Botchi

Time (played by Brian Blessed) enters in a chariot of ice and fire

“And now my friends we must take embrace of tale
With our heroes we’ve flown ‘cross desert, ocean an’ dale
Methinks Botchi hath holp to help from beyond grave or nay?
But whither he be who am I to say
For Kluzens’ intemperate jealousies offer speed to pace
With Teutonic efficiency that leads only to disgrace,
To wit, darkness and utter negation
May construct a dream of a macrobiotic infestation
For the devilish use of the learned one;
“No Spittle,” his only criterion.

Through shards of optimism
His rhetoric doth destroy,
With unrivalled skill
Can he skin a juicy plum?
O’er crest of hill
In hiding, in joy,
Awaiting the coming of the schism.

An absence of boyish wonder
For the stars and the moon and the sun
Hath resulted in pain too deep to e’er rescue;
Has his decline awhile begun?

“I love you.”

“I need you.”

“I trust you.”

Not for him if you please,

“There’s more truth in this here cheese,”
but fooling no one
none of the time
can compare only to your
corporeal chime.

When Matron resigned, abandonment appeared to be
A ubiquitous presence, His surrogate vater,
A futile search for an alma mater
Produced bilious internal dynamics
As his oldest companion grew fatter.
Until he grew no more, no more of this Earth,
Exiled to the hinterland of mimetics,
But refusing to give up the search, the search
Tirelessly, deservedly: optimistic?

Omnipresent the mindless chatter of the axles
Of careless intent fuelled twixt contempt,
The lacerations, oh the torturous lacerations that
Adorn the brimstone fires of Lucifer’s saintly chariot…

Where, but where doth the years fly? Rhetorical? Nay!
Redress the spasmodica of youthful enterprise; anarchy!
The horror.
The horror.
The
Horror”

Admiral Lozike’s eyesight blurred into focus, his senses overloading with normality in one concurrent sweep. His eyes flitted between all corners of his cylindrical room, his overly elongated bed sharpening with recognition. He peered to his left, and saw the text scrawled onto his executive pad (mid-high rank issue: strict), and held his chin in that palm. The bugs entered his labyrinthine facial parchment as he examined the half eaten chew bar, still partially clothed in its decorative sheer cling-film wrap, lying apologetically on the executive worktop (universal issue). Lozike, his consciousness returning at pace, concluded that he had been hallucinating acutely for at least five hours, and he had not left his chambers at all during this period. The savagely old-school black microdots had been in the leisure suite, dormant in the freezer for over three of the Ford’s months now, and surely someone had slipped a night of tripsical fancy into his branny goodness. To disorientate him meant that something was categorically amiss. If only he could leave the Ford. Poring back over his subconscious, Lozike re-entered the madness of foresight and basic summary, his detachment creating the truest of canvasses. Suddenly, he felt tight. Claustrophobia of the most acidic of means engulfed him, beads of cold perspiration holidaying down his muscular ankles. The room, the room! Time to leave. This room!

He had the house to himself. The family was on an outing and he was not invited. Admiral Lozike felt like the bastard son of a vagabondical timber-merchant and the school bike, the one who accommodated at the cheapest of discos. He fancied a go on the turntable nexi, but could not, under the circumstances, face the assimilation procedure. He instead decided to ascend the lift patterns of the east chambers to the vantage platform to try and conclude on the preceding insanity of the demilitarised zone. His torso ached due to the high levels of strychnine in the cheap acid, his muscles pinching the bones that they surrounded. As he entered lift one of forty-six, the mirrored walls offered little comfort. His drained features lacked moral upbringing, his portals the dancing shine that was his customary greeting. Feeling slightly sick at the repetitious taste of bran that accompanied his climb, Admiral Lozike chose to alight at thirty-seven. Pondering the factual status of 5*10 to the power of –27 kg per cubic metre as the average density of matter in the known universe, he turned left. The corridor zoomed into the distance arrowlike in front of him, the microdots perpetuating themselves as far as reality could take them. The Formula summoned Admiral Lozike to its chambers with the power of indifference.

Next chapter…