XVIII.

Enter Dolos. D “I am not just making copies, I sell
the Truth, or not at all. I am a spirit of the evening.
I deal in information, extracting sunbeams out of
cucumbers, straight out of the University of Laputa.

Believe you me, things are predetermined. The illusion
of history is a grand illusion. My master Prometheus
taught me the tricks of the trade. Where there is fire,
… there’s a lot of smoke. What doesn’t kill you, makes”

XIX.

“you a liar. So Perseus is secretely plotting to kill,
to see the real version of himself. He must have
run out of clay. His friend in polyamory knows better.”

Enter Gorgon, deep in confusion and despair.
G “My schizo mind goes faster, and faster.
Let time slide on. What do I do with this lump
of meat [ holds a severed, bleeding penis ] ?”

XX.

“Is it evening, now? So soon? The clouds have
not parted ways. My ego fades at the sight of
interior doom. I have castrated Perseus, the liar.
He tried to kill me, the fool. I have seen worse

in my stub of life. I am amazed at the similarity
between the man I loved and this deceitful monster.
[ sees the spirit of guile ] Dolos, what are you doing here?”
D “Nothing, my friend, I am just painting a picture of”

XXI.

“the moon in a garden run by the slow burning energy
of Numinous Selene, her wavy kisses and crafty spells.”
G “I fantasized about a youth – languid-eyed and loving.
This forest is haunted. Athena cast me aside. Poisedon

raped me. I summoned my wits. I embraced a hero.
This is my reward [ shows the penis to Delos ].
I entered this wood alone. Alone, I must proceed.
Delos, tell me the truth. Are wild animals sleeping now?”

XXII.

“What am I to do with this bled-out piece of truth?
My eyes are straying, my hands tremble. Some god
of affliction has given me this night to grieve. When
remedy is exhausted, so is grief. I am deathless.”

D “I myself have lost all friends. I have been banned
by all the band of brothers that I used to associate with.
It is so late now, we are all beyond redemption, just
waiting for Nemesis to pluck snakes from our poisoned”

XXIII.

“breasts. I wonder where we’ll be tomorrow. This century
holds true to my work. Trees face long-time tremors.”
G “I will challenge you, Dolos. You are here to trick
me, just as Perseus did. I can see through you.

You are trying to get something from me. But what is it?
Power? Money? Pussy? Predestination? I fear I cannot
tolerate another man’s skullfuckery. I have decided to
turn against all of the male kingdom. Slime-moulds beware.”

XI.

In the play – onwards towards mushrooms and pills.
Enter Mnemnosyne. M “If I were to be born again,
I would be a private investigator. I think Tokyo
would do. But as it stands, I am the Goddess of

memory, Perseus. I have come to remind you of
what truly happened. Do you remember what you
did when you first met the Gorgon? I don’t take
sides. But it would be desirable for you to get”

XII.

“your facts straight. I am so tired of fact-checking
all the liars and tricksters of this world. How many
lies did you tell to get by? Surely you have forgotten.
I am here, I can remind you of all the half-truths,

the full lies, the screaming-your-pants-off type hubris,
and the mostly true but badly spun, Arachnidous lies.
If you are not disgusted with yourself, you will be
after I am done with you. Perseus, do you remember?

XIII.

P “I honestly don’t remember. True, I have spun a few
stories. But surely, I think everyone does. We all
tell a few tall tales in order to survive. Don’t you?
Doesn’t memory have a conscience? I am so tired of this

life, you have no idea. Athena wants one thing, Zeus
wants another. My mother came out of her coffin in the
ocean to nag me all my life. Gorgon has certain expectations,
the other women in my life have others. Have you considered”

XIV.

That it may be a little hard to please Andromeda? She’s
all high and mighty with her princess thing, and she still
has not gotten over the thing that I have slipped into bed
with Medusa. I mean, it’s been so many years since we

fucked. Honestly. And ok, I do still love her. So what
am I supposed to tell her? That I don’t love the Gorgon?
Honestly, I don’t know what is true or false any longer.
So memory, now, indeed. Do tell all about the Truth. I am”

XV.

“Ready.” M “But in this version of the myth, you’re just
a puppet thrown around by bullies. Or are you? The innocent
hero-child? You’ve got some nerve. I have daughters, you
know. And some of them are infatuated with you. You! The

little shit thinks he can get away with anything! Not under
my watch, you’re not! I am so angry with you, I can’t even
speak. I can’t articulate a sentence. I am here to remind
you of your sins. You went to the Gorgon with full intention”

XVI.

“to kill, that is one thing. You never did fall in love with
her, you half-hearted moron. You’ve just been biding your
time for lack of spine. You could not bring yourself to slay
her because you are a coward, not anything else. You know this.”

P “Where’s your evidence? And by the way, your daughters like
me because I have lovely sandals, because I am a hero. I have
a great ride. Granted, not as good a Bellerophon. For some
reason people mix us up. I’ve always preferred flying by myself”

XVII.

“I am not ashamed of my deeds. I have a pretty reflection, any
Pre-Raphaelite will tell you. I am brave, I am honest. I have
fought my way up, like everyone else – despite all odds. I wasn’t
born into a love nest. My life has been suffering and blood

spilling. Have mercy on me, Mnemosyne. Goddamit, your name is
hard to pronounce. I think I might go out with Erato one of these
days. She’s got a cute ass. I am not so very interested in her
lyrics, but she does seem to have a voice. So rare, these days.”

I.

D “The question of who or what your father is,  is
utterly irrelevant. You are my son, that’s all
you need to know. I’ve worked hard to make you
a man, the right man. Come now, then – let it be.”

P “Am I the son the Zeus? Is this true? I feel it
in my heat. Tell me. Don’t lie to me. Not again.”
D “What a question. Are you asking for Truth and
Beauty? Are you the son of Zeus? What nonsense.”

II.

D “If you insist. I will tell you the truth. Then
don’t come whining to me with feelings of discomfort.
You asked for it… so here is the true truth: it was
a shower of gold that took me in my sleep, and

delivered a dream. I was happy to be ravished so,
I did not notice a thing. I woke up and I was pregnant
with you. Your father has always had a thing for
metamorphosis. He is the God of Gods. Enough.”

III.

“This is really demeaning – Perseus. At your age,
asking awkward questions. Bring me the head of
this ugly she-monster that you were meant to kill
a long time ago. She seduced Poiseidon and got

what was coming. Be quick about it. That is the
price for what you asked me. I have worked hard
to get you to where you are. You were supposed to
be a hero. This is the end of this conversation.”

IV.

Exit Danae. P “Now I am confused. I love to kill.
It is my skill. I am known around the world for
it. By she is my love. My mother is such a hag.
I must consult with my newly acquired father. He

will know what to do. He is God.” Enter Zeus.
Z “After so long, we are reunited again, my son.
What is your name again? Fetch me a glass, we
can drink to this. But I must rest. Chasing

V.

pussy is exhausting. I love a good vagina.
But it never learns. You must be one of my
bastards. Which one was your mother? I am
tired. Where’s my water? I don’t see much

of me in you. Stand upright. Come here.
Don’t stoop. Do you love chariot-races?
What wouldn’t I give for one of those new
Helios chariots. Their sun is so bright and

VI.

shiny. My lightning bolts would look good
on one. So, tell me, which thunder model
do you prefer?” P “I am really not sure”
Z “You’re not my son, then. You spent far

too much time with women, I guess. What
do you believe in? Feminism and all that
crap? Goddamit. When am I ever going to
have a son? There’s nothing in you of me.”

VII.

Z “You’re a puppet in her lascivious dreams.
Where are you from? Did you come from the
mountains or the sea? Do you have memory of
anything? Don’t you see that you are lost?”

P “I am not lost, nor am I found. You can
answer some of your questions yourself. Am
I your son or not? Can you give me a straight
answer? I cannot search for truth any longer.”

VIII.

Z “So you think you came from Zeus’s mighty
cock? What have you got to prove it? One look
at you, and I understand you’re a zero, not
a hero. You have been trained in unworthy

skills. You don’t have that spunk, proper of
a God. Be gone, now. You are nothing but a
freak. I love you not. You are not my son.
I refused to endorse any cum left-overs. Ah!”

IX.

So Cicciotta intervenes, because it is slightly
embarassing to have so many Griffinese ships
streaming out of the black hole, and to the
sound of Philip Glass, there must be a Dalai

Lama talking about mani or money somewhere.
Tierra Madre has gone to sleep. In her dream,
Desert Storm and the Spartan have started
copulating. Let me draw a picture. This is

X.

What we call a exor-narcissistic cosmic fuck.
The Spartan attacks, Desert Storm recoils.
“Thou unravished bride of quietness…”
The Spartan says  (with the coolness of a

warrior on the shore of a long-lost time)
he says: “I shall be cumming all over this
black hole. I do as Spartans do. I win battles.
Come and get some. Come and get our weapons.”

LXI.

M “I cannot drink this water, though. I loiter
on the steps and pray.” K “Mother, in your
honour, this epic has been written in byte code.”
O ” As we tether toward the event horizon, un

certainty is greater. Hesperos calls us to dinner.
E “Strange parallelisms, the cult of Chtlhu – what
happens next? ‘What mad pursuit? What struggle to
escape?’ ” Exeunt the lot of ’em – Enter golden Danae

LXII.

Perseus sits brooding under the light of a tree bulb,
whose roots clutch the corpse of a sculptor, on
a verdant slope of Mount Maenalus, in Arcadia.
D “The mountains yonder call you to great deeds,

my darling son. You were born to slay evil serpent
girls, make them your trophies – ride towards the
moon, deliver a killing blow to the ugliness in the
oceans, show the white whale its tomb and be king.”

LXIII.

“And so, why are you here? Paralyzed under a tree?
Unable to fulfill your destiny? You are my son, not
some beggar in the street. What pretty whore has
swallowed your balls, now, darling son? Speak, now.”

P “Mother. I must confess. Many years have passed.
I did not kill Medusa. I loved her since, for what
she is.” M “Nonsense. Look at all the signs of high
history. The paintings, the tales about you. You are”

LXIV.

“the hero that delivered us from Athena’s monster.
Have you failed to perform your duty? Have you
challenged your destiny? No-one would commit such
hubris. Come now, tell me the truth. My diary

does not lie. And in the diary, I wrote here –
look – that you did slay the dragon – beg pardon –
the Gorgon. You bagged the head in the wallet and
boom! You’ve been bandying it about ever since.”

LXV.

“Are you drunk? Or stoned? Now speak or I will be
cross. And then you shall have to cut my head to
shut me up. What nonsense, you are saying. I can’t
believe my ears. You are the hero, the son of Danae.”

P “Mother. Who is my father? Tell me truly, I have
lost hope, I am confused. I have dreams. I am so
angry, and yet I do not know the reason. I think I
am mad. You once told me that my father was a God.”

LXVI.

“And then you said that I did not have a father. And
then, another time, you said that – that fish-monger
that you slept with for a few years was my father.
This troubles me. It has something to do with my

identity. I think I do not know who I am anymore.
And I realized that I cannot love a woman because
I do not have a core, or a heart, or a soul, or an
identity. Curse you, mother, for lying to me. Now…”

LI.

G “Until you solve the question of your birth – Perseus –
you shall be incapable of loving. ” exits the Gorgon
P (alone) “Accursed am I, and no sense of humour. How
Greek of me. Who are we? Are we clones of our ancestors?

My consciousness is a liar, my unconscious a freak. White
clouds buffering thoughts unknown, fast disappearing. I
will be a cloud, then. What we call a demi-god is only half a lie.
Half and half, committed to nothing. I refuse to be led on

LII.

By my mother’s lies. I have no father. Not man, not god, not
any other liar. I shall confront her. I can’t confront her.
I am a fat whale on land, I can’t navigate this desert.”
There is too much grief inside this shell-shocked imagination.

But now Chubby shifts in her imaginary seat in the black
hole auditorium. She is worried and angry. Being pulled
from history and thrown in a black hole is most unpleasant.
She thinks about it. Since the uncertainty principle does not

LIII.

allow the values of both the field and the rate of change
to be exact, space is never empty. It has a rate of minimum
energy, called the vacuum subject to quantum jitters, with
particles and fields quivering in and out of existence.

Chubby feels jitterish, her mind is in a vacuum. Can
consciousness exist in a black hole? It is confusing to be
so close to John C. He and she and the play are both dead
and alive. Desert Storm feels an itch, the Spartan is asleep.

LVI.

He snores, like the thunder of a thousand Persian soldiers
advancing on the pass of Thermopylae. Vacuum fluctuations
in John C’s mind. All of this is strangely familiar. “Dammit,
This black hole is giving me a headache”, Chubby thinks aloud.

“How long do we have to be in suspension? This reminds me of
the Murakamian well. I’ve waited for ages down that clogged
drain.” John C knows what he is talking about. “My computer
was destroyed but the memory cells are still floating in the

LVII.

solar-system wide web. Too many downloads floating around.
So many sick thoughts of planets these days. And it’s all up
in the air. This black hole Murakamian well experience is
different though, it is a collective mindfuck, a tour de

force in the collective deadconscious. Some effort must be
put in following a plot thread.” “There is no freaking plot”,
intervenes Monkey, still suffering from separation grief
from Gawain and from a purpose of living. “Life is a series

LVIII.

of random events. Space-time is not flat, and I refuse to
sanction any art that pretends to follow a pre-ordained
structure. Mr Mamet can eat straw for all I care. It’s
an amoral thing to do. Not enough Becketts and Joyces.

Aristotle stopped the trade so long ago, I am still sea
sick. And structure is very much a purpose second term,
before you get sacked for lack of popularity. Mr Yeats’s
expressionism, two paintings after meals, says the doctor.

LIX.

The play continues, if you please. “ὥστ᾽ ἔγωγε, καθάπερ οἱ
ποιηταί, δέομαι ἀρχόμενος τῆς διηγήσεως Μούσας τε καὶ Μνημοσύνην
ἐπικαλεῖσθαι.” Enter Mnemosyne, daughter of Uranus and Gaia,
Memory’s personification, mother of the nine Muses. Surprise.

She was taken by none other than her nephew Zeus. And so she
speaks. M “Zeus loves, Zeus talks, Zeus walks. And then he
forgets. But I do not. Daughters, stop prancing around.
I seek revenge: I may have drank from the wrong fountain.

LX.

You are goddesses, you give the Arts their rightful place
in the multi-verse. Kalliope, you are the brightest, inspire
me to epic journeys on the far side of model-dependent realism.
Ourania, show me the way among the burning gases and the waves,

the plasmas and the gravity of it all. Fixed luminous light in
my mind’s eye is not enough to stop this grief. Erato, let your
words dance, let my spirits be soothed by your loveliness. This
fountain, the hoof’s delay. Pegasus once stood here and kicked.”

XVII.

the Archive of Myth bubbles up, Ariadne
is in pain. Time must have a stop. Where
is Monkey? The siege of Candia. Welcome,
refugees. Dog fart, rabbit squeak, God

through Russell Brand. Timelessness,
dream-Shakespeare. Tempest-consciousness,
Know Thyself. All those monsters; Tauros,
deviations. Egoes in broken mirrors.

XVIII.

Ariadne pauses on the screen, the stars
in the image burst out laughing. So bright.
The Archive of Myth on drugs. What an
experience. “When the doors of perception

are cleansed, everything will appear
as it is, infinite” And some do it by
meditation, some by walking, some by
mescaline, some by action, some by

XIX.

dream. Ariadne, you just go ahead and
push the button. Push the button, goddamit!
Incest, betrayal, abandonment. Lost.
Identity crisis. Monsters are born of

absolute spiritual evil. It exists.
A potent lamia. A curse. Ariadne’s curse.
What is the nature of her curse? Betrayal
of the closest relatives, death by fire.

XX.

The gravitational influence of planets
on cells. Electrons, atoms, spiritual
waves. “I need a hero. I want a destiny.
The monster within me. The fiend in the

mirror. The demon inside the child.”
Salvation through action, magic, and
doubt. Fear, heartache. Defeat in victory.
Neurotic patients burst an iron ring around

XXI.

the heart. Possession is a structural
alteration. Public personalities possessed
by shadows. Possessed by animas. Naming
is reincarnation. Reincarnation of Gods

in planets. Chronos. So too did Chronos
take Uranus unawares. The discarded genitals.
Destruction of civilization by earth-quake.
Destruction of spirituality by multi-verse

XXII.

shake.Touch, energy transfer. Spiritual
transformation. Zeus is dead. Dead by
transformation. Purification by water.
Cynicism is anti-matter. The Goddess

epiphany: the creation and recreation of
Myth. Cosmic union of all beings. Conflict
is dynamic. 4000 years of history, dealing
with threats. Deconstruction of stories.

XXIII.

Palaces of creation. Centres of Myths.
Myth as civilization. Everything flows.
Magic energy stays, it accumulates.
Holiness by creation. Ariadne returns

to Labrys harbour. She clings to form
but a wooden Buddha cannot go through
fire. She’s anima-possessed. Charged.
She cannot stay. I send you unto this

XXIV.

world as sheep amidst the wolves. I
don’t want to leave, she says. Earth
quakes are the end. Immortality is
real. You just have to push the damn

button! “I realize now that all my
existence is a delusion. There is nothing
but this island in the sea, Labrys Harbour.”
Way before and after everything. Time

XXV.

is an illusion. Waking up to the timeless
island. Put on the kettle. The multi-verse
is compressed. All time and all happening
at once. The gravitational mass of a body

is equal to its inertial mass. The displace
ment of spectral lines towards the red
can be traced. The potential is there.
Gravitational, time collapse. History

XXVI.

and identity are annulled. The X looms.
Everything is simultaneously true. Let
go of the meat. Karma will dissolve.
We are such stuff as wormholes are made

on. The Archive of Myth is palace of
memory. It collapses into nothing. “…
of seed-time or harvest, of the reapers
bending over the corn, or the grape

XXVII.

gatherers threading through the vines,
of the grass in the orchard made white
with broken blossoms or strewn with
fallen fruit: of these we know nothing,

and can know nothing.” From such profundity,
the depth of the Well, the length of the
multi-verse, the scope of consciousness.
Ariadne is in bed. She’s asleep. She dreams.

VIII.

Ariadne sits up, emotion’d, eager to speak.
“I remember Dionysus’s kisses, still burning
on my skin. No. If I’m honest, I don’t. Not
right now. For a short while, I felt a purpose.

Not an important cause, not a revelation,
but the midnight curse of Finnegan’s wake.
I was summoned to appear before Death, I
made a plea for forgiveness, and I lost.”

IX.

Then Chubby tells the story of the download
and the infotechnician who had merged with
his own data. In this tale, there once was a
young cadet whose heroism was cut short

by the jaws of a whale: he was dismembered.
Chubby makes a mental note about Fortune
Lobo. His death by digestion was, by Zeus, most
El-Greco-esque, and yet his spirit lingered.

X.

Ariadne is aching to tell the story of
her revelation, and yet dry words fail her.
Every moment she thinks herself to be
steady, to have finally coped with the

idea of having walked the tight-rope walk,
her mind starts to wander, and the continuity
of karma is discontinuous and inaccessible
to memory. She is wrestling with her own

XI.

Rebirth. We are all able, at least potentially,
to remember the facts of previous lives, and
the rites of transformation. Young Fortune Lobo
was dismembered;  yet, like Osiris-Dionysus, he

came back as a field of green wheat. “Truly, the
blessed gods have proclaimed a most beautiful truth:
Death comes not as a curse, but as a blessing.” We
are surrounded by Big Mind, the mother of all facts.

XII.

Ariadne’s revelation is asleep. An idle lover,
here and there, looks inside the s’elf; but for
all the rest, the multi-verse, unfathomably
fair, is a darkened cave; chained, barking dogs

outside. Ariadne is now sober, and at peace
with herself. The star cluster she’s looking
at in the palm of her hand is exceptionally
bright. Lightlets at the bar, glowing irises.

XIII.

The numen, satellite of Mind, holds its
course. No deviations in sight. Smaller,
sapphirite starlets trick’o’treat in the
void, and the voices of ancestors shout.

Ariadne is resolute in her choice of
enduring whatever is coming. With edge
in desire she lunges into the mythical
space where Archives and galaxies merge.

XIV.

For every ritual of rebirth, Fortune Lobo’s
rising from the astro-gases, transcendent
as a green man, innocently wet in the well
of eternity, has a mystic value, it is the

action in which, you reader, and I, writer,
as spectators become involved – Bastian-like –
though our natures are not necessarily changed.
It is a dream in which the dreamer may be trans

XV.

formed. Ariadne’s deficit in the balance
of Pacioli is her own waterflea robbery. She
lost her soul at low barometer reading, and
that is a presage of bad weather. One became

two. She was born as human, turned into a Goddess,
and yet fell. She walked the tightrope walk in a
moment of deadliest peril, and without realizing
it, she forgot. And then she forgot that she

XVI.

had forgotten. On the self-same tree, two birds
perched, watching with invisible eyes the forces
of revelation at work. Chubby drinks from the
misty gases of Titan, Fortune Lobo sways as green

fuse in the winds of Planet Carnuntum. Ariadne
is deep in her own stew, cygnus-like, floating
in the drink she drank. The bar is empty. Outside,
a Philosophical Cat is about to embark on a mission.

I.

“… immortality that we had when we were kitties,
it’s all a Shakespearean myth, and now you are
shipwrecked on this island, and the tempest rages
on. And being part of the myth is not enough, you

feel. Be cheerful, girl. Here is to archetypal light!
Rari nantes in gurgite vasto. Let us eat, let us
mourn. Let us remember. And then let us forget. This
is a story of loss. We at the bar, with philosophy and”

II.

“banter. You had visions of the utmost intensity?
What have you actually witnessed? The gods of the
strangers have still an unexhausted mana? There,
on the farthest nebulae, we surely went the way

of the waters, and we partecipated mystically? So?
Was that you and me, when we confronted our ugly
egoes in the deep dark mirrors of the space ocean?
Was that confrontation our first test of courage?”

III.

“But did we cut the Gordian knot instead of untying
it?” Ariadne sighs. She says: “The stars have fallen
from heaven. I remember every moment of my revelation.”
Chubby laughs, and gently taps her head with her paw.

“But dear half-human, half-goddess… not every woman
is a fisherwoman! The old woman and the sea was not
just a story…! But for every fisherwoman, we have
a sea, and a sea full of sharks, and other creatures. And”

IV.

“those humans, those other creatures in the fisherwoman’s
net. Nixies, sirens. I see those coming to meet Desert
Storm and Tierra Madre. Yes, your beloved cadets. They
are now at sea, lost in the ocean space, while we sit here,

debating the psychology of the trickster. That Tonal Dump
wants to take over the multi-verse! That orange-headed
piper that forced crowds into submission, using self-harm
as a kind of erotic charm. You see. Darkness has a headstart.”

V.

“But we are on the side of light. We are pneumaticas! Ho!
Everything the anima touches becomes numinous. And so
for the nasty lamia that is Tonal Dump. We are undergoing
the archetype of transformation, and so our colleagues at sea.

The process of writing is syncronistic phenomena, we
and John C and the Spartan are on the same journey. We
are stuck in a dimension of duality. Matter or wave,
psichization of matter. These things are really confusing!”

VI.

“Gravitational waves, my foot! It’s enough for us to have
scientists like John C who are trying to digitalize the
soul… to study the oscillatory patterns of epigenetics.
Must we fourier-transform our purpose, too? Just relax,

my friend. Ariadne. Look at the cosmic tree, rooted in
the multi-verse. Isn’t it gorge-ous? Yggdrasill holds the
key to our origins: Chubby-Bastet, and Ariadne of Knossos.
There is evidence of soul in plants, in microchips… and I”

VII.

“see beauty in the representation of waves, in the variation
of patterns. What was the stimulus? What was the story?
Which psychic phenomenon? Should we measure the mana of cells?
Or should we just write about the emanations of Bacchus?

Drink! My friend. Time is our Allah-y. We shall see more, we
shall discover more. Let go of your immortality! It was never
real. Let us live, and let us love, my lesbia. And all the
gossips of old men… let us value these, for what they are.”

LVII.

At sea. Desert Storm and Tierra Madre
have lost sight of planets, platelets and
tubes, archives of uni-verses, and swallows
in flight. The sea of emptiness, the space.

Aboard the whaler-slaver galley, bound
as slaves, toiling as row-inmates, sweating
and cursing; whispering and looking.
Unending plant life rolls as light-liquid ocean,

LVIII.

the deep dark wood of the unconscious.
The uncouscous. A distant blue planet, solid
in a green waste of light-liquid ocean space.
Ocean of wisdom, miniature sage, Jungian thing.

Bottom dwelling, filtered stars, salt winds,
aluminium constellations, alloy-inordinate
fondness. The two ex-cadets, golden pommes
that grow on trees; their strong, shape-shifting

LIX.

love is here. Cat people, identity-subtracted,
they are only slaves of time and space; now
only looking, witnesses of the infinite.
Suffering is justification enough, you see.

Beyond their reach, on the far-flung rocks
of Titan, the chemical roads of alcoholism
lead a time-bound Ariadne to crossing paths
(or paws) with Chubby, the once Egyptian Bastet.

LX.

Swept by surface tremors, the basement bar
is hidden, torn, wild, alone. Three locals,
one outsider. Salt protection in your drink,
captain. Chubby sits majest-like, cat-fully.

Sunshine erupts from beyond the cave, it is
the last day of summer on another planet,
at another latitude, at another longitude.
The fury of the elements is sand and stone.

LXI.

Chubby begins to talk – Ariadne is half-drunk.
“Archaic man, science man, adventurers. The
mind, great ocean. Friend, share the unshareable.
What’s your expedition beyond consciousness?

You do sit there as if in a stupor. Somewhere
beyond the cold, your prow sank into the abyss.
The space-ocean led you somewhere, not nowhere.
Summoned by exi-stance, you are. Yearning for”

LXII.

“inexistence. You do look, m’darling, in a sort
of vexed form, as if you were distressed. Be
cheerful, human. This overparticular anger is
no more real than the blasting winds outside.

Griffinese ships come and go. I know you.
You once were swept away by Dionysus.”
“My primal state”, blurts out Ariadne. “I
am a Goddness turned mortal. Much like you.”

LXIII.

She throws up. “The unconscious”, Cicciotta
continues, “is much of a liquid state. We are
surrounded by it. I used to live with a man who
switched on a Murakamian Well every day. What

a drag!” Ariadne sits back at the bar, her
head drooping, her mouth drooling. “I am mortal”,
she says. “It never dawned on me that I would die.
That I would age! That is absolutely riddickulous.”

LXVI.

“The mind, that ocean… SUCH BULLSHIT”, Ariadne
is collapsing. Chubby intervenes, sipping her tuna-
flavoured soda. “The multi-verse is big and wide,
or narrow and deep. Well, well, well. Ariadne, I

see you are in a bit of pickle. You think you have
lost your purpose, and yet we are immersed in a sea
of collective unconscious, and your death, mine…
this ageing monster that eats all, the illusion of…”

LIV.

Shaping and reshaping, the X’s eternal past-time.
Ariadne’s primordial vision is overcast, pathological
fantasies replace reality by fiction. “Sappho! I leave
you, yet I do not wish to do so.” From the X, the echo:

“If you have no memory, then I’ ll remind you of
the good times that we had. Crowns of pansies,
and roses, and crocus. We did wear them as one.
Castanets drove us away, snakes in dark woods.”

LV.

“The spectre showed its ordinary caprice, it showed
no sign of being.” Ariadne lets out a sigh. Her sinister
feelings are mounting in rapid succession, the waves
interpreted by data scientists, their latest beta version.

“To unearth buried fragments of psychic life we have
to drain the miasmal swamp. The relentlessness and
skepticism with which a Buddha swept aside his two
million gods leads us to pristine experience, truth.”

LVI.

Magic and drama are one projection of the archaic
mind, rogue rubidium atoms lead us into temptation.
Gut microbiomes of ancestors impact the immunity
and the epigenetics of us pups. Ariadne is curiosity

streamed, and her superconducting doubts are
powerful persnickety drivers of her own insanity.
Love’s a bad dish, ’tis hard to infiltrate once behind
enemy lines. Overparticular anger, lonely distress.