. They then took turns to ride me until the one who had rubbed the creamy liquid on knelt down and began sucking me until I ejaculated and filled her mouth with sperm. The other women had already lay on the ground with their legs open and the one with my sperm in her mouth proceeded to blow through the hollow thigh bone of a cassowary in to the vagina of each one.
Waking up in the first light of dawn, naked and hung-over, with the mixed memories of Denise and the hallucinations, was confusing, but I struck off downhill, and soon found a pig track. Getting to the beach wasn’t too hard, but finding the boat was quite difficult because we had hidden it under the mangroves in the dark, and finally seeing it was like a dream come true. It was a very nice boat, probably 25 grand’s worth, although it had cost us a lot more because of its special cargo and the 50 grand cash included.
I sat around in the boat under the mangroves waiting for Denise. She had gone through the same weird hallucinations as I had, but I had recovered most of my senses and so would she. “She should be here soon.” I reassured myself.
There was no consideration of me going on alone. I was the non-hero, and I was only waiting for Denise to take command. Steve getting shot was the unexpected, when everything seemed to be falling into place, but Denise knew what to do.
I’d always been the extra wheel. The essential extra.
I thought about the fishing Steve and I had done. We’d put food in the bowl and had a good time simultaneously. What more could you ask for?
As I was thinking about that I noticed a small shovelnose shark feeding in the shallow water about ten meters away and decided to try to have it for dinner.
Stalking the fish as it gradually moved toward the mouth of the estuary was a foolish thing to be doing but I was bored and too easily caught up in childish games. There was plenty of dried food in the boat, but before I knew it I was out on the beach still trying to spear the little shark when the unmistakable sound of a chopper began reverberating from the south. It was impossible to escape into the cover of the bushes along the edge of the beach because of the line of footprints I’d leave getting there, and it was too far around the edge of the water to get back into the mouth of the estuary so the only option was to very quickly slide under the edge of a log which lay half out of the water where it had been washed from the estuary the previous wet season.
I hid myself as best I could and held my breath as I heard the helicopter breach the headland and fly over. I was out of breath so that my head felt like it would burst, but finally the tone of the rotors changed and I knew it was out of sight. It was a lesson learnt as I ran back around the edge of the water and regained the cover of the mangroves where I stood, dripping and panting.
That was it! I had a responsibility to get out of there, not to wait for Denise. The pact we had made was no joke! There was a mission to fulfil. Sure Denise would die there, unless she was found by someone. She might have fallen over a cliff as I might have, though I hadn’t, but it was my duty to see the venture through to the end and not let sentimentality jeopardize the mission. Steve had been the main man, and Denise the main women, but from there on in it would be up to me. A reality check would have been appreciated, but I was alone, and shaken, so I looked my responsibility straight in the eye, afraid.
I knew that the tide would be high enough after nine so after examining the charts and just on sunset I pushed the boat out from under the thick mangrove branches, started the motors, carefully cleared the bar, and planed all night heading south until I reached a cove just before morning. There were thick clouds on the horizon, and already some rain had fallen. I was almost out of fuel but I had also almost reached a major town where I could buy a second hand
According to the map it was just over three kilometers through the bush to the highway, but it took me almost two hours because of the rough terrain. I hitchhiked into town, it was Saturday morning, so I bought a newspaper and a raincoat and started looking in the classifieds.
Buying a
I trailed Singing Dolphin out of town to a launching ramp to the north, parked and slept until a foolish moon woke me late. It was already twelve and I’d planned to be making the changeover by then. It was important to hurry, but not get bogged. Fortunately Dolphin slipped into the water easily and under the moon I motored briskly to the cove, and transferred some fuel.
I tied the dolphin on behind with its painter. It was too close but I had no choice and it wasn’t far to go. I’d checked the chart and seen that the water dropped off to over eighty fathoms within a few hundred meters of the beach.
It seemed like a crime to sink the Singing Dolphin, I wanted to leave it somewhere for the fishing family, but, I had to stay serious. It isn’t about some kids pulling in pongos. It was dangerous. It was important. I, alone, was saving the world!
The bungs had been pulled-out since I’d tied her on behind but she would take forever to sink like that so I grabbed an axe and began chopping into the floor. There were layers of foam but pretty soon water was bursting in and the little boat said its last farewells as I climbed back onto Kestrel and undid the painter.
There wasn’t time to look back as I started the motor of the new boat and pushed forward on the throttle. It responded immediately and I was soon on my way to the beach where the trailer was waiting to be mounted by this newer model.
I beached the boat, walked to the
Finally, using the anchor from the boat, attached to the winch cable I managed to get off that beach and away from the cold, dark water that had come to be an element of fear. The boat behind was a reminder of water but only an abstract reminder when I heard the high and dry sounds of gravel being thrown up by the trailer’s tires.
The trip to
To say it was a relief to arrive on the northern outskirts of
The young apprentice who washed my hair, massaged the aromatic shampoo into my scalp with her slender fingertips. My entire body was tingling and I felt light-headed, and then I was rolled up in front of a mirror, the first mirror larger than I rearview I’d seen for many months, and a tall women, with scissors and comb, stepped up behind me to begin cutting my hair. Her name was Chantelle, she told me, and she was dark and mysterious, I said to myself.
Chantelle's jewelry sparkled, and she smiled like heaven. “Wow, who cut your hair last time, she said with a smirk as she looked over at the other girls. Looks like you did it yourself!” she continued unflatteringly. The question caught me off-guard, because Denise had cut my hair, so I began to create a new identity and life right there and then.
“One of my friends reckoned he was pretty good with a pair of scissors! Guess he was wrong! Will you be able to fix it?”
“Of course!” she came back, “At least, there is plenty there. How short you would like it?” she asked, looking in the mirror at my eyes looking at hers.
“Well, just as if I was going to get married, or apply for a job selling insurance,” I told her lightheartedly. “Just so I look presentable.”
"That’ll be a challenge!” she laughed as I examined the profile of her face in the mirror and felt relieved to be dealing with someone who had a sense of humor and wasn’t going to ask questions which could tangle me up, like my hair.
She didn’t speak much after that, just concentrated on lifting the hair with the comb and making fast and accurate snips. I just sat there enjoying the proximity of such a lovely feminine creature and watched the various expressions she put on her face as she exchanged information with the young women perming a wig in the next bay. I had accepted the fact that there was nothing unusual about men and women being so close, touching, feeling the breath of the other. I’d just been in the bush too long!
Finding a suitable apartment wasn’t so difficult because I had money, and even looked like I had money once I was cleaned up and dressed appropriately. The brick of cash that had come with the boat was very handy, and all part of the big picture I reassured myself.
The most important thing had been a double garage in which to park the boat and
I took some money from the stash and went to buy a car. I chose a white Mazda coupe because it was good value and fairly inconspicuous. I took Chantelle to dinner in a very nice restaurant. We ate fish and drank a bottle of excellent wine, and I dropped her home with a kiss on the cheek. The following weekend we went for a picnic on the banks of a large river and there we had sex for the first time, and Chantelle revealed to me a couple of her special vices.
Each day while she was working I continued reading and basically laying low, waiting for the signal to strike
The part that caught my attention most was where the Buddha was quoted as saying, “If you being cut to pieces by men with two-edged swords you would not be following my teaching if you felt anger.”
Did it mean that the violent plan I had inherited, even though it was for the greater good of mankind, to prevent a global catastrophe, could not be justified? It was worth thinking about, and I had plenty of time for thought, as well as sex and cocaine with Chantelle. I told her I was living from the “investments” that my dead father had left me, and I began to dread finding the coded message in the classifieds that would send on my way.
Everything got better and better, almost too good to be true, and then things really climaxed on exquisite summer night. Everything was perfect, I had decided that the whole nuclear war scenario must be some paranoid delusion cooked up by Steve’s war psychosis, and even if it wasn’t, why should it be my responsibility to lose all I had in order to set things right. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was one of the commandments I had been brought up on! To celebrate my secret decision to resume normality I took Chantelle out for that blissful dinner, and then came home to snort some lines and make love. It was perfection and when we’d finished enjoying each other’s bodies I drifted into a state of mind between post coital quiescent orgasmic release and dream.
While in that state I realized that the planet Earth was the only place that contained life and love in an otherwise inanimate universe. With that insight my body was drawn out through the atmosphere. At first I was looking down at Chantelle and my self in bed asleep but then I was lifted until
I awoke with the image fresh in my mind, and there was no turning back. How could I consider my personal salvation or karma or whatever when the fruition of the universe was concerned, especially in comparison to the global devastation of a nuclear war?
Back in the old
At that point he stopped and sat there looking at the koalas with a strange empty grin.
“Did you carry the mission through?” the tall koala asked, pushing her face forward under the suit, breaking the old guys concentration.
“As you can see, Matey, the world is still here. Unfortunately, the rest of the story is classified.” he said, returning to his posture of gazing into space. “Sorry about that.”
The two koalas wandered away without a donation, appearing by their body language to be completely dumbfounded. They must have been new in town because anyone who’s been here for any length of time knows it’s almost impossible to extract 50 cents from a hippie, and, as for the story, well, the bullshit’s knee deep in
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