THE ROOT OF THE MATTER
Morcello, being of Italian stock, Neapolitan to be precise, was naturally horrified to be stepping out of his spaceship into darkest Gabon, teeming with the damnable inferior race and dripping with humidity. He removed a silk embroidered handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his brow with the grace of a silent film actress. His diminutive servant Sumar waddled out of the ship's bay and took his place at the heel of his brave captain. "Well you little Odenton, we've much work to do. I hope you've left Chip with enough funnies to sustain him while we are out adventuring." Sumar nodded deferentially and followed his master into the jungle like a dog.
The purpose of Morcello's excursion to Gabon was to visit with the Bwiti cult, worshipers of the iboga root-bark. Legend had it that taking iboga was the equivalent of ten years of therapy in one night. Its users experienced visions beyond description or comprehension and heard the voices of spirits speaking directly to them. If the user had a clear and simple question then iboga would provide him a clear and simple answer. Morcello wanted to find out exactly where he could find the fire lotus in Africa and had a nagging suspicion that no human would be able to tell him. The good doctor would have to endure the Bwiti tribespeople and their ceremony in order to receive his answer and this buggered him none too lightly. However, their native accommodations would only burden him for an evening, most of which he would be out of his ever loving mind anyway. He chuckled at the thought of Sumar having to bear witness to the entire night's events surrounded by savages that might or might not consider making a small meal out of him.
The pair trudged through the moist, sun-dabbled thickness of the forest for a better part of the day. As usual, the doctor knew exactly where he was going and as usual, he neglected to mention the details of such to...
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER
Morcello, being of Italian stock, Neapolitan to be precise, was naturally horrified to be stepping out of his spaceship into darkest Gabon, teeming with the damnable inferior race and dripping with humidity. He removed a silk embroidered handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his brow with the grace of a silent film actress. His diminutive servant Sumar waddled out of the ship's bay and took his place at the heel of his brave captain. "Well you little Odenton, we've much work to do. I hope you've left Chip with enough funnies to sustain him while we are out adventuring." Sumar nodded deferentially and followed his master into the jungle like a dog.
The purpose of Morcello's excursion to Gabon was to visit with the Bwiti cult, worshipers of the iboga root-bark. Legend had it that taking iboga was the equivalent of ten years of therapy in one night. Its users experienced visions beyond description or comprehension and heard the voices of spirits speaking directly to them. If the user had a clear and simple question then iboga would provide him a clear and simple answer. Morcello wanted to find out exactly where he could find the fire lotus in Africa and had a nagging suspicion that no human would be able to tell him. The good doctor would have to endure the Bwiti tribespeople and their ceremony in order to receive his answer and this buggered him none too lightly. However, their native accommodations would only burden him for an evening, most of which he would be out of his ever loving mind anyway. He chuckled at the thought of Sumar having to bear witness to the entire night's events surrounded by savages that might or might not consider making a small meal out of him.
The pair trudged through the moist, sun-dabbled thickness of the forest for a better part of the day. As usual, the doctor knew exactly where he was going and as usual, he neglected to mention the details of such to Sumar. Soon enough, however, the pair detected a hint of smoke in the humid air. Morcello felt a hairless arm snake around his waist and then another and suddenly he was in the air, hoisted upon the shoulders of several Bwiti tribesmen. Sumar shrieked like the pathetic midget he was cursed to be as he too took leave of the ground. A rhythmic chanting drowned out the sounds of birds as the pair was carried into a clearing where the villagers were preparing a great bonfire. The jet-black-skinned people worked joyously and Morcello could not help but think to himself that they would make fine servants if he ever retrieved his estate in Italy. Their alabaster teeth shone like jewels in their smiles, revealing the healthiest pink tongues the doctor could ever wish to lay eyes upon. The women worked bare-chested and displayed flat breasts and distended nipples that rendered Morcello rather limp. Nonetheless, they seemed a proud lot with nothing but potential, were the opportunity for civilization ever to arise. Sumar grimaced as he was gently plopped to the ground again and he nervously scuttled to the doctor's side. A tall, handsome, well-adorned tribesman emerged from a grass-leaf hut to greet them in his gibberish tongue. "Nyut byk ka may Y ye", Morcello chirped in flawless Bwiti. The tribesman laughed resoundingly and slapped Morcello's shoulder with delight. "Ka ye iboga y", Morcello continued. This seemed to Sumar more of a formality than anything, as it seemed the ceremony had been prepared for in advance. As the sun set over the forest canopy the sparks of torches illuminated the village and the smell of warm bananas and goat's meat drifted into the sky.
INSTANT KARMA
Daedalus awoke to the scent of jasmine incense sailing through his window. His room was dark and the lights of Bombay were gradually twinkling to life. His body felt stiff and congested and his head felt heavy, clouded with the dregs of nightmares and cognac fumes. Before he could take stock of the previous fortnight since he had last been at the service of Doctor Morcello, he noticed a shadow in the crack of light beneath his door. He sucked in his breath and reached under the mattress for his loaded Glock. It felt cool to the touch but reaffirming and undying. As he cocked the chamber, the shadow disappeared.
Instantly, Daedalus was on his bare feet, dashing down the hotel's marble hallway past fat, hurried, old English couples checking in for the night. The concierge yelled something as he ran past but Daedalus didn't hear as he shot out into the piazza after God knows whom. He stopped in the middle of the piazza and stood for a moment like a loaded spring when he heard shouting down a small side street beyond the hotel's outer garden. Running towards the clatter, he leapt the small stonewall enclosing the garden and trampled rows of flowers as he made his way through. Down the sidestreet, there was a commotion ensuing between a street vendor and a young teenage couple. An upturned Gobi cart blocked the sidewalk as Daedalus approached. "Which way did he go", he blurted in the best Hindi he could conjure. The three pointed in the direction of an apartment building under construction just down the way. He ran towards the darkened shell of a building and disappeared beyond the scaffolding. He emerged into a future courtyard and stopped to catch his breath. The endless chain of cigarettes over the years made his lungs burn as if he had swallowed a bowl of hot coals.
The yard formed a triangular dead end between windowless walls. There was an odor of damp mingled with that of urine and beer. In one corner, either something was dumped, or else it was a cart with its shafts in the air. Daedalus produced a tiny flashlight from his pocket, and a skimming circle of gray light outlined a grating, the moving shadows of descending steps, an iron door. Taking a childish delight in choosing the most mysterious entrance, Daedalus unlocked the door. He ducked when he saw a round of flitting light appear down the dark stone passage before him. Then: blackness. He followed the corridor by flashlight into a murky basement through which he could distinguish sacks and crates piled here and there and something like straw rustled underfoot. The thin beam of his flashlight appeared ahead in the darkness accompanied by heavy breathing. It was female. The mobile beam turned a corner, and yet another door appeared. Beyond it rose a bare staircase that melted into the blackness. He shuffled up the stone steps like an explorer of a buried temple. With dream-like unexpectedness he emerged presently into a vast hall. The light glanced across metallic shadows, then along folds of drapery, gigantic wardrobes, swinging mirrors and broad-shouldered black figures. Daedalus stopped, put away his light and said hoarsely in the dark "Attention!" He heard fumbling, and a single pear shaped bulb brightly illuminated a counter. The remainder of the hall-an endless labyrinth-remained submerged in darkness, and Daedalus found it a little eerie to have this one nook singled out by strong light. Beneath the cobwebs surrounding the nook was a full bar. Ancient bottles reflected the light where they weren't shrouded in dust. In the corner of his eye, a huge shadow crept across the adjacent wall when Daedalus felt his knees slacken. He realized someone was pinching the back of his neck and that it was immediately paralyzing him.
As he lay completely immobile on the dank floor, a woman appeared in his field of vision. She was dressed in Muslim garb but was obviously a Westerner. She had a severe face with thin chapped lips and close-set, beady eyes. She was of solid build and Daedalus suspected it to be made of nothing but the most fibrous of muscle. Her cheeks were sunken and flushed and what strands of hair freed themselves from her head scarf appeared to be red by what little light was available. With only the movement of his eyes available to him, he watched as the woman made a call on a cellular phone. His hearing was engulfed by a ringing like the whistle of a train so he couldn't make out what she said to the person on the other end of the call. Terror rose up through his stomach as she exited the hall, leaving him helpless and alone for what seemed an eternity. During this time, his thoughts turned to notions of madness, torture, and death. The tough streets of Philadelphia began to seem quaint and laughable compared to the situation in which he now found himself. Like some kind of pitiful child, he frantically began to fantasize that Morcello would appear to rescue him like some kind of omniscient protector. He could hear that grating, incongruous British accent echoing through the hollows of his terrified mind chiding him for his impulsiveness and foolishness. At some point as dawn's light crept through the basement windows, he passed out from sheer exhaustion. When he awoke, he was in the cargo bay of a C-17 thousands of feet in the air and freezing cold.
MORCELLO'S ANSWER
The roaring bonfire illuminated Sumar's grotesque facial musculature as he stared fixedly at his master in what appeared to be the throes of complete and utter spastic, bat-shit insanity. Morcello was crawling through a gauntlet of writhing tribespeople to the intricate beat of drums and chanting. Vomit and drool caked his wretchedly pained face and he was panting like a dying rotweiller. His pupils eclipsed any sign of white in his eyes and sweat was dripping from his body like a summer rain. A gurgling sound began to emit from the doctor's grotesquely contorted lips. "Flirgehe Gggggllooggggguussshh", cried Morcello in a haunting growl. Suddenly, the doctor shot up and ran screaming into the blackness of the jungle. Sumar leapt to his feet to chase after him but strong, black hands pushed him back down and held him in place. A Bwiti shaman tried to comfort Sumar by pointing to the sky and making circular motions in the smoke of the bonfire. Resistance drained from poor Sumar as those hands held him in his seat and he decided to hope Morcello knew what he was doing and grudgingly accepted some shredded goat's meat from the insistent old tribeswoman shoving it through his lips. The tribe danced and sang for hours into the night. Occasionally, Sumar thought he could hear Morcello screaming far off in the distance. If only his servant could have seen what was making the doctor scream. Deep in the jungle, a gigantic blue-green glowing leopard was devouring Morcello's very soul. The iboga had manifested itself and was taking Morcello beyond the frontiers of sanity and fear. But it was also protecting him from the very real jungle beneath his feet. His blood-curdling screams most likely frightened any animals in the vicinity to death anyway. Somewhere in Morcello's heart, he was talking to the leopard. "Where can I find the Fire Lotus?" bellowed the immortal aspects of the doctor in one exhausting request. "Nag Hammadi", repeated the beast like a chorus of exploding stars.
"Wake up you lazy imp! My word, boy, you sleep like the dead. Wake up, I say!" Sumar's puffy eyelids strained themselves open to reveal sunlight creeping over the silhouette of his master, who was kicking him square in the ribs. He writhed out of harm's way and vaulted his tiny body up to see Morcello's devilish smile gleaming wickedly at him. No worse for the wear, the doctor stood proud and tall, almost rejuvenated. In contrast, Sumar felt weak and weary. His smoke clogged nostrils struggled to allow air in. "I was so worried about you Sir, I could hardly sleep", mustered Sumar. "Well, I'll say that was half-true, eh?" replied Morcello. Sumar guffawed and rubbed his eyes. A small group of tribesmen were preparing a morning hunting expedition and would accompany Sumar and Morcello back to their ship by a significantly shorter route. The Bwiti took their leave at jungle's edge and the two boarded the ship and woke Chip. He was fast asleep, face down, in a Manga comic book. "Wake up my fine navigator, we are headed to Egypt, the White Nile to be exact. Fire us up and get us there post haste. I believe our foray into Gabon has been most fruitful," announced Morcello. "Aye, Aye Captain", blurted Chip as he began fiddling with the ship's motherboard. Sumar retreated to his bunk and promptly returned to the land of dreams as the doctor took his place in The Lion's Den. He would now have the sacred flower that had been denied him in India and all would not be lost thanks to his own natural tenacity and the iboga's eternal wisdom.
FORMS OF ST. PACHOMIUS
All Daedalus could hear was the roaring of the C-17's engine and all he could feel was the cold wind in the cargo bay slapping against his skin through his cotton shirt. He had no way of ascertaining how long he had been asleep for but deduced he must have been drugged at some point. The taste in his mouth was a mixture of dust and a metallic chemical taste, not unlike battery acid. His feet were still bare and rather numb and just as he discovered he was tethered to a gigantic eye-bolt in the plane's ceiling, his stomach dropped as the vessel fell into its descent. On the ground, the pavement of the desert airstrip shimmered in the late afternoon sun. A flurry of dust rose up to meet the landing plane while two Jeeps sped towards the scene. Tanned, mustachioed Egyptians dressed in black jumped out of the vehicles armed with M-16 machine guns. They approached the rear of the ship as the cargo bay's door opened. They were taken aback to find only Dadaelus, unarmed and barely able to move. They shouted at one another in Arabic when the C-17's pilot and the woman from Bombay joined them and gave them instructions. They unhooked Daedalus, threw his limp body in the back of the Jeep and the entire party sped away from the airstrip.
From his modest makeshift jail cell in a back alley apartment, Daedalus could hear the din of men in the nearby cafes talking politics, business, or simple gossip in hyper-masculine Arabic tones. The smell of tobacco from the hookahs and cumin from the kitchens was vaguely intoxicating but Daedalus had no patience to take it in. He had to plot his escape and he had the feeling it wouldn't be overly difficult. He doubted there was even a guard outside his door because it had been very quiet for several hours since his captors had thrown him into the Cairo efficiency. He figured they were out contacting higher-ups and soon they would be back for him. He grabbed the bars of the one window facing the alley and summoned all his strength in an effort to pry them apart. Apparently his strength wasn't forthcoming because they did not budge. Instead he tore off his shirt when he remembered something he once saw in a movie. He broke a leg off his flimsy cot and tied his shirt around it as well as around the window bars. He began twisting bed leg furiously, tightening the shirt like a vice around the bars. After several intense minutes, the bars popped open just like they had in the movie. Daedalus squeezed his undernourished frame through the window and literally thanked God he wasn't fat. He made his way down the alley and into the crowded evening streets. He wished he had followed Morcello's advice to learn Arabic and then he wished he had his gun or some money: anything at all in fact. He had no idea where he was or where he was going but his street-wisdom seemed to propel him to find something that he would certainly know when he saw. Suspicious glares surrounded him as he wandered, half naked through Cairo's malls. Soon, the police would be alerted and it was likely they wouldn't treat him much better than that ugly bitch or her thugs. Quickly, he eyed a fire escape and grabbed himself a shirt from an apartment's clothesline. He scampered away and back into the crowds as he frantically pondered his fate. Then, like some ironic miracle, a crowd of tourists appeared before him debarking a bus, back from the pyramids. They were mostly white, sunburned, and exhausted but to Daedalus, they looked like angels of salvation. He immediately approached a young couple and offered to help them with their bags. "Are you American?" laughed the young woman. "Philadelphia, born and raised", he retorted. "Well, what the heck happened to you? You look terrible", she said.
"I was robbed today" he ejaculated. "A bunch of teenagers. Beggars probably; took everything but the shirt off my back".
"And the police can't do anything?" the young man asked.
"They basically laughed in my face." Daedalus replied dejectedly.
The young couple closed ranks to talk amongst themselves while Daedalus chuckled to himself for his ingenuity. Just as he hoped, the couple turned back towards him.
"You just have to stay with us tonight. We have a hotel right downtown.", said the young woman.
"And we won't take no for an answer either so don't even go there" said the young man.
"I'm Connie" she said.
"And I'm Brad" he said.
Daedalus introduced himself and smiled sheepishly for their benefit. He could barely believe his good luck. Brad hailed a cab and the trio was whisked off to beautiful Maadi Towers in the heart of Cairo where they got to know each other over a dinner of shish kabobs and bad Egyptian beer. Daedalus even managed to bum enough cigarettes from nearby diners to clear his head. He fed them a long line of classic Philly bullshit about studying abroad, heartbreak, and dashed hopes. They listened with rapt attention with a level of politeness that betrayed their Midwestern origins. They were both from Wisconsin, Spring Green to be exact, and were traveling on their honeymoon inspired by a special they watched on the National Geographic Network about the ancient pyramids. Daedalus awed them with his elementary knowledge of Egyptian history while they eagerly ordered him more food and drink. They talked on into the night until Brad was a bit too tipsy to keep going, at which point he excused himself and went up to their hotel room to pass out. Daedalus had drunk himself into a blissful myopia where he momentarily forgot the traumas of the past two days and instead was focusing on Connie's pretty Midwestern smile instead. She was babbling on about how Brad couldn't hold his liquor and how she could drink him under the table and whatever else young brides talk about to strangers in strange lands. At some point though, Daedalus just reached out his hand, grabbed hers, and led her into the lobby of the hotel. Just beyond the lounge was an indoor pool and beyond that, a sauna. Most of the guests had long since retired and Daedalus calculated that as long as she didn't make too much noise, they could get away with fucking in the sauna. Connie's compliance was both docile and fluid, as if she had expected this result since meeting him. The sauna was totally deserted but still very humid. Candles were burning and their flames danced on the pools of warm water adorned with rose petals. He led her to a cedar bench, sat her down and hiked her dress up. Her golden, corn-fed Wisconsin thighs were both soft and strong at once and the plumpness of her other lips straining through those white cotton panties beckoned him home. He noshed on her wet little pussy like a starving cow as those golden thighs shuddered and tightened around his shoulders. He fucked her like the naughty bitch she probably fantasized about being and gave himself over to such a well-deserved and explosive orgasm that he momentarily passed out as he was coming in her hungry pussy. He rested his head in the valley of her perfect chest and gasped in ecstasy. He thought his eyes were filling with tears when he finally glanced upward to see a river of blood rushing down Connie's face. A hatchet blade disappeared from a huge crack in Connie's skull as Daedalus fell backwards to the tile floor. A humungous bearded assassin was barreling down on him with the bloody hatchet in a frenzy of murderous yearning. Daedalus choked on his own spit as he scrambled across the floor away from the clanking blade. All of his clothes sat in a timid pile at Connie's dead feet and there was no help in sight. He thought to himself that he felt like Golem crawling across the floor like this, completely naked and desperate and that if he survived he would buy himself a gold ring somewhere in Cairo and never takes it off. The assassin foamed at the mouth; sweat pouring from his rooster red turban. He stomped toward Daedalus like a Minotaur as his desperate target rose to his feet only to fall against the stone wall in front of him. His hand slid across the wall and then suddenly recoiled by the sharp pain of intense heat. He grabbed the silver candle holder out of the wall with super human strength and jammed the sharp end into the assassin's eye as he overcame him. The fat Arab screamed and dug the hatchet into Daedalus' good shoulder. Blood was shooting through the candle holder in his eye like music through the horn of a victrola. With sufficient leverage attained, Daedalus wielded a fierce palm into the bank of the Arab's giant nose. With a tremendous crack, shards of nasal cartilage pierced the giant's brain and he fell to the tile floor like an oak tree. Behind his twitching body stood a familiar gang flanking him with machine guns, led by the ugly Muslim redhead. Two thugs swiftly wrapped Daedalus in dark robes and herded him into the back of a waiting Jeep in front of Maadi Towers.
"If you let him go this time, I'll cut off all your balls and feed them to each other", screamed the redhead in Arabic.
A virtual caravan of Jeeps sped out of the city into the desert night towards the pyramid at Giza.
Morcello, being of Italian stock, Neapolitan to be precise, was naturally horrified to be stepping out of his spaceship into darkest Gabon, teeming with the damnable inferior race and dripping with humidity. He removed a silk embroidered handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his brow with the grace of a silent film actress. His diminutive servant Sumar waddled out of the ship's bay and took his place at the heel of his brave captain. "Well you little Odenton, we've much work to do. I hope you've left Chip with enough funnies to sustain him while we are out adventuring." Sumar nodded deferentially and followed his master into the jungle like a dog.
The purpose of Morcello's excursion to Gabon was to visit with the Bwiti cult, worshipers of the iboga root-bark. Legend had it that taking iboga was the equivalent of ten years of therapy in one night. Its users experienced visions beyond description or comprehension and heard the voices of spirits speaking directly to them. If the user had a clear and simple question then iboga would provide him a clear and simple answer. Morcello wanted to find out exactly where he could find the fire lotus in Africa and had a nagging suspicion that no human would be able to tell him. The good doctor would have to endure the Bwiti tribespeople and their ceremony in order to receive his answer and this buggered him none too lightly. However, their native accommodations would only burden him for an evening, most of which he would be out of his ever loving mind anyway. He chuckled at the thought of Sumar having to bear witness to the entire night's events surrounded by savages that might or might not consider making a small meal out of him.
The pair trudged through the moist, sun-dabbled thickness of the forest for a better part of the day. As usual, the doctor knew exactly where he was going and as usual, he neglected to mention the details of such to...