Floozman in Space

by Bertrand Cayzac

Table of Contents

Part II

Chapter 21: It Is Done!

part 3

“I guess they need a door,” says the door in a backwater of the non-manifested. A door appears immediately between the world and chaos, below the hotel’s laundry room.

The crowd is gathered around the spit where the flesh of the demiurge’s envoy are served, firms and roasted to a crisp. But they cease reaching out to taste the dishes. There is no wonder, though, that a test of WARP technology has ended up in the only spot in space-time preserved from chaos.

The monster approaches. His movements are too rapid and complex to be interpreted by a human mind. One can only know it is blue, striding closer and very quickly. It carries a used artificial uterus as a pendant along with a minuscule motorbike carburetor.

“Who are you?” he asks the mysterious apparition when he reaches the beach.

He receives no answer.

But Floozman challenges the beast. “And you, who are you?”

“And you? Who are you?” the beast responds.

“Stop this!” Claire shouts.

“I am ASTRALIX, the pearl of the world!”

The beast shows its face: it’s Jenny Appleseed, but then it’s Jay Beeh.

“I am ASTRALIX, the pearl of the world! Who has shrunk the universe?”

“I did. I’m the almighty father. It doesn’t matter now, for we are DONE WITH IT!” Floozman closes his eyes and concentrates.

“Is that the way?” asks the beast of many faces. He points a blue finger at the Messiah’s navel.

“Now! It is done!” yells Floozman. He arches his back in the posture of ultimate annihilation and attempts to stick out his belly button. A spiky ball of black rays emerges, similar to a shiny sea urchin.

Astralix shivers. “I want to go into the belly button! I am The One!” he says decisively.

Claire understands. “You must die first.”

The beast bends over her “I will NEVER die. I must become the One in the place of the One! I must become EVERYTHING!”

Nervously, Claire fingers the safety of the Mugwump gun. “That is not possible. When you are conjoined to the One, matter will still be here, with the non-manifested and non-being.”

“I will be the non-manifested and non-being, too.”

“I’m afraid it is not possible,” the artificial uterus interjects prudently.

Floozman doesn’t listen to them. He concentrates with all his might. The black ball is swelling and gaining in brightness.

“Hold on, what are we talking about?” inquires Basil.

“Okay, we’re talking about the prime principle. Its entrance is supposed to be situated there.” Claire points to Floozman’s navel.

Floozman, confused, looks down involuntarily. With this furtive gesture, he takes on the worried traits of Fred Looseman, but nobody notices.

Quitteria is not satisfied with this answer. “Wait. If this thing is somewhere, on the other side, say, then it has a limit, doesn’t it?” After a short silence, she continues, “Is it conscious? Does it think?”

The Queen seems to know what they are talking about: “Maybe not right now. The Demiurge has not manifested itself for ages. Maybe it’s traveling, wandering about. Who knows? The ONE who is not absolutely may not be occupied. Maybe it’s vacant.”

Basil is shocked. “Are you saying nobody is minding the store?”

They all turn their backs to Floozman. Why are his feelings hurt by their attitude, he, the monetary Messiah? Why would he care about these ghosts who will soon cease to be? Strangely, the new idea that he may not love them saddens him.

Love... And the baby oysters he can’t get out of his mind. He is surprised. Is it a phantasm from the world beyond the limit? He wonders if he hasn’t just seen the little creatures gently opening, discovering their mother of pearl and their slightly milky pulp, as if they wanted to feel this world fully and fill up with hope.

He has a vision, or at least he thinks he does. Hasn’t he just embraced with a single gaze the whole lineage of their potentialities, even their angels, even the angels of their most remote descendants with white fluttering pedicules, intensely absorbing the navigation signals of their ships of salt sailing into the heart of nebulas?

Claire is staring at him now, and he is staring at her. No, he won’t let himself be softened. He won’t let himself be subjugated by the witchcraft of this world like any mortal. All the prisoner souls have prayed and are still praying for his coming. He has become incarnate for the love of them. They want to return to the Father for the love of him because each thing loves its principle. They are all expecting liberation.

He doesn’t want to disappoint them. He lifts his eyes to the sky where the unknown God who sends him is standing, and he sees again the irrefutable ray of fire. May his will be done. He steps back and stretches out his arms again: “IT IS DONE, NOW!”

Then the celestial Tel Aviv’s disco bowl come to each and every one from all directions at the same time like a perfect anti-sphere and then... and then Astralix sticks his finger into the Messiah’s belly button. “I wanna get in there!”

What happens next? The shimmering chaos remains suspended above the scene like an immense wave about to collapse. Astralix barely hesitates a fraction of the last instant and then, with a strident shriek, with a prodigious leap, he precipitates himself against the illegible wall. Is this the right bet? Jenny, only you could say, for we know fairly well that it’s your personality who dominates this mutant creature: do you really believe that you can get him out of there?

And now? It would be false to say that there is nothing more, but the false has all its place in the whole extent of the different states of being. For there is more room than the greatest cardinals could measure.

But something resists, and something else gives way. At the bar on the beach, Gerard is feeling out of sorts., “Wow! It’s as if we couldn’t stop. And yet I didn’t drink much. I’m not even thirsty anymore. Not thirsty at all.”

At the other end of the bar, Gérard sees another guy just like him, dressed with the same brown leather and lifting the same pint of beer, saying the same kind of things. He starts towards him, filled with friendship and curiosity and then says to himself: “Why, it’s me, of course! Why should I rush to meet myself?”

And so does the guy at the other end of the bar, in all the possible bars of all the multiverse, which is but one manifestation of the Nasredin effect discovered by Blanche and Dirac in the 20th century.

The old consultant has it all right; he can make himself all things to all men in the same way as the telephone book. “A healthy management enables us to drink at the source of life, or not to drink. This very autonomy enables us to free up productive strength so that total possibility can be expressed.”

Thus, total possibility expresses itself insofar as it is in itself, without anyone being accountable to anyone for it. It expresses itself without duration until, of all songs, the jukebox plays Some of these days.

And these fat seated lumps of will? This obsessive carousel of oyster trays about their table? Could this celebration herald the return of time? The fact remains that somebody has stood up in the saloon. He is pointing to the beach with his finger, exclaiming: “Look! Y a d’l’Un ! (There’s some of the One).” Then the Beach Boys start to yodel:

Yodel of the One

Looseman howls and the cattle prowls,
Out on the great divide.
Lacan wasn’t wrong, just singin’ a song
As down the trail we ride.
’Cause it’s round-up time way out jest,
When the One-Good is in bloom.

You’d love my yodel-oh-ee-dee,
Oh diddly one odel-ee,
Derridadada, dada dada.

Would you lay down Y a d’l’Un oh-dee-one,
Yodel-oh-ee-dee-ay-dee,
Yodel-oh-ee-dee-yodel-oh-dee!

Fred Looseman is standing at the center of the Goofy Club. He looks exhausted. The Queen beckons and a dancer throws a skin over the old man’s white flaccid shoulders.

“Where are the oysters?” Fred seems worried.

A door opens slowly in the hull of the pirate ship stranded on the shore. A walkway pops out, opening the way for Captain Diana. Magnificent in her silver space suit, she approaches the Queen. Splendid, fine fat oysters in supple shells of gold-studded nacre glide swiftly by her side.

Captain Diana, ever the good soldier, gets to the point. “What is the situation?”

The Queen winces. “There’s been a brawl.”

Claire interrupts. “My respects, Captain, I represent the future market. We have reversed the trend toward dissolution, but the damage is considerable. Economic and financial indicators have collapsed. The web has self-destructed, the government has self-dissolved, ontological anarchy is gaining ground, and the physical world may not be entirely intact.”

Captain Diana greets Fred. “Good evening Mr. Looseman.”

“Where’s my screwdriver?”

“That says it all,” says Claire, summarily.

Captain Diana takes command. “Okay, let’s go and settle in at the hotel. We have work to do.” Then, addressing everyone, her voice raised against the ocean: “Listen to me. The world is ours! The soul and the will of the world are with us. With our mind, we know the numbers and laws of physics. We are going to have it all under control and straighten out what is crooked! And what we are going to rebuild, we shall rebuild with our eyes fixed on the Good, the Right, and the Beautiful!”

The crowd applauds and follows Captain Diana in a procession.

But where is Fred? Is he not with the dancers? No, he is in the parking lot with Quitteria and Basil. The car is waiting for them, its engine idling.

“Hop in,” Basil says. “Let’s get the hell outta Dodge.”

“But where to?” Quitteria is puzzled.

The psycho-geographic map responds, “I know where to go.”

“Where is my screwdriver?” Fred asks from the back seat, oddly wrapped in an animal skin.

“Listen to me, Fred Looseman,” says the map. “I remember all the forms, I’ve read all the books and I know the lay of the land. As for you, you still have much Mana. With the will that is everywhere, we’re gonna have fun, I’m tellin’ you.”

“And the road?” Basil asks.

The psycho-geographic map responds in a way that the old consultant would have approved of: “The road will make itself as we ride!”

“Wheee!” says matter, dancing in the headlights’ beams.

[Weaving sequence]

Will Astralix succeed in conquering the kingdom of non-being and non-duality? Will Jenny succeed in taking control of Astralix? Will Captain Diana know how to govern a good world? And if it’s only a phantasm, will she be able to assure its security?

[End weaving sequence]

To be continued...

Copyright © 2015 by Bertrand Cayzac