27/5/2000. It had been two days since the Snooty rehearsal and Bobby had no conscious recollection of any anomalies in his linear progression through time. Shiva was doing work for college in the bedroom. Bobby was writing his memoirs on the eighties computer that lived in the cupboard in the hall amongst the shoes and blankets. There had been thunder and lightening outside on this sunny spring Saturday. The scaffolding gleamed outside the bedroom window as Maria Joao Pires reached another crescendo on the piano as “Nocturnes Nos. 11-15” by Frederic Chopin went from one climax to another on the stereo. The loose-fitting letterbox flap banged five times in a variety of tempos and a variety of volume. A human beat would almost certainly have been more consistent over a five beat period. The force of its impromptu sound made Bobby jump as he tapped the keys on the computer.
He looked up at the screen and then back down at the keys and to his amazement his hands were less than half their usual size. They were also red and sported black fingernails!
He instinctively fanned out his red wings and flapped them as fast as a bumblebee. As he rose off of the huge chair he gravitated towards the bathroom door. He flew around the corner and approached the mirror that was hanging on the opposite wall. The first thing he noticed was a look of extreme shock on his face. Then he took in the whole scene. What he saw was a red cherub. He had tiny red horns and a red blur surrounding him that was obviously the incredibly animated wings. How he knew it was a cherub he did not know for his form and face resembled a miniature human adult and not the sexless image of a cherub so favoured by mainstream Christian orthodoxy. It seemed like something in his subconscious was trying to fill in the gaps in his conscious knowledge of the world he lived in.
He quickly flew back to the computer and looked at the screen. It was no longer a black rectangle with white words printed across it. It was no longer top and tailed with strips of information like “file”, “Edit”, View” and “format” or words like “Edit document or press Alt to choose commands”.
It was the swirling vortex he’d seen in his pint after the demonstration on May 1st!
He hovered for a second and then “schlup!” it sucked him in.
The vortex once again spun into view as he realised he was now moving backwards at an incredible speed.
The vortex quickly receded into the distance as he flew backwards through a lozenge shaped castle window and out over a moat.
The vortex disappeared and a dragon poked his head out of the window.
“You alright Sydny?” said the dragon. The little cherub patted himself down in mid-air and replied....
“Yeah.... I think so but our experiments with Earth visitations need some work yet. It seems I can only inhabit the entity known as Bobby Rewind and he can only enter me. Neither of us can inhabit the same space in each individual body. This means that the bridge between Eden and Earth that allowed humans temporary physical access to The Garden is no longer operating and this also means that we cannot get physical access to Earth. It seems those indigo coloured pills that our human visitors referred to are the only known way for the bridge to be replaced. Once replaced it then facilitates greater mobility between the two places. I think the pills are necessary if humans are to visit Eden but it seems that once that has been done we can then use our Magick to temporarily visit Earth through the gateway the humans have opened. Our research into these things is essential if we are to protect The Tree of Life from anyone who may use these pills to challenge the will of The Goddess.
“Hmmmm,” mused the dragon.
The dragon was a purple and mauve fifty-foot fire-breathing dragon and his name was Plato.
The moat below the hovering cherub formed a spiralling whirlpool. Sydny Smith grinned at Plato and Plato grinned back.
“It seems the forces of indeterminacy are not over with us yet!” yelled Sydny above the roar of the water. A split second later Sydny the cherub was breathed in by a gaping liquid mouth. All Plato saw was the plummeting body of Sydny disappear into the vortex that ran between The Garden of Eden and the planet Earth.
Sydny opened his eyes and the vortex once again spun into view. He suddenly realised he was moving backwards at an incredible speed. The vortex receded into distance and he flew backwards through a syrupy liquid tumult. The liquid then receded and shrank in size and he realised it was the surface of a pint that he was holding in his hand!
Bobby looked up and saw Shiva sitting cross-legged in front of him. It was New Year’s Eve 1999 and, according to Pope Gregory 13th, the new millennium was about to begin. Shiva and Bobby were sitting on the carpet in the living room in Gorman Road. Shiva and Bobby held up their pints and toasted the new year. The syrupy liquid in each glass comprised of a cocktail made out of southern comfort, vodka, mango juice and passion fruit juice. Each pint contained equal measures of each drink. This was their attempt at a millennium cocktail that brought the east and west together and brought the post industrial states and the “developing” states together. They had also had a strong MDMA pill each and copious amounts of marijuana.
Kali clicked ten sets of fingers and thumbs and the image of Shiva and Bobby vanished in the pool next to her. She clicked her fingers again and the water changed to that of a garden at night in the throws of a severe thunderstorm. The air crackled. The clouds shattered and slivers of white light filled the sky. A young woman stood in a long red dress which twitched and shivered along its bottom hem as the wind buffeted her. It had not started to rain as yet.
“Shit!” she said.
She spun around and faced a middle-aged man in a brown uniform who was wearing the peaked hat of a ship’s captain.
“Jesus wept!” she hissed.... “You scared me more than the thunder!”
“Somehow I doubt that either experience had that much affect on you Miss.” replied the captain with an amazed look on his bearded face.
“What?” she replied.
“Well....” he continued.
“Get on with it you hairy old coot!”
“Surely the body we found scared you more than I!” he continued.
The captain looked angrily at her.
“Who’s we?” she snarled as another crackle of thunder filled the air.
“Well there’s the professor, that gentleman in the grey suit and that snooty cow in the blue Victorian clothing.”
“When did all this occur?” the young woman asked.
He was just about to answer when she cut in....
“I really think we should head inside.” She started to walk towards Tudor Close. The captain was furious. He lifted his stout face. With one hand he twirled one end of his brown moustache and with the other he lent against a stone pillar upon which sat a sundial. He then quickly walked after her. As the rain started to fall he realised why she had hurriedly walked off.
He called after her. “It happened ten minutes ago. The forthright lady in the peach coloured suit has asked us to round up everybody for a meeting in the study. She intends to contact the police.”
A white figure dashed across the grass. A flash of lightening illuminated her and her white apron glowed in a burst of stroboscopic light. She was holding a meat cleaver.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” screamed the captain’s head as it flew through the sky in a south south westerly direction.
“Well that’s taken care of one suspect.” said kali as she grabbed a plastic bust of Captain Brown with one of her five left hands.
She removed the bust from the “Super Cluedo” board that had manifested in the pool next to her.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” said Miss Scarlet as Mrs White mopped her brow with her white cook’s hat.
“It was him!” As Mrs White shouted these words her whole body resonated with the frequency of her own voice. “HE KILLED THAT LOVELY DOCTOR BLACK!!!!”
“So no judge, jury and prosecution for him then.” said Miss Scarlet with a sigh. She continued.... “Come on we’re supposed to be in the study with the others and Miss Peach has taken charge which should be a laugh.”
From a nearby hedge Colonel Mustard looked on in dismay.
“They’ve all gone psychotic!” he squealed.
A giant dragon stood up from the “Cluedo” board and folded his arms. That’s bang out of order Kali!” he boomed.
“Why?” boomed Kali in return.
“Well.... killing Captain Brown like that.”
“But he’s the murderer!” boomed Kali.
“I know.” boomed the dragon, but the characters were supposed to find that out.”
“Fuck that!” boomed Kali.
She then disappeared in a puff of multicoloured smoke and left the dragon standing there.
He was a yellow and gold fifty-foot high fire breathing dragon. He was called Aristotle.
Aristotle crouched down and looked in the pool at the “Cluedo” board.
He clicked the finger and thumb of one of his gigantic sets of claws and the image was replaced by “Lord Snooty Deceased”.
Suddenly the pool became a spinning vortex of water and then turned inside out and stood on end as a tower of frothy spume. In the instant it rose up a tiny figure was blown vertically upwards into the sky. The figure then fell a couple of hundred feet before it stopped and hovered in mid-air. It was Sydny Smith the cherub.
The water fell back into the pool and Sydny hovered in front of the dragon’s giant face.
“Hello Sydny.” said Aristotle.
“Hello Aristotle.” said Sydny.
“How’s your experiment into finding a way between Eden and Earth going?”
“Chaotic.” said Sydny with a look of satisfaction on his face.
Suddenly a green bump broke the surface of the pool. It started growing. As it grew it spread. As it spread it started to appear more hemispherical. It rose from the water and quickly became a head.
It had holes where human ears would be and holes where a human nose would be. It had lips like a human that were coloured a slightly lighter shade of green. Its forehead was comparatively larger than a human one in view of the size of its overall face. Its eyes were huge black ovals set diagonally opposite one another. They were furthest away at the top and nearly met at the bottom. As the head carried on rising a body began to appear as well. Eventually the whole being became manifest. Its body, whilst slim, was proportionately humanoid and its fingers were long, many jointed and slender with the tips slightly bulbous. Subtle coiling patterns were faintly visible all over the head and body but since they were all similar shades of green they almost existed on a subliminal level.
It was naked and the faint patterns on its body became more chaotic and accentuated the nearer to its crutch they got. The being had what appeared to be a vagina. There were also small visible breasts with nipples of a slightly darker green and also a small indentation where a human belly button would be. There was no evidence of hair anywhere on the being. The alien’s feet (which were almost identical to her hands) now stood an inch or so above the water!
“Hello alien!” said Sydny Smith.
“Hello Sydny.” said the alien.
“Hello alien!” said Aristotle.
“Hello Aristotle!” said the alien.
“You know one of the species you evolved from,” said Sydny to the alien.
“Yes.... which one?” asked the alien.
“Human beings.”
“Oh yes?”
“Well I seem to have developed an empathic link with one that involves bursts of physio-telepathy. It’s as a result of experiments Plato and I are testing involving a possible link between Eden and Earth. We thought it a worthwhile pursuit after the amount of symbiosis with humans that occurred when we drove the forces of Cain out of The Forest of Able.”
Suddenly a giant shadow covered them and as it grew it was accompanied by a sound like a severe gale. A second later another huge fifty-foot fire-breathing dragon stood next to them.
The dragon’s name was Rosa and her body was a fiery selection of reds and black.
She stared straight at Sydny Smith and bellowed....
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”
“What?” replied Sydny.
“DON’T GIVE ME THAT VICTIM OF IGNORANCE BULLSHIT!”
“What?” replied Sydny.
“YOU KNOW VERY WELL WHAT!” boomed the dragon.
“But Plato and I haven’t heard a peep out of The Goddess over any of this. We considered it a way of finding out more about Earth and therefore learning from it. Since there was the occurance of physical links between Earth and Eden in the expulsion of the forces of Cain from the forest of Able we thought it prudent to assess whether or not any repeat of this process constitutes any possible threat to The Tree of Life.”
“AND WHAT IF YOUR EXPERIMENTS SHOULD ALLOW ANY HUMANS ACCESS TO EDEN BEFORE THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE IS ONCE AGAIN FULL GROWN?”
“Um...”
“Um indeed Sydny Smith!” said Rosa dropping her voice to a mid-range bellow rather than an out and out booming.
“Humans did prove useful in our expulsion of the forces of Cain Rosa.” said Aristotle.
“And some of their number were helping the forces of Cain!” she replied.
“True, true....”
“I’m afraid there’s another aspect to all of this Rosa.” said Sydny looking a tad guilty.
“Out with it!” said Rosa turning her giant head to face him again.
“It seems that the appearance of the vortex that Plato and I discovered is now appearing randomly between me and one of the human inhabitants of Earth.”
“Oh tremendous!” said Rosa with more than a slight whiff of sarcasm in her voice.
“Which human?” asked the alien.
“Bobby Rewind.” said Sydny.
“That makes sense.” said Aristotle.
“This is due to the symbiotic link you seemed to experience with him during our troubles in The Forest of Able.” said Rosa as her voice dropped from a mid-range bellow to a tone of calm consideration.
“I’m certainly going to have to ride the experience for a bit Rosa.” said Sydny looking up at the gigantic red and black dragon.
“Well.... maybe that is your punishment for not consulting The Goddess before you went ahead with the experiment.”
“Maybe it isn’t a punishment.” said Sydny.
“Well you report back to me if you get sick of it and I’ll see what I can do. Either way I’d be interested in your findings Sydny. Maybe the Goddess has already taken action concerning your inquisitive nature.” As she said this she chuckled. She then turned to Aristotle and said....
“You, me and Plato had better relieve the other dragons guarding The Tree of Life.” With that they bad Sydny and the alien adieu and flew off.
“Do you mind if I stick around for a bit?” asked the alien.
“No I apologise in advance if I get sucked out of this plane of existence agaaaaaaaaiiinn....” His voice tailed off and ended in a splash as he was once again sucked into the pool.
When Sydny entered Bobby Rewind’s body he took a moment to consider the nature of his symbiosis. Bobby was aware of it happening only if he was flipping from one point in his life to another or when he was writing his memoirs the time when he had occupied Sydny’s body. Apart from that they had both spent brief moments inhabiting each others bodies when the Dockers March and “Reclaim the Streets” action in Trafalgar Square in 1997 had merged with the expulsion of the forces of Cain from The Forest of Able. This experience was submerged in the subconsciousness of Bobby Rewind as it had been for all those others who witnessed the convergence of the two planes. This seemed to be a function of the human expulsion from Eden for cutting down The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Wherever they were exposed to direct experiences that revealed the existence of The Garden they only remembered that experience on a subliminal level. This did of course lead humans to bouts of creativity and stories about hallucinations and the like but normally these experiences resided in the land of dreams. It appeared to Sydny that Bobby was unaware of Sydny’s presence at the moment. It also appeared to Sydny that he was not able to communicate with Bobby or influence his movements. He was merely experiencing what Bobby was experiencing. This had been the way it had been when he’d blipped in for the rehearsal at “The Nut-House” in Bostall Woods. As for the full symbiosis in Gorman Road, well that had been rather a shock to both of them. Sydny had been wrenched back into Eden via Shiva and Bobby’s computer but where had Bobby gone? He certainly hadn’t seemed to be in Sydny’s body when it arrived over the moat of Plato’s castle. Sydny couldn’t be sure though. Wherever Bobby had gone when Sydny returned to Eden after the manifestation of the cherub in the flat on the council estate in Saaaarrrff Eeeeeaaast Lundun knowledge of it was almost certainly residing in Bobby’s subconsciousness somewhere.
So here he was.... back in Bobby’s body against his own volition. He concentrated on the sensory input he was privy to.
Bobby was reading an entry that Shiva had made on their computer.
“SUMMER SOLSTICE 1996”
“We’d gathered an itinerary of possible events for this mystical calendar day.... i.e. longest day of the year; but still hadn’t, until the Thursday, figured out which would be possible. Of course our first choice was to be out in the elements. Surrounded by vegetation that’s hundreds of years old and a sky empty of the orange glow of electric light. This was, however, not to be; because in order to get to West Wales requires wheels which unfortunately we had no access to. Hence; come Thursday evening it was decided that we would go to Thee Brixton Academy for an ALL-NIGHTER i.e. 8p.m.-6a.m. Excited; I should say, having heard so much about this centre for popular culture. I spent Friday morning trying to slowly build up to my maiden visit. “Tried” being the operative word, I’d like to have awoken at my own pace but as usual Mr. Rewind, enjoying being up before midday, ensured I would accompany him! (Not considering the fact that, 9 times out of 10, he enjoys a siesta in the late afternoon; something I find difficult to do. Although, having said that, I have had a few naps recently!).
To be completely honest I don’t remember much about the day as is normally the case when I’m semi-awake, however I can recall the choosing what to wear ritual.
I deliberately (good or bad I don’t know) chose an earthy theme; a tribe-like even collection of clothes. Well; my skirt was obtained at a clothes swap at Amanda’s at the beginning of the year and is a lycra mini embossed with a golden fruit coloured Tree of Knowledge. I’d already decided to bring out my hand-stitched (by me) mirrored black lycra top. Hair came next and last because as always the part of me most commented on is also the one that also causes me the most distress. Why? Well it’s very long but not very malleable. If it was left to its own devices I’d have “no comment” hair. I asked Mr. Rewind for some suggestions and was given a favourite one “put it in ponytails” which always makes me cringe. The guy has no idea of the number of days in my primary school and the number of wild pictures of ME with two enormous ponytails sticking out from the top of my head that exist. I was a 7/8/9 year old with a 20-year-old head full of frizzy hair. Frizzy because it spent most of its time plaited TIGHTLY; so when it was allowed to “hang loose” it just exploded out like; party poppers; cans of worms etc. etc. Looking back it was the Seventies and afros were in apparently, but it was big hair on a child’s head. All I wanted was straight, sophisticated, calm, controllable hair; that I assumed needed noooooooo attention at all at that age and NOT the frizzy mass of strangeness I had been blessed with. I now know that a bald head is easiest to manage.”