In “The Cellar”, an underground cinema on Duke Street, near the centre of the universe.
Background Radiation. Radio Dust. Pinpoints of Past Fire recede. Dust, riding the dial, slowly accelerates toward the audience through the static. The screen flickers into light.
The scene, a hovel constructed from damp scraps of discarded wood and mouldy, faded brown cardboard, but with a distinct air of pretensions of becoming a cathedral.
Here sitteth a pantomime sorcerer wrapped in hokum-pocum costume drama drag, sham fifteenth century Spanish court slippers stained with sewage. Here sitteth, dully illuminated in the sparks of some dying embers, cross legged, amongst piles of rotting entrails, a sorcerer stirring relentlessly at a blackened cauldron of thick, sick smelling stew. Here sitteth, under the black shadow of a cathedral steeple hat reaching unto truly celestial heights, the sorcerer, who, just at this moment, all fired up by the brewage, sheds his hokum-pocum skin to don his immaculate black and white habits as becomes the High Priest of the one and only church of what must and must not, and you had better believe it sons and daughters of the One and Only John Doe, our father who art in heaven. Somewhere.
The little lambs get to climb up to the dizzy heights upon that heavenly ladder to look him straight in the eye, to be blessed by the judgements, and are instantaneously damned in his ubiquitous silver mirror shades, the mirror shades he angrily snaps on at their disgusting, subservient, brown nosing approach (Aside),-
“Sometimes you just have to hold your breath, pinch your nose.”
Crucifixes, electric chairs, lethal injection benches bellows butcher’s apron, nooses ropes chains cables carving knives and crocodile clips, hammers and nails, racks and pullies and poles to impale, a ladder and a toolbox. A ladder and a toolbox, as carpenter and metalworker, as all round handyman is he known, the son of John Doe, The Born Again Priest.
The heights are climbed and the faithless find faith in something a little more heavenly, a little more mystical, at each and every rung on the way up and so they have more faith because, sermonises The Born Again Priest,-
“Lo, hallowed be my wisdom, faith becometh the absolute truth, hallowed be thy name, John Doe, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, erm....somewhere.”
And it comes about that all this truth is verily rattling about in each and every skull and making a right old din.*
And it comes about that The Born Again Priest, in all his infinite heavenly love and mystical affection, spreads his arms universally wide to welcome his precious flock unto his protective bosom. And it comes about that, lo and behold, he is up to his elbows in little boy’s and girl’s shit and blood, for, as we behold, they stand before him in sublime submission, anointed in blood and faeces smeared over their otherwise milky white flesh....milky white....
Full on, full screen mirror shades reflecting cameras and lighting rig, The Born Again Priest admonishes,-
“For this is the Northern European section of The Alliance of Civilisations and we do not countenance any of those other colours fucking up this tale, do we now?”
....milky white flesh waiting in trancelike subjugation for his oration. The Sermon on The Mound, Mons Veneris for, verily, The Born Again Priest truly believes, with high religious hubris, in heaven right down here and now and he is doing his damnedest best to keep the pearly gates tight shut to the hoi polloi.
The Sermon on The Mound, Mons Veneris,-
“Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, suffer the little children to come, to come unto me for my pleasure, for, verily, of such pleasure is the Kingdom of The Born Again Priest!”
So, hardened Sheffield steel shears in one hand, silver mirror shades over his eyes, stainless steel pincers in his right hand, he welcomes the little lambs to his last judgment and, of course, they are ecstatically happy, euphoric, for they have drunk and eaten of him and of all the others and they can see what the future holds for them just where The Born Again Priest’s eyes should be, that is, submission, suffering and faith, but he, mirror shades high on his nose, he can see them for what they really are, Cuts of Meat! Cuts of Meat, for his is the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
“For mine is the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen!”
In “The Cellar”, an underground cinema on Duke Street, near the centre of the universe, THE END, and voices are heard to mumble under their breaths,-
“Amen....”
And,-
“Where we gonna find something to eat this time of the night?”
*Those who have heard voices from the nondominant brain hemisphere remark on the absolute authority of the voice. They know they are hearing the truth. The fact that no evidence is adduced and that the voice may be talking utter nonsense is irrelevant. This is what Truth is. And Truth has nothing to do with facts. Those who manipulate Truth to their advantage, the people of the Big Lie, are careful to shun facts. In fact nothing is more deeply offensive to such people than the concept of fact.
(William S. Burroughs, Ghost of Chance, 1991, published by Serpent’s Tail, 2002)
A large part of the inspiration for this piece of writing can be found in a video clip by the multi media artist A-Soma. A-Soma and the Unlightened, Draps Bruts, from the collection of songs, Dark in Space. Click here to see the clip!
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