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Great War

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , on May 11, 2012 by javedbabar

There was a downside to the Nobbys – black spots that Naomi and her uncle Bobby had drawn all over the page. They were indeed points of possibility, from which any image could appear spontaneously, but they were also holes into which objects could disappear. They were points of both creation and destruction.

Naomi pulled up her socks and smoothed her hair. “What are you doing?” asked Bobby.

“I’m going into the drawing,” she said. “To look around.”

“Wait a minute,” said Bobby. “Let’s think about this first. What’s happening in there? We should know before we go back.”

Naomi pushed her nose up against the drawing. She was looking too closely, thought Bobby, she must have weak eyes. Did she need glasses already?

She said, “They look like holes when you look closely. Not like mole hills or star…” Bobby half-turned his head and said, “Sshh! Listen! Can you hear something?”

Naomi half-turned her head the other way, trying to mirror her uncle. She heard rumblings far away, like flour sacks hitting the ground every few seconds. She wondered, what are these tha-booms?

“Get down!” said Bobby as he felt a wave of hot air rush across his fingers. It seemed as if the air pushed first one way and then the other. He also felt a blast of heat, and tiny sharp fragments. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” he said, pulling back his hands. Naomi had already ducked under the table.

Bobby looked into the drawing and saw a black ball with a wick at the top, a classic cartoon bomb which makes a spiky flash saying “Boom!” But it also had a long fuse running along the ground, which joined with other fuses coming from other bombs, all making a thick tangle heading off towards a nuclear reactor with the tri-lobed International Radiation Hazard sign. It seemed these small chemical explosions were part of a larger system to trigger a nuclear explosion.

“Stay under the table!” he shouted at Naomi, and entered the drawing. He smelled cordite and a chilli tang. The site of the nearest Nobby was a blast seat – a point of detonation and destruction. He wondered what had been destroyed at this dark heart of explosive power. There was no obvious wreckage to show type, quantity, or quality of explosive used, not that he was any expert; what he knew was by watching footage from Iraq and Afghanistan. He looked for evidence of mechanical stress, penetration of projectiles, pressure damage, and other explosion-generated effects. Exothermic reactions of explosive materials provide sudden violent energy release. There is no mistaking a bomb.

“Uncle Bobby! Can I come out now?” Naomi’s voice was faint, but audible in the drawing, as the rumblings were far away.

“No! Stay where you are!” he shouted.

He wondered what had been destroyed here. Was it an actual physical object or just its image – this was a drawing after all. He saw another Nobby and walked towards it, crushing loose mortar fragments and crunching glass. This Nobby was different. Its blackness was diffuse.

If these blasts had occurred already, then how had they affected the nuclear reactor? Had it been destroyed, and its radiation released? Bobby checked his hands to see if they were flaking or glowing. They seemed quite hairy but otherwise fine.

He recalled a news item about Thermobarbaric weapons, which produced a vicious combination of negative shock waves and extreme temperatures, incinerating objects immediately. It was a way for governments to kill people horribly yet claim that they were acting morally, because it was a “conventional weapon”.

Bobby felt a great separation in the drawing. It seemed that great powers had assembled into opposing alliances, with black and white pulling apart. Buildings were standing and trees were lush but humans were absent. Some wretched plot had been hatched. Was this drawing a place of secret destruction?

He fell to his knees unexpectedly. He felt overwhelmed and lost. This was a future battlefield where millions, even billions, could be killed by the press of one button, but “valuable infrastructure” preserved. What future was there for anyone?

A little hand touched and then held his hand. His niece Naomi had entered the drawing. She smiled and he smiled. He laughed and she laughed. Her mouth was a little black hole full of everything, including words of innocence and dreams of truth.

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Revolting

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , on May 10, 2012 by javedbabar

Naomi and her Uncle Bobby had been drawing all day. They had started with a jungle in his hardback notebook, which, over many pages, had developed into a city, which became chaotic and whose streets were now ruled by Strong Man, the leader of local vigilante group LL (Lookout Lucerne). It was said that he had become so powerful that even The Authority dared not refuse his requests. He had recently banned all art.

This created a serious issue for Naomi and Bobby. They had created this world by drawing, and if art was banned then how would their story develop? This creative conundrum led to high-order inertia.

“What shall we do, Uncle Bobby?” Naomi sat with her head in her hands, with her fat coloured pencils lying on the table around her. She had inadvertently placed them in a semi-circle around the drawing, all of them pointing inwards, as if the forms hidden within them yearned to break free and manifest themselves. But for this they needed Naomi’s co-operation, and Strong Man’s permission, for the worlds within and beyond the drawing were interpenetrated.

“Strong Man has become the dictator,” said Bobby. “I wonder whether he has a social agenda of some kind, or he’s just power crazy. In the ancient world, dictator was a respectable title, meaning a person appointed to rule in times of trouble. Strong Man isn’t that though. He’s a bully. He made the trouble! He’s made The Authority suspend elections and civil liberties, then proclaimed a state of emergency, repressed political opponents, and he rules by decree. Kid, these are dangerous times. We should keep our heads down for a while.”

“But shouldn’t we do something?” said Naomi. “Remember when we ate oysters on the coast? You told me about the grain of sand that irritates the oyster and becomes a pearl? Can’t people be like that, and cause trouble, and make things better?”

Her eyes look like pearls, thought Bobby. He told her how every system becomes rigid and eventually needs to change. The classic example was India’s caste system. What began as family-oriented trade guilds became a method of social oppression where people were killed for being careless enough to allow their shadow to fall across that of a higher caste person. You needed a revolutionary like Gandhi to catalyse change. He called Untouchables “Children of God”.

“These revolutionaries, are they good people or bad people?” said Naomi. “Don’t they cause lots of trouble?”

Bobby needed to think things through. Yes they did cause trouble, and sometimes wars, but they had higher purpose.

His art history studies came to mind. His favourite artists had all been mavericks. Picasso had produced so many styles of work that he was impossible to pin down – was he making blue, rose, African, cubist, or epic political art? Jackson Pollock’s huge, wild drip paintings challenged views of representational art. Damien Hirst had pickled sheep and sharks, promoting death as art. Were they great artists – who knew? They had shaken things up surely, but would an artist be enough to change Naomi and Bobby’s world?

Maybe a scientist would be better. Galileo’s improvements to the telescope led to his championing the heliocentric universe, for which “heresy” he was placed under lifetime house arrest. Darwin’s careful observations of creatures led to his conclusion that all species of life evolve by natural selection, revolutionizing our understanding of life on earth. Einstein worked quietly on developing the world’s most famous equation: E=mc2, which explained space-time and accelerated quantum theory.

Or maybe they need a spiritual revolutionary. Buddha the Awakened One rejected traditional power structures and prevailing notions of old age, sickness, and death. Moses killed an oppressive slave-master and led his people across the Red Sea into the Promised Land. Jesus mixed with prostitutes and lepers, and healed the sick and lame. All of these people were seen as both good and bad but given time, their truths became clear.

Bobby wondered about Lucerne’s holy men; Guru Baba was too old and demented, and Ozwold Malchizedek, known as OM, was too flaky.

“What about you?” said Naomi, as if she had been following his thoughts.

“I’m an introvert,” he said. “I don’t like crowds.”

“Well I like crowds,” said Naomi. “Don’t you remember, I sang and danced on Canadia Day? Why don’t we do it together? Naomi and Bobby – we could become Nobby.”

Bobby couldn’t help laughing. “Okay,” he said, and together they drew black spots – what she called Nobbys – all over her drawing. Points of Change. Known to mystics as black light or midnight sun, each was a union of opposites, where duality was encompassed by unity, and everything returned to its original state of Purity and Possibility. Each Nobby they made with the point of a pencil was creation anew.

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Art Attacks

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , , on May 9, 2012 by javedbabar

Naomi and her Uncle Bobby had begun by sketching a jungle, to which they’d added roads, railways, and power lines, then factories, media, and telecoms. They discussed developing it into a city but decided to stay with quality over quantity, and avoid the congestion, pollution, noise, crime, expense and stress of urban centres. Modern development can’t be stopped though. Transformation of rural landscape to urban jungle is inexorable.

The hub of the city remained the original village, but it became increasingly commercial, and residents could no longer afford the inflated rents. Houses became shops, and shops became factories, and factories became distribution centres. Lucerne village was essentially a CBD: Central Business District. New suburbs developed on what were once farms, and beyond them were exburbs – separate municipalities within easy commute. These rapid changes horrified Bobby, but Naomi was more relaxed about them. New parks and playgrounds, shops and salons, galleries and museums were all open to her, mostly within walking distance, and because she was in her own drawing she didn’t have to attend school. There wasn’t one.

As the city acquired administrative, legal, and historic status its attraction grew, and many more people came for trade, sometimes travelling great distances. Whether they acquired the resources they needed, and how much, and at what price, and how soon, was affected by the skills they offered, the goods they brought with them, and sometimes their physical size, used to threaten shopkeepers. Most transactions were performed in an orderly manner, but a group of public-minded citizens formed an association called Lookout Lucerne to keep an eye on things, just in case. Their navy blue jackets sporting LL were a reassuring presence in this fast-paced new world.

The new city thrived. People poured in for jobs and entertainment. So many of them in close proximity ignited creative sparks. “I feel itchy fingers,” said Bobby. “I don’t know what it means though.”

“What kind of itching is it?” said Naomi.

“It’s on the inside of my skin, like insects wanting to burst out.” Bobby itched and rubbed his fingers. “I wish I could scrub it from within.”

“Why don’t you just keep drawing till it goes away?” said Naomi. “That’s what I do. When my feet itch I dance, when my ears itch I play music, and when my tummy rumbles I eat.”

Bobby picked some of her fat coloured pencils and got busy. He filled the pages of his hardback notebook with flowing music, dancing, painting, drama, film storyboards and sculptures, all merging together and pulling apart. The galleries, theatres, and concerts halls of their new city were busy, and most performances were sold out, but Naomi always comp’d tickets for herself and Uncle Bobby.

This place had a fierce creativity. The Authority recognized artistic hotspots as “growth points” and used them to fuel local economic activity. As people became more productive and creative, they began to seek answers to questions they had never asked. They debated metaphysics and moral philosophy, studied logic, explored aesthetics, and sought guidance from spiritual teachers, the most prominent of whom were Guru Baba and Ozwald Malchizedek (OM).

Guru Baba was a traditionalist who urged them to focus on meditation and prayer, and slowly develop their souls. He said, “One day you will reach yourselves.”

OM was a modern master pursuing a sensualist approach, who said the natural way was for humans to follow the Principle of Pleasure (POP). He instructed them to see, smell, taste, hear, and touch whatever gave them immediate joy. “Enjoy every day,” he said, “and tomorrow will take care of itself.”

OM’s teachings inspired a popular street art movement. Huge, red-lipped flowers filled civic buildings, golden rockets blasted off office blocks, blue sweating monkeys swung about poles, and black babies floated along factory walls. There were pickled whales in swimming pools, and corpses having sex suspended from street signs. Someone made a life size OM out of garbage. It was a deep comment on the cyclic nature of existence.

This Muse Infuse movement said that there should be unfettered art everywhere. There were occasional disputes about the quality and quantity of works, and who’d created them, but these were quickly resolved by Lookout Lucerne members. They meted out harsh punishments – a white man accused of tagging a black man’s work had his hands cut off. Similarly a black man drawing a white woman was castrated. The Authority agreed that multi-cultural harmony must be preserved at all costs. Soon art was seen as too dangerous to be left to the public. One of OM’s followers, known as Strong Man, rebelled and formed a splinter movement which took control of the streets and banned art entirely. Lookout Lucerne units were instructed to perform Art Attacks.

“What do we do now, Uncle Bobby?”

He said, “I guess we’d better stop drawing.”

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New City

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , on May 8, 2012 by javedbabar

They had come a long way since the original jungle. In four hours of drawing together, Bobby and his niece Naomi had created a well established village with roads, railways, power lines, factories, local media, and telecoms. They could remain outside the drawing, designing it like architects, or go within it to finish it as fine artists. Large scale changes were made quickly from the outside, but they also needed to pop in for experiential quality control.

They had four more hours till Bobby’s sister came to collect Naomi. After a short break, listening to ambient tunes on Naomi’s iPod, she said, “Let’s draw a city!” Then she became pensive. “Is it just like a big village really?”

Bobby smiled. So she didn’t know everything. Two hours ago she had lectured him on hard and soft infrastructure, and now she was asking him this basic question. It was nice to know that adults were still required in this youthful world where industries and jobs, and even countries, could transform overnight.

He said, “It’s a large permanent settlement and has complex systems.” She looked at him wide-eyed. “Things like industry, housing, transportation, and utilities, and sanitation.”

“But how many people live there?” she said. “More than a million?”

He said that there was no fixed number, but a million sounded about right. Why did she choose a million?

“Because that’s the biggest proper number that I can think of,” she said. “After that you just start counting again – one million, two million, three million, four million, five million…” She stopped at ten million and said, “Why did people start living in cities? Why didn’t they just stay in villages? Aren’t they nicer? There’s no millions, just people.”

Bobby took his role as Uncle seriously. Despite his niece sometimes knowing more than him, he did his best to educate her. She knew more about games, apps, and social media – O.K., technology in general, the area increasingly required for you to function in this world, and without whose competence you were handicapped.

He told her what he recalled from school. The Neolithic revolution was when hunter-gatherers began to grow crops in an organized manner, and created permanent settlements. Agriculture proved to be an efficient method of food production; instead of say eight hours, each person could produce the food needed in four hours, and spend the time saved pursuing crafts, or producing twice as much food, and trading it for other goods they desired. Such an economy would draw other people into it, and as it grew, the settlement grew, usually on grid plans or as radial structures with central temples.

“But you’ve only told me how the cities grew. Not why people live in them. Why did you live in the city? I mean before you…” Her sentence trailed off, as she knew that this was a sensitive topic. The first part of the question was O.K. though.

Bobby said, “It’s mainly because of concentrated facilities. Everything is close by, so people can share knowledge and develop new ideas. The best thing about cities is that you can get many things done there. They are places of creation.”

Naomi looked perplexed and said, “But don’t you have all those things in a village too? In Lucerne we have people close by, we have knowledge of things like farming, construction, and mining, and people have lots of ideas and time to develop them.”

Maybe she was right, thought Bobby. Was it only a matter of scale? You could do all of those things in a small place too, on a smaller scale. Wasn’t quality better than quantity? Cities had higher population density and labour differentiation, higher taxes paid to The Authority, monumental buildings, welfare systems, information recording systems, writing systems, symbolic art, extensive trade, huge consumer choice, and specialist craftsmen. Lucerne village had low population density and every person bore a range of skills; there was an informal economy, modest buildings, and families relying on each other rather than the state; knowledge was transmitted orally, and there was appreciation of natural beauty rather than conceptual art; there was more gifting than trade, and people were generalists holding a wider world view. Lucerne was geared towards independence rather than the city’s dependence.

Bobby had failed in the city. He’d aimed too high, got too greedy, and spun out of control. He’d lost his job and money, and fallen into depression. And now he was here where everything was possible again. He could stand on his own two feet in the village. It was human scale.

He said, “Naomi, do you mind if we don’t draw a city?”

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Community Resources

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Unknown, World Myths with tags , , , , , , on May 7, 2012 by javedbabar

Bobby was still in the drawing with Naomi. His niece’s jungle had come to life, and whatever they added manifested in her parallel world. They could draw things whilst they were inside the drawing, but this was a laborious process as each item had to be detailed individually. It was much better to draw whilst outside the drawing, where large changes could be made easily. They had already drawn roads, railways, power lines, and factories. Their Village was coming to life.

“Let’s build some houses now,” said Naomi. “Everybody needs somewhere to live.”

“What kind shall we have?” said Bobby. His hand was beginning to hurt from all that drawing. Who used a pencil these days? They were awkward to hold. Why did they have hexagonal profiles? Wasn’t it easier to cut and paste images?

Then he felt inspired. He took terms he’d overheard – smart growth, green building, small footprint, and airtight – and strung them into a sentence. He wasn’t quite sure why he did it. Did he really need to impress his ten-year-old niece?

She frowned as he drew the houses. Each feature he added elicited a new twist to her facial expression. There was something on her mind. “Well, what do you think?” he said, proud of his compact, low-rise, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly, mixed-use development based upon principles of urban intensification, and championing long-range, regional sustainability over short-term parochialism.

“I don’t like it,” said Naomi. “I want a nice house with a pretty garden and fences around it, and lots of open windows for sunshine and breezes. I don’t want to live in a small, sealed-up box with other boxes above it, and below it, and on both sides.”

Naomi wasn’t in tune with the new guard of urban planners, innovative architects, visionary developers, and community activists. She was a traditionalist, a reactionary, an enemy of resource stewardship best practice.

She had told him off already for using up all the trees in the drawing to make electricity poles and railway sleepers, and made him draw new trees for lumber to build her extravagant residences. He didn’t like what she was doing but couldn’t stop her; she had a right to manifest her own world. So he said, “Okay, Naomi, why don’t you draw big houses, and I’ll draw apartment blocks.”

“Okay,” she said, having started drawing before he’d finished the sentence. “The happy families can live in my houses, and the lonely people can live in your boxes.” She looked up from her drawing. “Is that all right?”

Housing, however, was not just made of wood. They’d also need metal. Bobby drew in some mines – surface mines for minerals, and sub-surface mines for ores. He included protestors at the former, and trapped miners in the latter. Even drawings must be realistic.

Once the ores and minerals were extracted, they were sent to factories in the industrial park at the edge of the Village. Nails, screws, nuts, bolts, beams and girders were produced to build the housing, and extra metal was cut, machined, turned, threaded, ground, filled and fashioned into other useful goods. They were simple things initially like tools and weapons, then jewellery and engine parts, and later boats and rockets. Their village transformed quickly from a low-tech to a hi-tech society.

As Bobby and Naomi continued drawing, their new world’s elements increased and connections multiplied exponentially. Soon their Village was a place of televisions, radios, newspapers, and books; then landlines, cellphones, workpads, laptops, and desktops. Everybody was connected to everybody else. Each object was manufactured, distributed, marketed, and sold, before becoming obsolete, disposed of, repurposed, or recycled. Nothing was just what it was in the drawing. Everything was something else.

“Uncle Bobby, I’m getting a headache,” said Naomi.

“So am I, sweetheart. Shall we take a break from drawing?”

“Yes, let’s listen to my iPod. You can have one earphone, and I’ll have the other.”

They needed to disconnect from this crazy world they’d created. Naomi clicked through the screen menus, selecting Ambient>Instrumental>Nature>Jungle Sounds.

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Swirling

Posted in Lucerne Village, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2012 by javedbabar

Suzi saw him every morning. The Bakerman arrived at four a.m. looking dreadful. What did he do at nights – stay out drinking and dancing till the small hours? Maybe he was O.K. with less sleep, but Suzi wasn’t. For her to arise before four, she must be in bed by eight p.m. She needed her beauty sleep. What if one day he asked her out on a date? He was only likely to do that if she looked the part. There was the issue of how she would stay awake during the date, but if things progressed well there would be no sleeping; he would clutch and squeeze her till dawn – or opening time if sooner. She could sleep after that.

She watched him unlock the door and switch off the alarm. Once he wasn’t quick enough and it began bleating and flashing, and it looked like he was in a club dancing to a trance tune, the strobing blue light making it seem he was appearing and disappearing. He was her magic Bakerman.

He switched on the lights and the master power switch. Once a light bulb blew, shattering like a phosphoric bomb. What did they make them with now – mercury? It must have spread poison. Or maybe it was just glass fragments. It was a serious thing to happen in a bakery – glass in bread. He closed for the day and hired a specialist cleaner to remove the hidden shards.

He dragged out sacks of flour and measured portions. There was Whole Grain, oat flour, spelt flour, rice flour, rye, and good old fashioned, unrefined, bleached white flour. He used these flours for his breads, bagels, brioches, muffins, tarts, and rolls. He was an old fashioned baker using only bowls and rollers, and of course his hands to knead and punch. She imagined him beating her flesh like bread, not hard, just playfully. Enough to sting her.

Transformation required pain. A minimum of compromise and self-sacrifice and, if you were serious, rituals that caused irreversible harm. Circumcision, scarification, head-shaping, and ear-stretching. Even tattooing, marking you as different and changed forever.

His first round of baking was done by six. Truckers came in as soon as he opened the doors. Sometimes they were waiting already. Beef wanted two muffins and a double-double Americano. Taylor switched between sandwiches and bagels. Nancy loved his brioches, but would settle for tarts. It was a wonder that she kept her figure, being a full time trucker and daily pastry consumer.

Suzi went in at seven daily for a cappuccino and spelt or rice flour muffin. Something relatively healthy. She went again at twelve for a sandwich and smoothie. Her favourites were the turkey breast door stop and strawberry banana fruity. Her third visit daily was at four for tea and cake – Assam and whatever he’d made that day.

The Bakerman was nice to her initially – all welcomes and smiles. But one day she’d mentioned that she was attending a party and asked if he’d like to come along. Well to be precise, she’d asked him to “be her date”. She recalled his look of horror. It was as if the thought was so ridiculous that it had never occurred to him. He recovered quickly but too late for her to remain under any illusions. He clearly found her disgusting.

Suzi never went to the Bakery again. She went cold turkey. This didn’t stop her watching him though. His daily comings and goings. She felt most sad in the afternoons.

She missed his rainbow cake, with red, green, blue and gold, all swirling together. Rainbows were created by sun and rain. His smile and her tears.

She missed his marble cake. The brown and white whorls moving within and around each other. They were yin and yang. He and she.

Most of all she missed his Vanilla sponge cake. A simple flavour spread throughout it, combined with the flour forever.

To say she didn’t go to the Bakery wasn’t entirely true. She just held a different schedule. His keys had been easy to copy, and she’d figured out his codes by watching, so every Sunday she broke in at midnight. It was just to smell him. The breads and bagels he’d made the day before. She pushed her face into them. Smelled their cruel perfume. Once she didn’t reset the alarm properly, which he triggered when he entered. Once she’d removed a fuse to disarm the alarm, causing a bulb to explode. Sometimes she tested ingredients to ensure that they were worthy to touch his hands.

Today she had a special ingredient to add to his sourdough. Cyanide would put him behind bars for sure. At least there he would welcome her visits. Transformation requires pain.

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Silva Sanguinara

Posted in Lucerne Village, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , on May 2, 2012 by javedbabar

The Zoological Society of Lucerne had done a good job, taking the unused park near the centre of the Village and transforming it into a tropical garden. They had walled in heat and humidity, and also hoped to wall in crowds.

The purpose of the Core Enhancement Scheme was to make the downtown area more attractive. The Village had been creeping towards the Highway, and there was a danger that within ten years Lucerne’s vibrant centre would become deserted and its commercial district would be a highway strip mall. This was of great concern to Lucerne’s citizens, but not enough to stop them spending all day in the highway coffee shop.

Something needed to be done, and the Botanical Garden hit the Bull’s-eye. Individuals, couples, and families flocked there. They loved its colours and warmth. Insects were attracted by the moist forest, and they in turn drew birds.

Whenever Danny walked through the Botanical Garden he felt like he was in a fairy tale. Fresh green papaya and banana trees made his eyes smile. Sweet smells of miro-Tahiti flowers brightened his nose. Spiders spun webs which held jewels of dew in sunshine. Flashing blue and green hummingbirds whirred around his head. Did they think it was a source of nectar? It was only a matter of time before one hovered beside his ear and poked its long beak in. The garden seemed a painting by Henri Rousseau; the only thing missing was a dusky beauty from his brighter period, or a stealthy tiger from his darker phase.

A man in a green suit approached him. As he drew near, The Gardener tipped his top hat and said, “Good morning, Danny. It’s a beautiful day.”

“It sure is,” said Danny. “Every day here seems like paradise.”

“We do our best,” said The Gardener, smiling. “We do our best.” He turned off the main path onto a side trail.

This was the great joy of the Botanical Garden – there were almost as many trails as days of the year. You could try a different way daily. Danny turned off the main path and came to a patch of stunted palms with hairy fringes, and fine white fabric wrapped about their tops. They looked as if they were wearing tall fat turbans set with bright jewels, which upon closer inspection proved to be red and green information tags. The red ones said Silva Sanguinarus, and the green ones said, Silva Sanguinara. They must be males and females of the same species, thought Danny, but they seemed more dead than alive.

Some children ran along the same trail as Danny and were surprised to find him there. One said, “Mister, we play hide and seek here. Is that okay?” He said go ahead and headed back to the main path. He heard loud counting, then squeals of laughter and the inevitable shouting and crying.

Danny saw The Gardener in the distance and set off down a trail towards him. He was tending giant cacti – spiny phallic monsters with lush pink flowers that attracted wasp hordes. They didn’t seem to sting him though.

“Where do Silva Sanguinarus come from?” said Danny.

“Don’t be sexist,” said The Gardener. “They wouldn’t come from anywhere at all if it wasn’t for Silva Sanguinara. Males and females must travel together or they won’t grow.”

Danny didn’t like his smart remark. The Gardener continued, “I’m just teasing. They are a recent addition to the collection from Polynesia. They are very delicate when replanted so we cover their tops with cheesecloth. It protects their hearts.”

“Their hearts?” said Danny. “Trees have hearts?”

The Gardener smiled as he heard the children screaming, and said, “Have you never eaten artichoke hearts or palm hearts? A plant has a heart. It’s the centre of its consciousness.  If it is damaged, the plant dies.”

“What about in winter? How do they survive? Does the cloth protect their hearts?”

“We hope so. That’s the intention. But the Silva Sanguinarus and Sanguinara are a bit different. They bloom in winter with huge crimson flowers. They are a vital part of the Core Enhancement. Many people in Lucerne suffer from Seasonal Disaffective Disorder and the number of suicides is climbing. We hope that people taking winter walks will be cheered up by seeing the flowers and feel brighter inside.”

“That’s great,” said Danny. “I feel quite down in winter. I’ll make sure I come to visit.” He left the garden whistling, and walked home carrying spoors of Silva Sanguinarus and Sanguinara on his shoe soles. They had been released by the trees when he’d entered the side trail. Their hearts missed the iron-rich red soil of their homeland, and hoped that this weak human would kill himself violently this winter, and soak their spoors with blood. And then the Village, scared by another death, would plant even more of them to cheer people up. This had proved a fine method of propagation. They were evolving.

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Muldvarp

Posted in Conceptual Art, Lucerne Village, Mystical Experience, Unknown with tags , , , , , , , on May 1, 2012 by javedbabar

Was the mole always there? thought Dimpy, or had it appeared overnight? There was a black Knobby just above her top lip, to the right of her nose. It sat there quite well, like a dark jewel in a fine setting, but she knew she was no Madonna or Marilyn, just a plain-looking single mom living in a small town. The only Museum Director’s job going anywhere was in Lucerne Village so here she was, but she worried constantly about the Museum losing its funding and her losing her job.

The mole looked good though, and added interest to her face. In a world of models with unblemished skin, photoshopped to banality, here was her distinctive feature, like the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, or flawed beauty, where asymmetry is appreciated as the essence of natural change. This is derived from the Buddhist tradition of impermanence, revealing wisdom in natural simplicity.

“Little mole,” Dimpy said to herself, fingering her strange squashy tumour. “Where have you been hiding?” She’d had moles on her body since childhood but none on her face. Had this one appeared because of sun exposure, or age? Was it black, or dark brown? She moved closer to the mirror to see. It pushed out a few millimetres with an irregular border. She had a sudden horrible thought and held onto the sink with both hands. Could it be a melanoma? What if she had skin cancer?

Wabi originally implied the loneliness of living in nature. Over time its meaning mellowed to simplicity and freshness. Sabi meant chilled or lean, and evolved to mean the serenity that comes with age. So its meaning now was that of sad beauty.

What if it was cancer? She would die and her five year old daughter would become an orphan, and be sent for foster care, where she would suffer all kinds of abuse, and become mentally and emotionally unstable. It was unbearable.

There was scratching outside. Was it those jays nesting in her roof again? She was glad they’d found a home, like she had with her daughter Sasha, but did they have to get up so early? She didn’t like that their movements scared the hummingbirds away. She loved seeing their green and red flashes, little songs in the air.

The scratching wasn’t coming from the roof though; it was coming from the garden. It couldn’t be her landlord’s horses, as they’d been sold last month. Too much poo and too much trouble. Maybe a coyote? Dimpy peered outside. There was a molehill in the garden, right in the middle of the lawn. Damn that critter! There were plenty of areas that would benefit from digging, but the lawn wasn’t one of them!

Dimpy forgot about the molehill and went to work. When she got home it was dark. She was tired and went to sleep early.

In the middle of the night she heard scratching again, except now it sounded more like shovelling. As if large chunks of earth were being moved. Dimpy put on her dressing gown and went outside. Oh My God! The hill in the middle of her lawn was now taller than she was!

The shovelling sound became louder, and the dirt on the hill trembled and slipped. Had an earthquake caused this strange upheaval? thought Dimpy. She suspended thought as huge pink paws with foot long claws thrust from the top of the hole, to be followed by a pink, sniffing snout, and tiny eyes and ears. The giant mole Muldvarp “mud tosser” sat up in his hole and stared at her, blinking. Was this because the light was too strong, or to clear mud from his eyes? Dimpy turned and ran, but a message caught her mind.

“Don’t go,” said Muldvarp. “We need to talk.”

Dimpy felt speechless but managed to say, “What about?”

“You worry too much,” said Muldvarp. “You shouldn’t. What’s the point? What do you think would happen to me if I worried constantly? I mean, because of my tiny ears and eyes I can hardly hear or see. That means I must remain underground to stay safe from predators. But there’s not much oxygen down there so I make do by re-using what I inhaled above ground. There also isn’t any good food down there so I eat earthworms. They fall into my tunnels and I run to catch them. What if I’m hungry and there’s no worms? Well, I paralyse them with saliva whenever I catch them, and store them in underground larders. And what if I get grit in my teeth that ruins my meal? Well, I hold the worms carefully between my paws and squeeze out their dirt before dining. What if my tunnels collapse? It’s my duty to keep them clear. They keep the energy of ley lines, chi, and kundalini flowing, not to mention soil aeration. So you see I have plenty to worry about, but instead I just get on with things and everything works out.”

From where Dimpy stood, the molehill looked bigger than distant Mt. Negra. She realized then that it was all about perspective. As an art historian she should have known better. Her mole wasn’t malignant, and she wouldn’t lose her job, and her daughter wouldn’t be orphaned and become emotionally scarred.

Muldvarp waved a giant pink paw and eased back into his hole. The next morning Dimpy saw that the mole on her face had disappeared.

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Toy Bin

Posted in Lucerne Village with tags , , , , , , on April 30, 2012 by javedbabar

The dustmen used to come on Monday mornings, but now it was Wednesday afternoons. Recycling used to be weekly, but service was now reduced to every two weeks. They used to take stuff from outside your door, and now they wanted you to bring it to the road. What the hell! Jenny was annoyed by this constant changing. While everybody else followed regular patterns, why did municipal services just follow their whims? It was ridiculous!

The dustmen were a curious bunch. They were a mix of young men and old men, with nothing in between. The older guys drove trucks and organized collection; younger guys mostly humped bins. They hadn’t taken this job for glamour, and wanted to get finished as early as possible, so didn’t talk much. They knew that the most important jobs in life are mundane. While other people tried to add glamour to superficial tasks like counting or selling or arranging this and that, the dustmen just got on with theirs.

Jenny asked the driver why their schedule kept changing. He stroked his beard and said, “I don’t know. We just follow The Authority’s instructions. There’s a shortage of garbage trucks, and last week we lost one.”

She said, “Lost one? Do you mean that it’s been taken elsewhere? Or has it gone missing?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve just heard that we lost one.”

Jenny shook her head and said, “Is that why you’re always changing trucks? This week you’ve got a – what do you call it, where you throw the trash in the back? – okay,  a rear loader? Last week there was one flipping the bins over the top of the cab – okay, front loader – isn’t that dangerous? The week before there was a side loader – is that right? Before that I’ve seen the one with the long sucky tube. The pneumatic collector? And there’s one with a long metal arm – what’s that? – yes, the grapple truck.”

“Well Miss, you’re a keen observer of municipal solid waste collection. We just come out with the truck we’re given. That’s it.” He waited for a response but Jenny didn’t say anything. “Okay, Miss we’d better move on. We need to get the lower Village finished by twelve. Good day to you.”

As he drove off, Jenny realized that she’d missed this week’s recycling collection, and they wouldn’t be back for another two weeks. She didn’t have a car so couldn’t drive out to the transfer station, which was five kilometres out of town.

Because their pooch Prince had chewed up her daughter’s dolls, she would no longer play with them. There was no point in giving them to the thrift store with mutilated faces and missing limbs, so best to send them for recycling. Jenny bashed the back of the truck and the driver stopped immediately. He jumped out, concerned. “Is everything alright?” he said. “Did I hit something?” She asked if he would take the dolls for recycling.

He said, “We only deal with solid waste. Recycling is another crew. But I’ll tell you what, slip them under these rails at the side of the truck, and I’ll drop them off at the end of our run.”

Jenny wedged the dolls beneath the rails. One-eyed Sally, armless Dolly, and one-legged Heather were old friends and nestled in together. Headless Anne-Marie and unrecognizable Dimples – her face mauled completely and seeming rough mincemeat – squeezed around them, and head-only Yazz was no trouble at all. Jenny couldn’t help waving to the dolls as the truck pulled away.

As the garbage truck continued its run, people smiled at the dolls and added their own unwanted toys. Black, Chinese, and plus-size dolls appeared. There were cowgirls, flappers, fairies, and a range of “inspirational internet-entrepreneur” dolls. Who’s got space for old toys these days? Who even has time to play with new ones? Their children’s lives were virtual now, and their toys were also virtual. Non-existent.

Parents with boys threw out unwanted action figures. Action men, space men, warriors of light, and glow-eyed demons, some hideously cackling, joined the unwanted doll ranks. There were neon robots and an array of Transformers, some of their hybrid apparatus seeming part of the truck. Many were really good toys, just no longer appreciated.

The garbage truck took the waste for composting, incineration, landfill, recycling, and windrow composting, but the toys looked so lovely – as if all playing together – that the dustmen left them arranged on the truck. As they performed their collections on other days, the number of toys grew, and they added extra rails to hold them. Large dinosaurs, teddies, and monsters were wedged into rails on top of the truck, which now seemed a mobile grandstand, but with circus performers rather than audience filling the seats.

As provincial waste management regulations progressed, garbage went increasingly for alternative treatments. Anaerobic digestion, bioconversion and biodrying, gasification, and mechanical heat treatments, pyrolosis, Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Digestion, and to waste autoclaves. But the toys stayed put and began to fill the inside of the truck too.

New laws required all garbage be recycled. Nothing could be disposed at all. The garbage truck was repurposed as the province’s first mobile exchange service for unwanted toys, called Toy Bin. It toured poorer communities, where toys were still appreciated, and where they created new lives and worlds.

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Bright Jackets

Posted in Alternative Energy, Lucerne Village, Unknown with tags , , , , , , on April 29, 2012 by javedbabar

Katie stood in the middle of the field. It was a beautiful field, with oat grass swaying around her in the breeze, and rippling and swirling further out. It felt as if she was the centre of this motion. Two helicopters hovered above like slim dark dragonflies. Police cars stretched along the side of the field bordering the road, with people and cows scattered along the other three sides. The bright green forests clothing the lower slopes of the Valley set off the orange jackets of the hundred men closing in around her.

Katie felt groggy. Her mind was confused and senses dazed. What had happened to her? Why was she here? The police cars, people, and cows weren’t getting any closer; they remained behind the wooden rail fence running around the field. The helicopters were wavering but mostly holding still. The men in orange jackets drew closer, pacing slowly forward, approaching her individually and together, tightening their bind. This wasn’t their first time, thought Katie. Their speed and spacing was so steady that she felt like giving them marks. If there were a prize for synchronized stalking they would be sure to win it.

Katie’s stomach cramped, and she felt like curling up and falling down. However her survival instinct made this impossible. How could she make herself more vulnerable than she already was? She had to stay up, facing the situation, whatever it was. These words seemed familiar, why?

The men in orange jackets were a hundred metres away. If only she could use a tape measure to check their distance. Maybe they would agree that anyone five metres over or under the norm was not performing up to standard and should be removed, and as they got closer these tolerances should be reduced, so by the time they were within ten metres, those remaining must be within fifty centimetres of their radial norm. If they were careless, many, maybe even all, would be eliminated before they reached her. But theoretically when it was down to the last orange jacketed man, he was the norm. What would she do then? She could always run.

Katie realized that these thoughts weren’t helpful. She was in the middle of a field of swaying oat grass with a hundred men in orange jackets closing in around her. Focus, Katie, she said to herself, focus.

She remembered being awarded a medal, not so long ago. During a ceremony in Lucerne Village a golden disc was pinned to her chest by the mayor, the provincial flag was raised, and everybody clapped and cheered. That was where those words had come from. The mayor said that she had, “stayed up, facing the situation, whatever it was.” Yes, she had, but what was the situation?

She remembered a long tunnel. She was stuck inside it. But she had entered of her own accord. Was it a cave, a subway, a conduit? Yes, it was a big pipe of some kind. All of a sudden she needed to go to the washroom. She needed to pee. Was there something in that? Need to pee? To pee? Pee – to pee? That’s it. It was P2P. The multi-resource pipeline being constructed from Canadia through America to Mexica. Lucerne was slated to be the province’s first multi-resource hub.

Katie felt the helicopters draw closer as the orange circle constricted. They were blowing her hair about. How annoying, she thought – how would she look on TV?

Why did she remember the P2P? Had she tried to save this tunnel? Yes she had. Not out of loyalty to The Authority, simply the desire to be a good citizen. Somebody was trying to destroy it and she had stopped them. But the blame had been pinned on her. It was a case of mistaken identity – or was it? Did a hundred men chase misidentified women – you know, usually? She’d been framed for sure.

Katie was a government agent with an enviable record. She had served with honour abroad and was now stationed at home. But her local investigations had found the tail of something sinister. She remembered explaining to people that she was trying to save the pipeline, not destroy it, but she had become the prime suspect. She had seen something that day. Something they had tried to make her forget. What was it?

The memory returned. She had seen plans for a pump house to power this stretch of pipeline.

It was only then she realized that she had a gun in her hand. How did that get there? It must have been there the whole time. She raised the gun without thinking, felt a sting, and then nothing.

The shot by a helicopter sniper was made to look as if it came from a farmhouse in the next field. The old farmer there was refusing to leave his fifth-generation Old Family home, whose site was needed for the pump house. If he’d shot Katie that proved he was dangerous and needed to be taken out. So he in turn was shot by the sniper in the second helicopter.

A hundred men in bright jackets met in the centre, around a corpse.

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