Tim Leary’s Cat

The infamous comic panel from the Abyss

As I continue to transcribe my novel from handwritten form, I discovered a chapter I had forgotten. As a recap, this novel is about the adventures of Kenneth Collins, an older man in San Francisco, who had an unusual vision which leads him to become involved with a magickal order known as the Order of the Invisible Star, based in Berkeley. He becomes involved with Diana, the High Priestess of this Order, and her old boyfriend. Japeth is insanely jealous and comes to kill Kenneth. In this chapter of “Our Day Is Done”  Kenneth  kills Japeth in self-defense. This was based on an actual event in my life. It did not involve a jealous lover, and no one died, thankfully. I was babysitting my nephew, and had been teasing him pretty relentlessly, when suddenly I see my nephew coming at me with a butcher knife in his hand. Before I even knew what had happened, I see that my nephew is standing there open mouthed, and the knife is lying on the floor quite some distance away. Apparently, according to my nephew, I kicked the knife out of his hands. I did this entirely unconsciously, to save myself. The same thing happens here, except Japeth isn’t so lucky. The knife ends up in his skull.

I have tried to include a lot of actual events in my novel, because that makes it come alive. The other strange thing I had forgotten I wrote concerned a curious synchronicity. As I was writing the chapters I am including here, I came across an old Batman comic from 1966, a special issue sponsored by Kellogg’s cereal. The story was Catwoman’s Catnapping Capers. It concerned Catwoman stealing a Manx cat from a boy named (get this!) Tim Leary! This story came out when Timothy Leary was at the height of his LSD experimentation. Kenneth Collins has a Manx cat in my novel, and he has some very LSD-like experiences which you find in these chapters. So Tim Leary and his cat, Tag (which is also curious, considering today’s meaning for tag, as a way of directing traffic to your site on the internet.) mirror my primary character and his cat. I found the comic between Chapters 28 and 29, and included the discovery of the comic in Chapter 29, and how it related to Kenneth’s experiences. I had even mentioned Catwoman in an earlier chapter!, as the comic book equivalent of Lilith. So as my imagination runs away with me, I imagine my novel being directed by forces beyond my control. In these chapters, Kenneth has visions of Daath, a Kabbalistic realm, or sephiroth, which isn’t really a sephiroth, but a ruin of the world that existed before the Fall. It is all very esoteric. I am including below a passage from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da%27at which covers Daath. It may just confuse you further, if so that is fine because Daath is a realm of confusion. But the Daath I am writing about in Our Day Is Done is more like the Daath which lies over the Abyss (you know! the one that looks into you as you look into it), described by good ol Aleister Crowley, everybody’s favorite punching bag when it comes to esoteric matters. Below is an excerpt from that Wikipedia article about Da’at (which is another name for Daath)

In some occult methods of thought, Daat is a gateway which, upon passing through, inverts the qualities of the sephirothic spheres. The idea most likely derives from Daat being situated upon The Abyss. Aleister Crowley described the abyss as such:

“This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap in thought between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meaning; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions… Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions.”

Non-Jewish Kabbalah

Daat is considered the point of creation, when the active principle of Chokmah, ‘wisdom’, ( knowledge which comes from without ), meets with the passive principle of Binah, ‘understanding’, and creates the archetypal idea of ‘knowledge’. These three are sometimes referred to as the “superconscious”.

However, this sephirot is often not shown on the tree of life, and instead there is an empty space, straddling The Abyss. In fact, there are often two trees depicted, one which shows Daat but not Malkuth (the kingdom), and the other which shows Malkuth but not Daat. These are considered as being before The Fall of Man, and after The Fall, in which the fruit of knowledge is taken from the tree, humanity loses paradise, and falls into the earthly state of suffering represented by Malkuth.

Ok, now it’s me again!!! Just wanted to give a little background. Below are the aforementioned Chapters of Our Day Is Done, and above is the comic panel which sailed straight out of the Abyss! Actually it sailed straight from this website http://www.mediafire.com/?0m4mzzy2znw to my computer, and I enlarged it using Gimp. So much for documentation.

OUR DAY IS DONE CHAPTER 28

As it happened, Janet McFarland had not been asleep the night Kenneth Collins spent with Diana Blanchard. She worried about Kenneth because she knew Japeth, the Invisible Star Magus-in-training had long been the primary candidate  to play Osiris in their Supreme Operation. Japeth was black, and because of this, there were those who felt he should portray Set instead, because, they said, Set was black. But Japeth adamantly insisted that the traditional description of Set as black referred to his spiritual condition and not the color of his skin. But, Diana, while not disputing what Japeth believed, was still dubious about his portraying, or more accurately, embodying Osiris. This really pissed Japeth off. He thought it was good, old-fashioned racism, and referred to Diana as that Nazi bitch or KKK whore, depending on his mood. So far he hadn’t said these things to her face, because he and Diana had also been lovers. Janet was brooding over these facts that night, knowing that Japeth was a very sore loser. If he was pissed about being replaced as Osiris, he’ll really hate being replaced as Diana’s lover. She knew Japeth had spent a few years dealing crack and cocaine, occasionally even heroin with his white biker buddy, Jeff Buck. She was pretty sure Japeth or Jeff, or both, had committed some murders during those years in Oakland. While Japeth no longer lived at the Berkeley lodge, he was a frequent unannounced visitor. Fortunately, he didn’t come by that night.
Kenneth had refused to move into the lodge, which Diana totally couldn’t understand. They argued about it as Kenneth was returning with her to the lodge, for training, instruction, and, Kenneth hoped, more sex, although Diana’s mood made that prospect a dim one. Kenneth and Diana had arrived at the lodge, and ascended the stairs to Diana’s (and Japeth’s room, thought Kenneth), when, as Diana dug in her purse for her key, Janet burst out of her room saying, “Kenneth! Diana! Japeth’s here! He’s out of his mind!” Before either of them could react, Japeth screamed “You cracker son of a bitch! Nobody gets into her pussy but me! Nobody!” Kenneth saw a flash of metal in Japeth’s hand, and kicked. The impact caused Japeth to lose his footing on the stairs, and he fell back, legs and arms flailing. The knife sailed straight into Japeth’s forehead. Kenneth heard screaming. He stared at Japeth, lying motionless, the knife sticking out, the blood running out in a thin, bright red stream. He managed to say “We’ve got to call an ambulance. Where’s the telephone?” Diana said “I’ll call!” pulling out her cell phone, and stepping into her room. “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch anything” she said. Kenneth stood dumbfounded, and heard Janet sobbing beside him. He took her in his arms. “I didn’t mean to do it. He came at me! I don’t know how it happened. I just reacted.” It felt odd to be standing there in shock, holding Janet, who obviously was also in deep shock, while Diana took charge of the situation, not seeming to be in shock at all. He could hear her talking on the phone. “He attacked my friend with a knife. My friend defended himself. He fell down the stairs, the knife hit his….is stuck inside his head. It was a horrible accident! Nothing has been touched. No, I haven’t yet called an ambulance, I’m doing that as soon as I hang up!” Then she hung up.  Kenneth heard her calling an ambulance, and a chill went through his body. She called the police first. She wanted to give Japeth time to die. He worried about what the police would make of that.
They could hear voices downstairs. Other members of the Invisible Star were arriving home. Diana ushered Kenneth and Janet into her room, saying “I’ll deal with them! Stay in here!” “But what about the body?” Kenneth said. “What about it? I’ll step over it! I’ll be careful. Stay in here until the police arrive, ok?” “Right” said Kenneth. “Let Diana do this, Kenneth. She knows her way around the police. She’s dealt with them before, regarding Japeth. He has quite a record. All of that helps you, Kenneth. It’ll be ok.” Janet said. “Why did she…?” Kenneth decided to let it drop. He hoped Diana would be ok. Hell, he wished he’d be ok. Kenneth and Janet were silent as they sat on Diana’s bed listening to the loud voices downstairs.  As the voices grew fainter, Kenneth vaguely remembered he and Janet lying down on the bed, because sitting up seemed to take a lot of effort. He remembered wanting to sleep. To sleep, and not wake up. He wondered if Janet felt the same. Suddenly Kenneth discovered himself in an almost featureless desert. He could see Japeth lying in the sand, with his knife protruding from his forehead. The blood was no longer red, but dark, a pool had formed beside his head, and a crow was there, picking at it. Kenneth wanted to look away, but could not. The light was very bright, the sky a brilliant blue, and he saw that Japeth was dressed entirely in black, except for a red bandanna. He even had a black leather holster around his waist, holding an old Colt 45 revolver. Japeth was a gunslinger. The crow looked up at Kenneth, and he felt a sharp pain in his left eye, the blind one. Now Kenneth felt himself stumble, his hand held to his eye. When he raised his head, and opened his good, right, eye he saw a set of stone columns supporting an arch, the ruins of what appeared to be an enormous entrance, a gate. He could see inscribed across the arch the letters D.A.A.T.H. Although the light was bright (he couldn’t see a Sun anywhere) and it was obviously a desert, Kenneth felt cold. A crudely drawn wooden sign, painted white with black letters said ‘No Trespassing’. It was propped against a column. There were a lot of crows gathered around, cawing. He noticed a bright red and green lizard. Behind the arch he saw an enormous spider, mostly buried in the sand, moving it’s legs rapidly in order to burrow deeper and out of his sight. In the distance he could see a huge mound of sand or stone. It looked sort of like a crude rendering of a head with large bulging eyes. He felt colder, all the light was suddenly extinguished. He could barely make out the columns and arch, the sign. They glowed in a pink and green neon. He couldn’t see Japeth, any of the crows, the spider, or the mound. The sky was slowly turning a bright, Halloween orange.
In that sky appeared a black hole, perfectly round, and totally black. There was a flash of light like lightning, and everything stood out in stark relief, like in a strobe light. He briefly saw that Japeth’s body was still there, but it had rotted. It was ghastly, and Kenneth was shaking when the darkness returned. He realised he had closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes the desert was dark violet, the sky was a light orange. The hole in the sky was still there. He could smell something burning. He saw Japeth’s body, a dim skeleton by this time, with a jack o’lantern burning where his head ought to have been. He could see other jack o’lanterns around the arched gateway, each with different expressions of terror. “Kenneth! Wake up! Kenneth!” he heard, and the scene faded abruptly. He saw Diana’s face, looking distraught. Two policemen stood beside her. He could feel Janet’s arm around his shoulder, her hair against his face. “Kenneth, what…how could you fall asleep?” Diana said. “It’s not unusual for a person in shock to fall asleep. Take your time, Mr. Collins, to get your bearings. A man has died here, Mr. Collins. We believe you may have witnessed his death. If you take the time to recover yourself and recall for us what happened tonight, we would greatly appreciate it. We know it has been a shock.” Officer Patterson said, almost as if he were speaking to a child.
Kenneth recounted once again, how he had reacted without thinking, apparently kicking the knife out of Japeth’s hand. Japeth fell back and the knife landed in his head. Officer Patterson surprised Kenneth when he didn’t seem to think his story was preposterous. What were the odds that his knife would fly up in the air like that, and land right in Japeth’s skull?  “We will check the knife for prints, but I doubt we will find anyone’s prints besides Japeth’s.” Patterson said. “You were defending yourself, and a tragic accident ensued. That’s what my report will say, Mr. Collins. I have two witnesses who can corroborate your story.” and with that, he and the other officer left. Just like that! The ambulance had arrived before the interview, and taken the body away. There was no trace of blood on the stairs. Kenneth guessed the paramedics cleaned it up. It almost felt as if it hadn’t happened. Almost. Kenneth felt a tremendous rush of relief and said “ok, I just want to go home now.” to Diana.

OUR DAY IS DONE CHAPTER 29

As Officer Patterson arrived at the station to submit his report, he ran into another policeman, Sgt. Jackson. Sgt. Jackson worked vice, and had tried to set Japeth and Jeff Buck up in a sting two years ago, and had heard the 911 call regarding Japeth’s death. He was excited. “So what happened with Japeth? Was it murder, or what? I hope it was a working girl. It’s about fucking time he bought  it!” he said. “Not murder. It looks like an accident, a freak accident. He got in the way of a knife. His own knife.” Patterson said. “So just how…you gotta explain that one to me, Patterson.”
“He attacked some old guy with a knife. The guy freaked and knocked it out of his hands. He happened to be standing at the top of a flight of stairs. Real smart, right? The old guy didn’t need a weapon. He had a nice steep flight of stairs right in front of him. But he was in shock, I don’t think he really knew what he’d done. He passed out on us for a while.” Patterson said.
“Passed out?”
“Yeah.”
“Was he on drugs?”
“Shit! I didn’t check for that. But, look, we both knew Japeth, The guy’s a fuckup. I can believe he would charge some old guy with a knife. There were two witnesses who vouched for the old man’s story. If he was high at the time, I really don’t care. Japeth was a fuckup and a killer. He deserved what he got.” Patterson explained.
“Still, I think there’s probably…but,hey it’s not my case. I’m not your boss. If you say, that’s it, then that’s it.”
But, nevertheless, Sgt. Jackson decided to pay Jason Blackguard a visit. He thought Jason might find Japeth’s attack, and his death, very interesting.

Kenneth couldn’t sleep after Diana dropped him off at his hotel. They kissed several times, and hugged. Part of him wished he could stay with her, but  he really just wanted to be alone. Alone with his kitty. It felt pathetic, but he didn’t care. He would lay there and think about how he killed a man, and didn’t even hesitate. He was as though he were trained. It worried him. It was as though another person he didn’t know lived inside him. He suspected that if he went to sleep, he’d go back to that desert, and the gate of Daath. And what would he find then? Gradually Kenneth’s mind stopped buzzing, and as he expected, he found himself back in the desert, near the gate of Daath. It was daylight. No sign of Japeth. Oddly, the No Trespassing sign was gone, and he didn’t see any crows, just a single owl, staring placidly, atop the arch. But behind the gate sat an enormous cat. It was Bugbutt, his Manx cat. The cat had his paws atop the spider, that had tried to burrow into the sand. As the spider struggled, Bugbutt grabbed at it, lifting it between his paws, and tearing off legs with his teeth. Then Bugbutt spotted Kenneth and came towards him, holding the spider in his mouth, like an offering, to Kenneth. At that point Kenneth woke up and felt a wonderful sense of relief. He looked atop the cat cozy and saw Bugbutt curled up there, fast asleep. He gazed at his cat and thought, ‘I’ve got to give Bugbutt a better name. He deserves it.’ Giganta? Moloch? maybe even Merlin? But, no. He was Bugbutt. No other name would do. He loved Bugbutt. ‘He’s my cat, and perhaps my protector as well.’ He felt comforted by that.
Oddly, the next morning, as Kenneth was browsing through a collection of old Batman comics from the 1960’s, he came across this panel. A boy named Tim Leary had had a tail-less cat, a Manx, stolen by Catwoman. In the panel, the cat was being returned to the boy. He couldn’t understand why Catwoman would want a tail-less alley cat. Batman explained that it was a Manx cat, naturally tail-less, from the Isle of Man. What Batman neglected to say was that the Isle of Man was traditionally the island of witchcraft, and that the Manx cat may have been a witch’s familiar. He also didn’t let little Tim Leary know about his famous namesake, Timothy Leary, the psychedelic pioneer, who explored many strange areas of consciousness. This cartoon panel seemed very significant to Kenneth, especially after his dream. He must learn more about Daath, about spiders, and about Manx cats. He doubted that the name ‘Bugbutt’ had any magical significance. Kenneth smiled. He couldn’t let all of this get to him. ‘Keep both feet on the ground’ he said to himself. Bugbutt glanced up at him. As always, Kenneth had no idea what was on his cat’s mind.

At some point soon, like sometime in January or Feb. this novel will appear on Amazon.kindle so you can read the whole thing. The first Chapter was posted here a few days ago. I may post more chapters if I see something as cool as this. But for now, Merry Christmas!!, Cool Yule!!, Namaste!!, Chao!! (Ha! bet you didn’t know I was Chinese! Chow? Get It? Ok it isn’t that funny, I admit it.)

Two Nights Before Christmas

I am having a quiet two nights before Christmas. I am rapidly transcribing my novel from the hand written notebooks they were originally written on. That was back in 2007, before I had an apartment. I lived in a tiny room in a seedy hotel. To keep my sanity I wrote my novel. I now hope to get it published online. I feel wistful, like I always do right before Christmas. I am filled with a mixture of sadness and a poignant happiness. Inevitably, it leads to thoughts of childhood, and the simple joy I had then, when Christmas came, after much anxious anticipation. There was a brief feeling of enchantment associated with that time. Sometimes the sight of Christmas lights, or Christmas carols will trigger that poignancy. An entire industry is built upon that, and they have succeeded in ruining something very special. Thanks a lot, guys! This year I haven’t been in a Christmas mood at all. But recently, with wonderful time spent with a friend, and just quietly contemplating my life, I have been able to recapture that special feeling I had as a child. For a few days it felt as though all was right with the world, and everything had a special, fragile, sacred quality. Of course, much of that was a result of relentless Christmas propaganda. So many of us get pissed off at this time of year and wonder why. Why the Bah Humbug? Because we were sold a lie! and we are pissed about it! I can vividly recall my father getting very upset because he couldn’t afford to give us presents, but gave them anyway. I tried to talk him out of giving me presents. It doesn’t matter, I insisted. I don’t want a present if it worries you. But it was to no avail. I would have been satisfied with an orange in a sock. I loved the family’s Christmas morning opening of presents, not because of the presents, but because it was a time of togetherness which didn’t happen often enough in my family. That was worth it’s weight in gold. I miss that.

Like so many other people, I suppose you could call them Christmas junkies, I try to get my Christmas fix by finding just that right carol, or the right mood in the right store, to give you that Christmas buzz. You know that you are indulging in an illusion, and you don’t care, because it’s Christmas damn it! I am usually sucked in by Silver Bells, because I loved Christmas in the city when I was a kid. The big deal was to go to Kansas City and see the lights on the plaza. It was truly a winter wonderland. My family were Elvis fanatics, well, at least my sister was, and so I grew up hearing his music constantly. (in case you’re wondering, I mean Presley, not Costello). So his Christmas music always brings back pleasant memories, especially the album from the fifties. And then, of course, there is the Peanuts Christmas Special. I think it aired in 1965. I didn’t watch it this year. I don’t need to. I know it by heart, I can play it in my head. It captured perfectly the feeling I had about Christmas when I was in the fifth grade. I hated Christmas commercialism, and the Peanuts special addressed that issue. Snoopy provided some of that zany, pointless humor I was also full of at that age. Some people really hate that special, they hate Christmas too, I suspect. I can relate to that. I think you could say I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas.

However, as a closing note, I have discovered that the enchantment you can feel when Christmas comes, can be there anytime you open yourself up to it. It isn’t about Christmas, or God, Jesus, none of that. It is just being present, and seeing what is there before you, without judgement. The result is love, for no reason at all. I think that is beautiful.

Merry Christmas!!

A teaser for my novel (first posted on facebook)

Here I am ruminating on the subject of my novel, Our Day Is Done, instead of actually editing the novel itself. I’ll get to that!! My novel has a kabbalistic subtext. For those who know, there is a mysterious realm within the kabbala, the ruin ruled by Choronzon, and filled with Chaos and confusion. Before it became a ruin this realm, known as Daath, was a place of self-knowledge. In my novel, the protagonist, Kenneth Collins, enters the gates of Daath. Choronzon is what remains of the mighty Gods and Goddesses that ruled over Daath. The novel begins with a fevered dream of the end of that golden age, the Goddesses lamenting “Our Day Is Done”. So, perhaps this isn’t the first time we have been left to our own devices. Consider this a bit of a teaser. Now I should get back to my novel.

Our Day Is Done (my novel’s first chapter)

To hasten my progress towards actually publishing my novel on Amazon.kindle. I have decided to post the first chapter here, because if it’s here, absolutely nobody will ever see it!! So I need not be afraid of the cruel gaze of a jaded public. But if by some miracle you read this, let me know what you think (you know, what you really think which is the same as what I’d like to hear. You get that, don’t you?)

OUR DAY IS DONE   CHAPTER ONE

Everything was just off, not quite right, and pretty damn annoying. That’s how the day had been, for Kenneth Collins. It was Saturday, his day for doing his weekly chores of going to the laundromat, and cleaning his room. He lived at the Empire, a residential hotel in San Francisco, in a small room he shared with his Manx cat. He’d be 53 years old in six days, and he felt every minute of it. He had hurt his back, in his job in the receiving dept. of Lucky 13, a downtown bookstore. Soon after that, he got smacked in the face by the lid of a dumpster, while at work, leaving a nasty scar, near his already blind left eye. Luckily he had missed his good eye. He told himself that the scar, and the black leather jacket he habitually wore, might at least keep the homeless from bothering him, as he walked home from work. Finally, he had sharp pains in his kidney, probably due to a heavy dose of salt. Too much tuna and crackers, which he had been eating to save money, and because Bugbutt, his cat, liked tuna. So, he gave up salt. Of course, he still had all of the usual digestive problems that come with age, plus all of the unspeakable horrors that can be picked up from the toilet seat of a seedy hotel.
But that wasn’t why things were off. The day didn’t feel right for reasons Kenneth found hard to explain. Early on, after he’d finished his chores, he walked over to the convenience store he’d frequented for almost a decade, to get his usual lottery tickets, and a Klondike ice cream bar, as was his habit. Only this time, someone yelled out, “Kenny! I think that’s Kenny. Hey, Kenny!” Kenneth turned and saw a man with a gray mustache and beard, rather stocky, yelling “Kenny! How ya’ doin’ man!”. Kenneth had no idea who this man was. He searched his memory in vain, unable to make a match with any face he’d known. But the man appeared to know Kenneth, or Kenny, quite well. That’s the other thing. Who would call him Kenny? Everyone he knew called him Ken, or Kenneth. But he figured it was someone he used to work with, or someone who used to live at the Empire Hotel. someone he’d forgotten.
As Kenneth walked on, from the convenience store to the local Safeway, to take money from the ATM, and get food (not tuna and crackers, that’s for sure!) everything seemed to take too long. The San Francisco wind, which over the course of a decade, he ought to have gotten used to, really annoyed him. He wondered how much longer he could endure such a dull routine, the sameness. Earlier that day, at work, the UPS delivery driver had made a comment that struck home with Kenneth. The driver had been given a wooden toy figure of a delivery driver, with it’s own tiny hand cart.  The figure was crude, just a slender block of wood, the corners still intact, and simply painted. ‘Pretty much faceless, just like I feel.” the driver joked, if it was a joke. It gave Kenneth the creeps. For some reason, the idea of being reduced to a crudely created block of wood seemed to hold some kind of meaning for Kenneth. But it was a meaning that wasn’t entirely clear, and Kenneth didn’t think about it much, until now.  Now everything seemed crudely done, unfinished, like that toy. Except of course, it wasn’t really the same.  Different people walked the streets today, than were there yesterday. All kinds of events were occuring all around Kenneth, each totally new, and unique. But Kenneth didn’t care.  He yearned for something fantastic to happen. It felt like it had been a lifetime since he’d been in awe of his life. These things were going on beneath the surface of his consciousness.  On the surface, he thought about the various aches and pains that invaded his body as he walked.
Inside Safeway. something odd happened.  The check-out clerk said something, after ringing up Kenneth’s groceries, and Kenneth didn’t hear it, or, at least, that’s the way Kenneth preferred to recall the event. Suddenly, Kenneth felt a rush of anger, and the check-out clerk seemed angry too.  The clerk bagging the groceries seemed thrown off balance, not knowing how to react. The strange thing is, Kenneth had no idea why he was angry, and was not at all clear about what had just happened. It was as if he’d gone to sleep for a moment, and something happened that made him angry, or the clerk angry, or both of them angry. What was said? Was anything said? Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. The fact that Kenneth didn’t know bothered him. He walked home, trying to sort out his memories of what had just happened.  As he was walking, the woman who passed beside him, said “Did you see that?”
Huh? What?
It broke Kenneth out of his reverie. “The rat. A rat just ran by. It was huge! It ran under that car!” Kenneth didn’t look. He quickened his pace. He imagined a rat as big as a large dog, peeking out from beneath the car. Kenneth thought about all the unfortunate events he’d been through recently, and almost thought it was funny. Except it is never funny when it’s happening to you. Just one of those days. Everything will be back to normal tomorrow.
Kenneth probably should have chosen a more mundane book to read before going to bed, except Kenneth really didn’t have any mundane books. He had been toying with writing a book on the occult. It bothered him that there didn’t seem to be a decent book on the subject. I guess I’ll have to write it myself.  He hadn’t gotten around to doing that, though.  It was a rather daunting task.  It would lurk, like some deep-sea monster, in the back of his mind.  Maybe someday he’d tackle it.  Kenneth usually read for a bit in some strange book, before going to sleep, and Saturday night he chose a book about various societies. that were working behind the scenes, to bring about a unified world, based on synarchy (the opposite of anarchy).  It was dull, not because the subject of secret societies was dull, that had always excited him, but because it was filled with an endless array of tedious facts, which failed to add up to anything remotely important.  He felt himself beginning to doze off, the pungent smell of marijuana flowing under his door, from an adjacent room.  He was about to put out the light, and put the book away, when something very unusual happened.
Suddenly, he was standing in front of some kind of instrument panel, lights flashing, and some kind of alarm sounding.  He was shouting into a phone, but couldn’t understand a word of what he was saying.  He could see his hands.  They were dark.  His voice sounded very different, deeper, full of exasperation, almost panic.  He could smell something burning.  He began shouting “Archons! Archons!”.  It seemed to Kenneth that these Archons, whatever that were, were the solution, or, perhaps, the problem.  He wasn’t sure.  It sounded like something from a Greek myth, a high-tech Greek myth, that is.  As he glanced to his right, he saw a row of monitors lining the wall of an enormous cavern.  Misshapen dwarf-like beings were scurrying from one monitor to another, making adjustments, and shouting orders.  They would only stop long enough to glance at Kenneth with expressions filled with terror.  He definitely had the impression he was in charge of this underground facility.  They were under attack.  This was clear from what he could see on the monitors. He could see spacecraft attacking one another.  He felt a shock race down his spine, as he noticed an emblem on one of the ships.  It was a swastika inside a circle.  He wasn’t sure which side he was on, hopefully not the Nazi side.  One thought kept returning.  “I must reach the Nine. The Nine must know.”  It had no real significance for him at the time.  On another monitor, he could see two statues of women, completely naked, and glowing brightly.  One of them begins to speak, and the sound is unbearable.  It hurt his head, and more like a shockwave than a sound.  Once again, he couldn’t understand the words.  He felt nauseous from the vibration of her voice.  Can I throw up, while in a dream?  Her face was both beautiful, and terrible.  It was hard to focus on it.  It’s glow was too bright.  Then suddenly, Kenneth’s body convulsed. He was jerking back and forth violently, taking huge gasps of breath. He could tell he was lying on his little cot, in his little room, bathed in sweat.  Bugbutt, his cat, was beside him, gazing wide-eyed, as if to say ‘are you all right’? Kenneth’s heart was pounding. He kept telling himself to calm down and focus on his breath. In his mind, he kept repeating ‘can’t hold it! can’t keep it together!’ and as he recalled the glowing statue, it seemed it had said ‘our day is done.’