The Fool - Chapter One ====================== I - I have everything I need. On the table before me lies a knife, a coin, a stick, and a goblet of wine. My robe is red, my tunic white; around my waist I wear a belt with a snake's head clasp. I am surrounded by roses and lilies. As I wave the wand in my right hand, and point to the ground with my left, I feel the flow of infinite energy passing just above my head. My face is as red as my robe. I touch my tongue to the roof of my mouth and breathe deeply, calmly. I recite the invocation, once, twice, ten times over. My breathing remains calm. I wait, eyes closed, surrounded by blackness. Wreathed in blue smoke, she appears before me, beckoning. My body remains still, breathing deeply, as I move forward in spirit. She is singing a song to me now, quiet and insistent. I cannot make out the words, but the melody is distinct and haunting. I approach her slowly and carefully, picking a deliberate path across the emptiness. Her song lilts and shifts as I move ever closer. I still cannot make out the words. All at once I stumble, and she is gone. My right foot attempts to step into the nothingness surrounding me, and catching myself just in time, I lurch backwards and lose my footing. I drop the wand, and momentarily return to mundanity, breathing heavily, sweating like a pig. My heart is pounding. I recite the mantra, and force myself to breathe slowly. Gradually, my heart rate recedes. I regain my calm, and pick up the wand, close my eyes, and recite the invocation again. II -- When the shift occurs, it is palpable. It is sideways, but not sideways, forwards, but not forwards. Motion here is at right-angles to all three terrestrial dimensions. Space is a different shape now; time merely another form of distance. Normal thought does not occur in this place, it is experienced non-linearly, washing over my mind in waves. I become a snake, and hiss, flashing my forked tongue. Somewhere in a different reality a human body continues sitting there, breathing deeply; it has some relation to me, but I cannot right now remember just what. My snake-self writhes and wriggles, and I force myself to concentrate on the second part of the invocation. Odd jagged shapes flash by me with leering eyes and gaping maws. I sense the hot breath of frustrated carnivores wisping around my nostrils, and I lurch forward, am plunged, spiralling into the depths of some vortex. The world spins and darkens. Everything is purple. Great gobs of material break off from my snake body and are dissolved in the purple darkness. I am reduced to a single point, spinning in a spiral pattern ever deeper into the vortex. III --- Now she comes towards me, shining, smiling, her arms outstretched to embrace me, her hair flowing in the wind. I sail towards her in return, crying with joy. Her eyes gleam with a strange light, and she vanishes all at once with a peculiar sigh. I am surrounded by a strange shimmering in blocks of gold and indigo extending to infinity in all directions. The blocks flip and shift with a logic all their own. There are larger and smaller blocks; each is gold on one side and indigo on the other. I am motionless, bodiless, hovering silently amidst the sea of blocks. They shift and flip, flip and shift. Occasionally one will grow and brighten here; occasionally one will shrink and fade there. There is a constant metallic tinkle, as of a wind-chime in light breeze. The chime grows more insistent and demanding. Though I try to ignore it, the waves of sound begin to strike me with the force of a thunderstorm, shaking me this way and that. I see the blocks begin to break up and crumble. My eyelids flutter and there is a momentary flash of unearthly orange light. I cough. I splutter. My eyes open, and the spell is broken. I am sitting on my chair and the phone is ringing. I am stoned and tired, and feel suddenly sick. I don't want to answer the phone, in case it is her. I dare not fail to answer the phone, also in case it is her. I answer the phone. It's her. Beth. IV -- "Hi," she says. "What you doing?" "Just chilling," I say. "Like fuck," she says, and I giggle. "Yes please," I mumble, but she doesn't hear. "Chilling," she is saying. "You don't know the meaning of the word." "True," I say, but she is still a step ahead of me. "So why don't you come over?" "Aw man," I say. "You live too far." "So do you," she says. There is silence. "Seriously," she says. "What you up to?" "What do you mean?" "What do you mean what do you mean?" Her tone goes sharp. "What you up to?" "Why do you ask?" I reply, suddenly defensive. "Ah forget it." Now I am intrigued. "No, seriously, why do you ask?" "Forget it," she says. "Nothing. I shouldn't have called." "Ah, don't say that," I tell her. "It's always good to speak to you." "Yeah well," she says. "I'd better leave you to chill, innit." "Huh?" I begin, but she has already rung off. Shit. I dial her number, and wait, endlessly, for the phone to be answered. Eventually she picks up. "Hi," I say. "What you doing?" "Just chilling," she says. "Can I come over?" "Sure. Pick up some wine, yeah?" "On my way." V - I hang up and breathe deeply, looking around at the mess and squalor of my bedsit. I am still wearing the robes and tunic for the invocation, which feel suddenly heavy and uncomfortable. After carefully wrapping up the ritual objects from the table/altar, I change back into my customary jeans and t-shirt, and splash my face with cold water from the sink. Checking my pockets, I find just enough cash for bus fare and a bottle of wine. Alright. Let's go. I grab my jacket and leave the house. There is a light drizzle, cool on my face and neck. It is not warm, and I hesitate for a moment, halfway to the bus-stop, thinking about returning for my hat. Then I see the bus coming and start running headlong for the stop, cold and hats forgotten, arriving just as the bus does. I am too out of breath to say anything to the driver as I get on the bus, but the pound coin I place in front of him tells him all he needs to know and he answers with a click of his ticket machine. I grab my ticket and head shakily to the back row of the lower deck, the seat on the right, which is empty. The bus steams its way through the drizzle and evening traffic in a sea of wet headlights, and I loll in my seat, breathing slowly, watching the road. VI -- As Beth answers the door, I remember that I forgot to pick up any wine. She looks at me standing there for a moment, then says, "You forgot the wine." I nod. "Off-licence is on the corner," she says. "Back in five," I say, turning tail. There is a queue in the off-licence, and the place is small, arranged so that I have to push through the queue to get to where the wine is. "Sorry mate," I say, gesturing for him to let me past. The guy turns, and all at once I see that he is a she, skeleton thin, with bad skin, huge gaping eyes and a hideously toothy smile. The woman laughs and moves aside for me. "There you go darling," she says, and I suppress two involuntary shudders as I pass, first of revulsion, then of guilt. I stare blankly at the racks of wine for some moments, unable to read, until eventually my sight clears and I see there is nothing resembling anything from Bordeaux in this off-licence. I settle for Italian, a Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. Eyes bore into me as I leave, but I shrug it off and hurry back to the safety of the street. The wind whips around my ears as I clutch the bottle safely inside the blue plastic bag. It has started to rain, now, properly this time. By the time I ring Beth's doorbell a second time I am soaked. "Good evening," I say, as she answers it. "Come on in, the water's lovely." She giggles. VII --- Later, I am not lying naked in her arms between sweaty sheets, but parts of me are dearly wishing I was. Instead, I am sitting awkwardly in her other armchair, listening to her play me her new song, which, as it happens, blows me away. The chorus is catchy, the verses punchy, with a superbly unexpected and melodic middle bit. Her voice is sweat-stained silk splashed with whisky, the guitar by turns a hammer and a harp. It mesmerises me beyond my attraction to her, and my erection subsides. "Nice one," I say, as the song ends. "Ta," she says. "I could see you liked it." I blush. "So," she continues. "What were you up to earlier on?" "What do you mean?" I ask. "Well," she says, "when I'm sitting there just relaxing, listening to some music, and I get a sudden very strong sense that a friend of mine is doing something extremely stupid and dangerous, I kind of go with it, you know what I mean? I ring them up and ask what's happening. If I'm wrong, no harm done, and if I'm right, well, that's what it's for. You see?" I nod. "So what were you doing when I rang you. Chilling how?" VIII ---- It takes me a long while to answer. "Chilling how?" she repeats. I finish my wine, which turns out to be the end of all the wine there is, and tell her about the robe and the tunic, about the invocation and the wand, about the mantra, and the knife, the stick, the coin and the goblet. When I finish talking, she is silent a long while. "Have you got any idea what you are fucking with?" she says, eventually. "What do you mean?" I reply. "These rituals," she says. "Do you know how old they are? And where they are from?" "I... uh..," I begin, but she cuts me short. "This kind of thing, you think it will work here, in the middle of a big city? People used to train their whole lives to perform these rituals. And then only the sacred spots would work, and then only at the correct time of the year, and then only with the proper purification beforehand." "But it..." I say, but she is having none of it. "You can't just smoke a spliff, read a book, and launch into invoking this kind of spirit straight away, any old how and where you like. No wonder I felt you earlier on." "Are you... what?" I ask, making no sense. "You got this out of a book, right?" she asks. "Yeah." She sighs and stares at the ceiling. "Man." IX -- She sighs heavily a second time. "I don't know where to begin," she says. "Look," I say. "I don't know what you mean by dangerous. It's not like I just smoked a spliff and read a book and did this. I've been doing my yoga, and the banishing ritual, and purifying and preparing myself. Lots of reading, lots of meditating." She passes me the spliff. "Still smoking I see," she says. "Still drinking too. How've you been purifying yourself then?" "Well," I say, and look down, embarrassed. "I stopped wanking." I mumble. "You did what?" she yelps, laughing. "Oh my dear baby boy. You stopped wanking? Whatever for?" I blush deep crimson. "I dunno. All the books seemed to say you need to. For a bloke, I mean. Otherwise you just lose energy." "You could always try looking after yourself," she says. "Huh," I reply. "You know. A proper diet, plenty of exercise. Go to the gym. That kind of thing." "Ah," I say, "that kind of thing," and she snorts with disgust. "That's your problem," she says. "You think you're indestructible, and that you can get away with not looking after yourself, but you're not, and you can't." "Thanks mum," I say, taking a long toke on the spliff. And cough. And keep coughing. And have to be slapped on the back and given a glass of water from the tap before I can breathe normally again. "Yeah, she says. "That's your problem." X - Later, I am lying naked in her arms between sweaty sheets. She nuzzles my neck and giggles suddenly. "I'm glad you stopped wanking," she says. "It's nice to think you're keeping it all for me." "Mmm," I say, kissing the top of her head. "And you came really quickly in my mouth." she says. "Mmm," I say. "You too." "Well," she says, "it kind of turned me on when you told me you'd stopped wanking." "Mmm," I say, and open my eyes. I am on the night bus home, with a painful erection; my balls feel like they are made of iron, tight and heavy. I feel vaguely disgusted with myself, and vow I will not permit myself to lapse into fantasising about Beth again. I get home, roll myself a last spliff, put on a CD of ambient music, and set my alarm clock for the morning. In bed, I contemplate breaking my vow not to wank for as long as possible, but reject the idea as there are no tissues beside the bed. I take a last toke on the spliff, have a sip of water, and lay back on the pillow, willing my body to relax. I ought to be able to relax. After all, I have everything I need.