Return to England

Before returning to more civilised waters , I converted my ill-gotten gains to Krugerrands for safe passage.
In England, I became almost infamous for my after dinner tales.
I suppose compared to average folk who had to struggle day in day out just to pay their mortgage feed the kids and make their lawn look pretty, I must have seemed quite exotic.
If only these folk could have realised how lucky they were.

But we all need a change and a rest, so I wasn`t overly perturbed by their fond attention to me. In fact I was highly flattered.
It just seemed the more soirees I attended, the more people seemed to become addicted to my anecdotes.
I basked in the attention people gave me and almost felt like I was Blackbeard or some other pirate giving evidence in the dock.
Ironically, my proximity to the dock was pertinent.

One of my oldest and dearest friends who had facilitated my re-introduction into country life, while sitting in the wings as I blew hard on my amusing trumpet, surfaced in a dark and shady way.
Over the months that I enjoyed myself in England, he would of course be at some of the many, so-social events that I had become attached to.

For a casual listener, nothing I had said would have been at all self-incriminating, but for
a man in disagreement with the tax man, perhaps a collation of such information could be very valuable.

You, me, nobody would ever expect one's best friend to see one as a resource. But if a very heavy burden is put upon on one, perhaps the slow accumulation of mere facts that could save one's bacon, would become as tempting as a bacon sandwich.

I understand this form of weakness, but the underlying malaise is of such concern, that I found it essential never to communicate with Gordon again. Yes, I really miss the old him, the good times we had are not just memories but a serious part of my life. The decision to never deal with him again is one of the many hard calls I have had to shout.

.....Actually I quite fancy a bacon sandwich.

there are missing pieces

To think that we didn`t have a good time on the boat would be wrong.
We would often play practical jokes upon each other to relieve the tedium of the endless waves.
One morning for example, Jonny had been a little late in getting up.
We all knew his unfortunate handicap.  Shark o phobia. That`s ok for a land lubber, but here it was a reprimand-able offense.
We had already caught a few small babies, but then we got a biggy.
The captain suggested we plant this monster right above the stairway
that lead to Jonny`s cabin, tie it down and let it thrash. We hid ourselves, and then above the racket of the threshing angry shark, carefully placed at the stair entry to the deck, we used everything that we could find to awake Jonny. We made make a racket loud enough to awake Jonny and the dead.
To have see Jonny fight that git of a dying monster shark without losing his other arm kept us in fits of drunken laughter for weeks to come on that immense lonely sea.
We all knew Jonny would get us back, but hoped we wouldn`t lose a life or a limb on his reciprocal practical joke.

After having trusted Preston and Duncan, and having drunk with them on a regular basis, having let my guard down,
and become what I had thought of as good friends with them, and then to find everything was not as it appeared.
In fact I had been mislead, spied on and deceived. Also having known Jonny the hook for quite a long time, I had
what I thought an open and friendly relationship with him. To then be completely shocked to find he was not at all
the person I thought he was.
These experiences had made me deeply nervous on a subconscious level. And I became distrustful of people.
Don`t you hate it when that happens!
I began to find it difficult to be near people especially at close proximity.
I would become nervous to the point of having difficulty breathing normally.
I found it necessary to drink a lot of alcohol to calm myself and relax with people.
Even to this day, some of this anxiety raises its unacceptable head when in proximity to some people.
Especially double glazing salesmen.

I wandered around the ship to try and make it my own, if you know what I mean.
There were certain areas I felt uncomfortable in.
I held firm with my beliefs that the feelings I had were purely childlike and
quite understandably instinctual.
I deliberately pushed myself further on through the darkness to investigate ,
I forced myself to go against my instincts.
 I could not accept my gut feelings, these corridors were nothing more than
dark dead lanes of past times.
 They could have no power over me, especially if I refused to believe in their
power.
I was aware of the ability of metals and stone to absorb emotional
energy.My scientific understanding would surely keep me immune and safe.
This worked for a while, but there were certain areas where my logic was having
a hard time.
I went down a corridor on the third level and whatever I had said and told
myself ,logic just stopped working.
If you don`t believe in this stuff as I didn`t , then there was NO WAY you
should chicken out and walk away.(many would walk away without accepting or
excusing themselves.)
We are after all, when the skin is seen on the bone, quite fragile.
Unfortunately these disturbing feelings just got stronger and stronger.
Every ounce of my body was screaming to turn back please just go on deck and bathe in the
relative beauty of the mysterious green fog.
I didn`t expect things to be easy, but this was pushing me to the limit of my
non acceptance of the unacceptable.
 Pigheadedly I continued down the dark, wet, black corridor of the third
level, with my comforting supportive torches.

 As uncomfortable as I was in accepting to myself that there was something to
fear on this empty ship it still went against the grain to turn back.
Perhaps now I am wiser.You alone can be the judge of that.

 I came to a door on the left , there were many doors on the left, but I felt
this one in particular was the more scary, I don`t know why, it just was.
I  could not accept the inner fear that tried to prevent me from opening
it, so I forced myself to do so. My whole persona and credibility had been
built on having no fear . So how could I ever admit to myself,that I was scared
to enter a door on an empty dead ship?

I wandered around the ship to try and make it my own, if you know what I mean.
There were certain areas I felt uncomfortable in.
I held firm with my beliefs that the feelings I had were purely childlike and
quite understandably instinctual.
I deliberately pushed myself further on through the darkness to investigate ,
I forced myself to go against my instincts.
 I could not accept my gut feelings, these corridors were nothing more than
dark dead lanes of past times.
 They could have no power over me, especially if I refused to believe in their
power.
I was aware of the ability of metals and stone to absorb emotional
energy.My scientific understanding would surely keep me immune and safe.
This worked for a while, but there were certain areas where my logic was having
a hard time.
I went down a corridor on the third level and whatever I had said and told
myself ,logic just stopped working.
If you don`t believe in this stuff as I didn`t , then there was NO WAY you
should chicken out and walk away.(many would walk away without accepting or
excusing themselves.)
We are after all, when the skin is seen on the bone, quite fragile.
Unfortunately these disturbing feelings just got stronger and stronger.
Every ounce of my body was screaming to turn back please just go on deck and bathe in the
relative beauty of the mysterious green fog.
I didn`t expect things to be easy, but this was pushing me to the limit of my
non acceptance of the unacceptable.
 Pigheadedly I continued down the dark, wet, black corridor of the third
level, with my comforting supportive torches.

 As uncomfortable as I was in accepting to myself that there was something to
fear on this empty ship it still went against the grain to turn back.
Perhaps now I am wiser.You alone can be the judge of that.

 I came to a door on the left , there were many doors on the left, but I felt
this one in particular was the more scary, I don`t know why, it just was.
I  could not accept the inner fear that tried to prevent me from opening
it, so I forced myself to do so. My whole persona and credibility had been
built on having no fear . So how could I ever admit to myself,that I was scared
to enter a door on an empty dead ship?

My cold sweaty hand gripped the round brass handle to the door. I imagined it hadn`t had the warmth of a human touch for a very long time.

It felt icy .I turned it slowly as I summoned within myself that heroic fearless quality that can only come from stupidity or a deeply religious unfounded confidence. It is rare nowadays to witness such bravado.

As it happened this was pure pre programming that enabled me to go to such a fearless extreme.
The knob turned and clicked as it became free to enter.
I forced myself inside , the door quickly slammed behind me .
It was too late now.

The full force of an unrelenting, unforgiving, unacceptable force overcame me.
I was in a dimly lit cabin, quite unremarkable in it`s physical nature.
The only thing was, I couldn`t move. My body was frozen. Any movement was like moving in heavy treacle.
There was an immense feeling of dread pervading every essence; it surrounded the air, my body and my mind.

I tried to scream, but nothing came out.
I turned in a desperate attempt to escape, but everything was in slow, slow motion.

I thought I am strong , I can overcome this evil, but I couldn`t, I needed to get out of this room desperately, it`s power had completely diminished my own.
I was being sucked dry.
I slowly turned toward the door in a last ditched effort to escape.
but I was paralyzed.
The feeling of fear and dread was overwhelming.

Unless you had been in that room, it would be impossible to describe to you the overwhelming force that hid itself within. The struggle to exit from there was nothing more than a struggle to survive. To be weak now and remain in there was beyond question something one would forever regret.
The potential perpetual torment from the fear of the hidden terror was beyond imagination.
 It was here and it was now.

I struggled against the dream like treacle resistance to every movement  I made. My unfullfilled efforts to scream in this darkness, were something we all have to accept when the darkest of places come into our souls. The unrelenting inabilty to scream, the unrelenting knowledge there is no one there to scream to,listen, or care.
This is the room I regretted entering , I had to get out of here.

I used all of my will and strength, and turned ever so slowly back toward the door, I caught a glimpse of myself in an old and dusty mirror hanging on the wall some four yards away. What I saw in there gave me an added feeling of deep terror within. It was me in that mirror , but I looked some fifty years older, and the look on my wizened face, was a look I would never want to see on anyones face, let alone my own.
The sudden rush of adrenaline from this added terror, gave me the strength to fight my way through the treacle like air, and get out of the door.
I made it, the door slammed, hard and angry, behind me. I ran as fast as I could but everything was still in slow motion. I was desperate to get on deck and breath the air. As I struggled down the corridor with what seemed like lead weights strapped to my ankles, I had time to reflect on this horrific experience.
I found it impossible to compare the feelings that emanated from that extraordinary room,to anything from any normal world, and then it hit me like a hammer.
The only thing that perhaps could come close to creating within me such dread,
would be a midnight visit to the bedroom of Margaret Thatcher.


It was tough it was hard but I got back on deck.
I had been taught as child to get back on the horse.
This was a damn big horse by anyone's reckoning .  This was dead reckoning.
I was happy, yet disturbed to be back on deck , because the green fog was still there as I had expected.
But my God this was good, compared to where I had been!
The horse was there,the stirrups were my torches.
I would get my breath back and I would ride that mother again.
Let me tell you , spooky , you don`t even know spooky.
I got back on the horse, I went straight down to the fourth level.
The atmosphere seemed ok.
 Dark and cold and icy to the bone but OK.
I got half way down the corridor, I passed a door which made the hair on my head rise as if to an occasion
one could experience once or twice in a life time.
It was a completely different feeling , and certainly not so terrifying as before.
So I had no great difficulty in opening this cold brass handled door knob.


The cold knob drained the heat from my hand, I already knew that if I opened that door what lay behind would be more shocking than the room I had entered before.
 The last door had stolen 50 years  of my life, I now had nothing to lose, perhaps I could get those years back. It was in no way a sense of altruism that drove me; it was purely a desperate bid to regain my lost years.
It is one thing to age, and another thing to age without the benefit of time passing normally.
So I was very bold and I entered the room with the cold hard knob.
Once inside, I had no regret. I had plenty of fear but no regret.

It was a profound experience, it was nothing short of a revelation to be there. I will endeavour to describe what confronted me in that cold unbelievable space.

Initially, the door slammed behind me; it was not like the other room.
The slamming was almost a beckoning to come and see what was within.
There was a small table and chair there amongst the normal cabin-type furniture. It seemed to beckon me to sit, be at ease and watch.
It was very hard to tolorate at first.
There seemed to be some emergency lighting within the room, quite dim, but I was able to turn my torch off.
The light seemed a little eerie and greenish, but it was ok.

I had come to a point of being relatively unafraid. This, one could imagine, would be the case after experiencing room 309.
This room was 417. It was on the fourth level below deck.
I thought to myself "nobody would have the guts to come down here on the fourth level". But I had nothing to lose, I could only win from here in. So if the devil himself showed himself to me, that would be ok. Actually good.
It wasn`t the devil that showed his head, it was something much, much more interesting.
I sat at the small table and watched the room. Just the vibe in there was beyond anything I had ever experienced in my God-forsaken drunken, drugged, excessive life, the dullness of which I imagine was apparent in my younger face.
This room offered a new energy, a new experience, frightening beyond belief but yet entrancing. The feeling there was of youth and expectancy, something I had lost way, way back.
I felt content to sit and absorb the vibe of the room.
And then it began.
At first it was just letters in pencil on the ceiling, and then they flowed to the walls.
My obvious initial panic, due to my past experience, would to you be understandable.
After all, the first occurrence of writings such as these, were back on land. And they, if you remember, were the sole reason I left that place and became a seafaring pirate on the other side of the world.
Since that time these words had also appeared within my secret box, that secret box which had been made from an intricate weaving of exotic timbers, so-designed that a strong man with an axe would not be able to penetrate said box for 4 hours at least.
I sat there resigned in the knowledge that synchronicity had finally caught its prey, there was no longer an escape from these strange letters.
I chose to relax and fearlessly watched the letters dribble from the ceiling. The longer I sat there the more profound the lettering became.
Initially they were formulae referencing Pye, Fibonachi and  Pythagorean geometry familiar to all with an education such as mine.
Soon the formulae became more advanced. I tried the best as I could to read and understand what was being written before my eyes.
Unfortunately, as much as I tried, I couldn`t keep up, I became quite desperate because I felt these advancing formulae were very important to understand.
I was now at the point where I had no fear of the writings, and at last realised it was a gift to see such a thing.
The intensity of the writings became overwhelming. The letters dribbled down unrelentingly. A lazy Sunday morning sprang to mind, and the broken jar of honey that was so difficult; it was that broken jar.
Each moment in time became an immense moment, each letter became a colour, each colour embraced a wall.
The colouring was intermittent. At moments there was an intense yellow warm orange such as a sunset. At these moments I felt warm, dreamy and safe, but, as suddenly as yellow was there, dark black clouds of infinite absolute darkness would arrive.
My entire being became one with the colours.

I felt at complete ease and at peace in these yellow moments. I had a strong feeling of love for the entire universe and all that would ever walk upon its cherished ground.

Time became irrelevant .
I was comfortable sitting there, well, I say comfortable, perhaps that is a relative word.
Slowly and gently as the words became more coloured and smaller and then smaller still. They became so small that they became pixellated.
Within the pixellation I began to see  blurry moving pictures.
Pixellation is for computers, these walls are not computer-generated, they are physical walls. But still the only words of description I have access to are words of modern technology.
The definition became higher and higher to a point where I began to see my past in these mini-murals.
Sometimes there were several murals at the same time. At these moments they were too blurred to make much out . Occasionally, images showed themselves more clearly.
Sitting there became a reward.
I began to see small moments encapsulated on the wall.  They were moments of my past.
I decided to settle myself down and ride this horse to the end of the rodeo. I now had nothing to lose. Potentially I could reverse the damage done to me by room 309.


I gently stroked the wall with the more extreme imagery, as I touched it, it seemed to give off an energy, or rather took a life energy from me. It became more clear , the more I stroked the wall the more precise and clear the image became.
I gently stroked the image until my hand started to pass through the wall. I knew this moment in time.




To think that we didn`t have a good time on the boat would be wrong.
We would often play practical jokes upon each other to relieve the tedium of the endless waves.
One morning for example, Jonny had been a little late in getting up.
We all knew his unfortunate handicap.  Shark o phobia. That`s ok for a land lubber, but here it was a reprimandable offence.
We had already caught a few small babies, but then we got a biggy.
The captain suggested we plant this monster right above the stairway
that lead to Jonny`s cabin, tie it down and let it thrash. We hid ourselves, and then above the racket of the threshing angry shark, carefully placed at the stair entry to the deck, we used everything that we could find to awake Jonny. We made make a racket loud enough to awake Jonny and the dead.
To have see Jonny fight that git of a dying monster shark without losing his other arm kept us in fits of drunken laughter for weeks to come on that immense lonely sea.
We all knew Jonny would get us back, but hoped we wouldn`t lose a life or a limb on his reciprical practical joke.



The crisp crackling sound of burnt leaves under ones foot .
A shadowed sun effortlessly hiding behind a dark shower of potential.
These are the things that make one sing to the beauty of existence.
Cut short in their birth and inevitable immediate death.
They linger, their a taste lingers in the mouth, a taste of the past.

Instantaneously their memory bring one back, calls one back.
long lost memories of a past that was so beautiful, and yet it will forever
remain,  ,un -re attainable.
these are a few of my favorite regrets.

Is it so true ?,truth and its bedfellow memory, have become so inter twinned
that reality could have little chance of grasping the true crystal  nature of
existence?
.
 Is acceptance hidden in that dark glass.
 Attaining the golden days of youth, we can only dream of, as we look down from our clouded hilltops of insecurity.
through the mist, it was so bright, and so crystal?


After having thought I had seen Jonny briefly at Gatwick, I decided I couldn`t take any chances.
It seemed highly unlikely, as I covered my path to my hideaway very well.
But I knew these guys, they were good at what they did.
When I got home I decided to take some preliminary precautions.
Normally, the rule is flee immediately, but I thought this course was too extreme and involved a lot of upset and trouble. So I gambled that it wasn`t Jonny that I had glimpsed, and even if it was, I thought I would be able to manage the situation nevertheless.
Once back at my safe house, I embarked on a defensive early warning action, that would keep me ahead of the game.
Initially using a compass, I drew a hundred kilometre circle on a map, the centre of which was my house. I had bought the house under yet another false name, so there could be no trace there.
Every evening I would go to a town that fell within the circle.

I started from the extremity. It was a lot of work, but it had to be done, as I really liked my new found home, and would not quit it unless it became truly neccessary.This attachment in itself broke all the rules and made me very unneccessarily vulnerable.
Each evening I picked a town on the circular outskirts, I drove there, and sought out the local "scumbag bar".
I don`t mean this demeaningly, it`s just the way you may see such bars. They are the bars of the lowest common denominator.
They are the bars that me and Jonny would have frequented.
If Jonny was looking for me, he would look there.
I would spend an evening or two chatting with the locals and chumming up with the head Arab guy on many occasions.
By the end of an evening I would feel I had failed in my mission if I had not come to some arrangement whereby anyone resembling Jonny
would be noticed, and a pay-as-you go mobile phone number rung forthwith. This action being carried out would secure a payment of 50 euros.
Focus on the situation had already been achieved by a down payment of 20 euros, and all the alcohol said observer could drink, while he basked in my unreserved attention to him.

Eventually after six weeks my hard work paid off. I was at last ahead of the game.
My anonymous pay as you go mobile phone sang it`s tune.
It was just past midnight, and immediately I knew I owed a dodgy guy 50 euros.
I answered with bated breath. He told me the town, the bar, and his name for payment.
I quickly threw on some clothes and jumped in my van, armed with my Tom Tom, I would be there within the hour.
The hunted had once again become the hunter.

I arrived at my destination within 47 minutes.  At that moment I realized all my shortfalls: I had no gloves, I had forgotten the folder that advised me of the best back entry to the bars.
It all didn`t matter, I remembered the bar and the best course of entry.  There was a quiet alley at the back that ran to a bathroom window.  I remembered my reconnaissance well, the window was glazed with 3 mill glass, as many French windows use this inadequate glazial protection.  It was no barrier to me and my Chinese methodology.

I penetrated the glass quickly and almost silently, to open the catch on the window.  Everything was going smoothly as I entered the washroom.  I shut the window and hid myself in one of the two cubicles, to give myself the chance to plan my next move.  A few minutes later my head was in gear and I knew what my approach to Jonny (if it was Jonny) would be.  I exited the loo, went to the bar and quietly ordered a double Bloody Mary. I sat down in the corner and looked around.

There were about 45 people in the bar and it was cooking.  I had remained unnoticed.  This was one of those really cool bars where people were smoking.  I spotted my Arab friend; he saw straight through my disguise, simply because he was expecting me.  I saw the glint in his eye as he recognized me, it wasn`t just a 50 euro glint, it was the glint of friendship. That glint warmed my
heart and made my situation a little more tolerable. I had a sudden hope that if things worked out O.K. with Jonny we would be able to have a few beers and a laugh together. We would have to see.

The guy gave me a nod, and gestured to his left.  I couldn't see my target initially, but tried to remain patient and sit still and unnoticed in the corner.  The music was as loud as the exuberant chatter.  Then I started getting warm and fuzzy as old Bowie tracks were coming through the over-powered P.A. system. 'Let's Dance', 'Ashes to Ashes', then 'The Jean Genie'. It was time to walk up to Jonny through the smoke of the now forbidden herb, and say "Hello".

So pushed myself through the crowd of smokey people until I was positioned behind a non-expecting bar-stool-leaning individual.  He was clothed in a leather jacket that looked like it had seen
better days. I inhaled a breath of his surrounding air, and I swear to you I smelt the salty sea breeze of the Quadrangle of over 40 years ago.  At that moment I really hoped he had forgotten the day me and my fellow pirates had tied that big shark on deck, just for a laugh. He still hadn`t got me back. I knew he would , sooner or later.

I decided to play it cool. I knew there were serious issues.  He wasn`t hunting me down for the sake of nostalgia. He wanted something. There were so many things it could have been. It sounds ridiculous but things were a bit intense and weird back there, in the Quadrangle.

I thought I would play Mr Cool, so I just whispered in his ear: "Jonny"



As he turned to me, things just got stranger.
The music started to throb in my head , I felt faint, I took a grip on the bar and myself as I looked into his eyes.
For the uninitiated, looking into his eyes would have seemed just strange and scary, but for me it was much, much more.
It was cold black-blue.
Since this experience I have tried to write books, songs and paint. But still I have been unable to express that moment.

His face was very bronzed, and the wrinkles although as expressive
as a Norwegian coastline, were much fainter than one would expect of a man that must have experienced more than ninety years of sea-faring.
His secrets were well hidden behind his dead shark eyes.

It was going to be a tough encounter I thought.
It became obvious to me that my dream of bringing Jonny back to meet my friends and family , would be akin to being sent out to buy Kettle Chips, and coming home with Monster Munch.



He said in his usual drunken dead way, as if no time at all had passed "It's you matey"
His blend of pirate and metrosexual was impressive.
I had my body armour on before I left my house.
I hoped it had been an unneccessary precaution, but I hadn't stayed alive this long without a few precautions.
The converstaion was simplistic to say the least.
I managed to get a stool next to Jonny at the bar.
This was a bizarre experience.
We chatted over the loud Bowie.
Nothing was understood .
Later we went back to Najeeb's place.
It was quieter.
Much quieter, as nothing could be said.
Smoking was not allowed within the appartment , so me and Jonny and Najeeb went outside.
Grace to the fact that Najeebs English was underpar , me and Jonny
(Jonny and I) had a chat.
This converstation was highly illuminating for me.
Apparently "The book" had to be returned.
It was not some internet copy , but a limited edition, serial numbered item that Max should not have given me.
This particular copy could and would be traced directly to Max.
If It ever re-surfaced the consequence for Max would be terminalado.
And his italian marble sculptures would be buried deep in the sand.

Jonny explained that, as I had got Max so pissed and smashed on Sulphate ,Max had crossed the line by  giving me the book.
I explained to Jonny that the book had gone missing from my safe box back in the early seventies on the Pointless Danger.
Jonny implied I was lying.
Things went down hill from there.
I pulled out my secret weapon, disguised as a line of our old friend- ,,, Sulphate (Amphetamine Sulphate).
Jonny couldn't resist it. I had laced it this time not with Vim (as you may remember for the bikers), but this time with Ketamine.
I knew one line of this baby would make Jonny as peacful as a lamb.
My second dose was a needle in the arm of Pethedrine, followed by Pentathol.
My plot was to find out who was behind the main game.
Najeeb and his misses had long since gone to bed, nearly all their friends had left. There were just one or two people asleep on the couches, if they awoke I was ready to inject large quantities of ketamine into them intraveniously, at very short, and professional notice.
Nobody woke up.

My discussions with Jonny were very Illuminating.
In fact he began to ramble. I didn't need to ask questions.
I didn't want to interupt.
I think he must have had some serious guilt issues.
He started talking about stuff I had no idea about.
He seemed to be obsessed about Aluminium.
He started talking about Chem trails.
I made some notes and underlined Chem trails, with a view to researching more about them on the internet.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you would like some of the background to these memoirs go to
http://memoirsofadrunkensailor.blogspot.com/   
Cut and paste this into the address bar of your warm and cuddly browser.

Black Dark Wine

Black Dark Wine.

The crisp crackling sound of burn leaves under ones foot .
The shadowed sun effortlessly hides itself  behind the dark shower of potential.
These are the things that make one sing in homage to the beauty of existance.
Cut short in their birth and inevitable immediate death.
They linger,as a taste lingers in the mouth, a taste of the past.
Instantaneously they bring one back, they call one back.
long lost memories of a past that was so beautifull, and yet it will forever
remain,,unreattainable.
these are a few of my favourite regrets.

Is it so true ?,truth and its bedfellow memory, have become so intertwinned that reality could have little chance of grasping the crystal true nature of existance.
 An acceptance that one can never re attain those golden days of youth, where everything now seen from the clouded future appears so golden, so bright, and so crystal? Are these not the reflective thoughts of Black dark wine.

shut up

In a world that is at war in more than a few countries.
There is only one option for me .
And that it to shut up.
The only problem is. I am a drunken sailor.
So fuck the CIA fuck MI5
I

Chilli sweats 6

Later in the evening I went back on deck knowing It was too late to get settled and have a chance at the card action.
I wondered around a bit and smelt the air , that cool non weird air that I had
been pinning for.
I decided to go to the galley and see what`s for dinner.
I seemed to get a quite short retort from the chef , who told me to stop
bothering him, apparently I had already asked him.
I thought no more of this and went back on deck. I could hear the shouts of
exuberance from the card game echoing the enjoyment of a winning hand through
the steel structure of the boat. That`s how serious these games were.
I went back to the stern to enjoy a little peace and reflection.I peered into
the distance and saw a black distant plume of what I guess was a badly
maintained diesel engined ship. I watched it for a while.
We were doing a fair few knots. After twenty minutes or so of relaxing and
cooling out , I started to get a twitch of paranoia.
The black smoke was still directly behind us and even seemed to be gaining.
Were we running from it? nobody had told me. but that was normal.
It seemed to me that everything was on a need to know basis here.
Lets face it, what we did was extremely dubious and probably not ever legal

even in the most out of the way of offshore waters.
My paranoia got the better of me, and I suddenly realised that things were not
quite right.
I began to imagine that perhaps the other axe wealding individual had got back
to the boat before me.
Suddenly a hot wave throbbed in my head. I could see only red, I grasped out
and gripped the cold steel hand rail as my head spun, all of the hair on my
body stood up as I fell to my knees.
The next thing I remember was waking up in the small tender adrift, with the
Pointless Danger miles away glinting in the distance.

Chilli sweats 5

Chilli Sweats 5

I left my cabin fully armed, to the teeth in fact, well prepared for any

trouble.  When I got on deck, there  was Wheels, there was Sid, there was

Silver Fox.  They were just doing their jobs.  I looked at the wheelhouse;

there was the Captain.  She looked as happy as hell.  She had a big smile on

her face.  There was a mild swell; we were cutting through the waves.  There

were the lovely, black slave girls, looking hot and luscious, as always.  And

it was obviously time we were bringing in some swordfish.  It was that time of

year.  Everything was normal.  Everything was cool.  Was it possible I could

even say anything to anybody?  Was that a dream?

Anyway, it just wasn’t the right time to say anything.  I just lay back, stayed

cool, did my job.  I had nets to mend.  I knew I was way behind so I just got

on and started mending my nets.  Everything was fine.  I spent maybe two,

three, hours mending the nets.  I didn’t say a word.  I thought, “Err...best

leave it alone.”.

Anyway, later on, the sun was going down; it was time for a card session.  So I

let everybody else go down, do the cards, and I stayed on deck for a while.  I

just looked at the setting sun and watched it go down and thought, “Hey, that

was a close shave!  I don’t know what that was, but it was a close shave.”  So

I was feeling well, I don’t know, what can I tell you?  It was a situation I

couldn’t really talk to anybody about, so I thought that maybe if I went down

below shortly and played some cards, I would be able to ask a few questions.

“What’s been happening?”  You know.  Maybe I’d got a bit drunk, passed out.

“You guys, what have you been doing?  What’s been happening?”  Just to try and

find out where the time line was.

So I went down the steps, down to the rec. room and everybody was in there.

Things were getting a bit hot, people were slamming cards down, money was

changing hands.  Things were getting pretty damn interesting.  I’d been missing

out on some early action.  Not that I was that bothered ‘cos I had something

else on my mind.  So I thought it certainly wasn’t the right time to say

anything.  And as it happened, it never was the right time to say anything.  It

never, ever was possible.  It never felt right to say anything.  So I had to

keep all of this stuff to myself.

Anyway, the only thing that was quite interesting was that while they were

playing cards – funnily enough it was a card game I had invented, called

“Waffle”.  It’s a little bit like “Knock” but you lay the cards down in front

of you and ultimately it became quite famous.  In fact, you may even meet

people that know “Waffle” and if I were to speak to them and say, “Hey, I

invented that!”, they would just laugh at me.  It was that famous.  Strange,

the  way things happen.

Anyway, lots of money was changing hands.  Since I wasn’t on the case I stayed

clear– especially when Wheels is playing – you have to be on the case.  As soon

as he was losing, he  would just shoot off at a tangent, telling stories, and

the next thing you knew, you were down all your money.  You were down all your

money.  It was that quick, that fast.  He is a vrai expert.

What was I saying?  Cards.  Well, they had been talking about something.  They

had been talking about something when I had walked into the room: “Black Crow.”

But as soon as I had walked into the room, they had stopped talking about it,

which made me suspicious.  So obviously I was very interested.  For some time

afterwards I wondered, “What is Black Crow?”.  It was obvious I wasn’t going to

be told.

Chilli sweats 4

Chilli Sweats 4
Forgive the rough writing here, as it shows more the true nature of a drunken sailor.

Everything ran through my mind now.  “This can’t be true.”  Everything ran

through my mind.  I had to compute so much; it was beyond me.  After some

computing I realised:  if that me got back to that boat, my boat, and went

away, I would be stuck on this giant, black, messy, evil hulk from hell!  I had

to do something.  I had to act.  I didn’t have much time!  Now!  I have to

think!  I have to do the math – what the hell am I going to do?  If that me

goes down those steps, unties the boat and drives off, I’m stuck here!  Here in

this big, black, armageddon of hulking, black mass of burnt-out iron.

What to do?  I gently stepped back into the dining room.  I left the door open

- I didn’t want to make any noise – just to give me time to think, because if

there was any time to think in this world, it was now.  Finally I had made a

decision: I had to confront this, this me, this other me.  I thought I would

put the axe down.  I went out of the door and walked in the direction in which

the other me had passed.  At first, I could see nothing, it was so foggy, but

then I made out a dark figure and I heard it shout, “Hello!  Hello!”.  I

cautiously, quietly said, “Hello.”, from behind it.

The figure turned.  In that moment of its turning, everything that I had

thought changed.  When it turned I saw the face. It was me but was much older

than me.  I could see the wrinkles of the face.  I could see the tired look in

the eyes.  I could see stress and a darkness and something else I had never

seen. This face had been somewhere I hadn’t been.These eyes were dark and

hollow compared to mine.  Then I had to think, “What should I say?” but I just

couldn’t think straight.

Fortunately,as the face turned to me - that wrinkled, grey, tired, spooky face

said to me, “Oh, I’m so glad.  I’ve been trying to find you." The big, blue,

scary, starey eyes cut into my inner soul.  And then this apparition said,

“Thank God!  I’ve been looking for you.  Thank God I’ve found you.  I need to

tell you something.  It’s really, really important.”

Until this point, my main motivation and fear had been that it was going to get

back to the boat, my boat, untie it and drive off, leaving me alone on this

big, black, scary hulk of a ship. Strangely, I felt suddenly relieved that this

wasn’t the situation.  This was a new situation.  I had to listen.  But

suddenly, at this point, somebody kicked open one of the side doors, jumped

out, ran toward us and swung an axe, hitting the spooky apparition in the back.

I was sure it must have killed it. instantly.  The perpetrator then ran away

very quickly, so fast that I couldn’t see who it was. It was so foggy, it was

dark with fog.

My immediate thought was, “Oh my God! I was going to learn something really,

very important.” And this other perpetrator had stopped some very important

information being imparted to me.  My first feelings were absolute shock but,

more than that, disappointment.  I really had believed that this other older me

had been going to tell me something so crucial to my future that everything

would depended upon it.  Everything!

The perpetrator had proceeded to run away at a very fast speed and disappear

into the deep fog.  I could hear the footsteps fading into the distance.  I had

no inclination in me to follow. After all, I had put my axe down.  God!  What a

joke this was, the realisation that I could not follow and my only hope of

finding out what was going on was lying on the floor bleeding with an axe in

the back.  The situation was getting worse and worse.  Initially I had just

been worried about getting back to the boat.  Who was this?  Was my boat going

to be stolen?  Was I going to be stuck?  My biggest concern was that I was

going to be stuck here, on this damned boat, this ship, this black hulk.

I went back and got my axe, just for protection and decided quite quickly and

cleanly, “Just get back to my boat, and get the hell out of here.”, so that’s

what I did.  I got my axe,  picked it up and gripped it, did some practice

swings, left over shoulder, right over shoulder.  I used some Wing Chun Kung Fu

and Tai Chi moves, anything just to warm up.  I was in trouble here.  Then I

got out of the door and started walking cautiously along the gangway.

I stepped over the body.  It was dead; It was gone; It was finished.  Whatever

It had had to say to me, it was too damned late.  All I had to concern myself

with was getting back to my boat and getting the hell out of here, hopefully

without that other axe-murdering maniac stepping onto my boat.  Anyway, it felt

like a quarter of a mile or a half a mile to get back to the stairway.  I got

there moving slowly and, obviously carefully.

Once I got there, I stepped onto the stairway.  It rattled, which upset me a

little bit, banging against the side, made noise.  I did not need noise right

now.  I needed stealth, so I tip toed down that stairway like I’d never tip

toed before.  I  needed to get back on my boat, get the hell out of Dodge.  I

got halfway down and I stopped and listened.  This time there was nothing.  No,

“Hello!”.  No nothing.  Thank God!  I carried on down.  It would have been easy

to be sloppy but I kept my concentration.  I did not make a single sound on

that stairway, I swear to you.

I got back to the bottom of the stairway, untied the knot I had made,

carefully.  It’s a kind of reef knot of complexity that’s easy-peasy but so

efficient.  It seems to me that many sailors have many knots but I have just

one.  It’s super-duper efficient and it’s very simple.  I just pulled the end

and the rope came undone, as it should and always does.

I jumped, only a meter onto the boat.  Phew!  I thought, “I’ll worry about the

over-unity motors later; I’ll get them working later.  Obviously, I’ll run out

of diesel, that’s a secondary thing.  Number One is: Get the hell away from

this black, steel hulk and whoever the hell that was.”  Anyway, once I’d gone

down and turned the diesel back on, the motors started up immediately.

Fortunately the turbos hadn’t blown the diesel motors, so everything was cool.

Chug, chug, chug, chug ... off  we went.  We moved lovelly, beautifully away.

My heart was lifted as I stood on the bridge, and – chug, chug, chug, chug –

off  we went.  Maybe six knots, seven knots, that was fine ...just get the

bloody hell out of here.  It was actually dark now, it wasn’t just fog, it was

dark .  I was tempted to turn the spots on but I thought, “No, just get away.

Don’t give any sign of where or what you are, just get away.” And that’s what I

did.

I was at least half a mile away and I flicked the spots on, just to have a

quick look ahead of me, but it was pointless.  The light just reflected back

from the fog, so I turned the spots off.  I thought I’d just drive blind and

trust to the fact that anywhere would be better than there.  I chugged away and

the further I got away from that boat, the better I felt.

After half an hour of moving away, during which I’d turned the engines up and

had been getting up to about twenty knots, we were moving away seriously.  I

must have been several good kilometres away from that bugger.  I was feeling a

little bit brighter and really felt: “God!  I’ve just been through the mill

here.  Things were pretty grim and I’m out of there.  I’m safe.  I’m out of

there, I’m safe.”  I hadn’t even had the time to think: “Where is everybody?

What’s going on?  Why’s it dark?”  That was a different issue.

I thought now: “We’re in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  I could turn it onto

auto-pilot and it would be cool.  So that’s what I did.  I turned on the auto-

pilot, set a course,for Uvongo beach, I thought I’d get the hell out of there.

It was going to be four, five, six hours before I arrived there, so I thought

I’d go and get some shut-eye.  I was away from some real, deep shit, and I

thought I’d worry about it in the morning.  I felt a little bit safe; it felt

safe.  So I just turned on the auto-pilot –okay, it was very primitive, fuck

me, it was not nineteen nineties stuff, it was maybe ‘sixty eight, maybe

‘seventy five, stuff.  We just didn’t have GPS.  So the auto-pilot would keep

the steering straight and I’d got radar set up previously so that if anything

came up on the radar, a beep-beep-beep alarm would go off in my cabin.  It was

pretty cool.

So everything was pretty cool.  I thought I’d go and get some shut-eye and

everything would look better in the morning.  The sun would come up.  For God’s

sake, the sun would come up.  The fog would clear and I would see some sense

and sensibility, some bloody reality.  Fair enough, I felt fairly confident I

could leave the bridge, we were literally miles from anywhere.  I could let the

thing tick over – bom, bom, bom.  My only concern was, the next morning I must

sort out the over-unity device because I was going to run out of diesel.  I

couldn’t even get to shore with the diesel I had.  We’d been so reliant on that

thing.

I set all the controls to neutral, plotted a course for Uvongo and I went down

the stairway to my cabin and thought: “Sod it, I’ll get some sleep.  I need

some sleep.  It’s freaking me out, this.  I’ll get some sleep and everything

will be fine tomorrow.”   I slept like a baby.

I woke with the sun shining through my porthole.  My eyes were a little bit

crusty as I opened them up.  Maybe I had been crying in my sleep.  Shocking,

shocking time.  Anyway, it was sunny.  The relief!  Actually, when you wake,

you just feel calm and normal.  It’s only when you think of what’s been

happening it soaks in whether you should feel happy, sad, frightened, shocked

... or terrified!  As it happened, that morning I just felt relieved.  I could

hear the chugging of the engines; they weren’t going crazy, that was good.  It

wasn’t foggy, it was sunny, it was good.  I felt warm and safe in my bed, that

was good.  So I rested there for a moment, trying to absorb what had happened,

not that I could really.  Realistically, I think it would have been impossible

for anybody to absorb.

I lay there for a moment, thinking.  Reflecting: what had happened?  I felt

okay enough just to lie there for a while.  I was avoiding reality.  There was

nobody on the bridge, not unless things had gone back to the normal world,

which had parted company with me some time back.  Ha!so what if there was

nobody on the bridge.  The engines were ticking over,  we were doing maybe

nine, ten, knots, I don’t know, but normally you’d have somebody up there

keeping an eye open, you know, keeping a watch.  Obviously, there was nobody

watching, unless things had returned to normal and I thought that was a little

bit too much to hope for.

So, anyway,  I lay there.  I tried to relax.  I thought I’d give myself the

luxury of meditating for a moment, just to get some perspective.  If I could

just meditate myself into a situation where I was just an observer, as the

reality really is, and if I was just consciousness, everything would be fine.

But, as we often find out, good as you may be at meditating – or anything else

– reality can kick you in the arse.  I was fully aware of this.  So I lay there

anyway and tried to relax my toes, relax my feet, relax my calves, relax my

thighs, relax my hips, relax my stomach, relax my chest, relax my arms, relax

my shoulders, relax my eyes, relax my face, etc., etc....anybody that knows

about meditation will know this.  I was finding it a little bit difficult but I

was calming and accepted that meditation might be the best way of dealing with

my extreme situation.  Often it is.

Anyway, it was working, everything was peaceful.  Then I just heard something

walk by the door.  My door.  It threw my meditation quite severely because  I

thought, “Hey!  I don’t know what situation I’m in – maybe it’s just normal,

maybe it’s cool, or are we still back in Weird City?  I don’t know.”  I didn’t

know.  I couldn’t know without finding out.  So that actually absolutely ruined

my meditation .  I was disappointed because I was just at that point where

things were feeling pretty good.  I had felt calm, I was just an observer of

this lunacy of the universe and then suddenly I had to protect my essence, my

life, my vital force.  I had to make sure I was okay.  After all, it is our

job.  It is our fundamental job as human beings to survive.

So, with that in mind, I jumped out of bed.  I forced myself.  I put on some

basic clothes and sat down on my bench and thought about what course of action

I should take. How should I approach this situation, which could be absolutely

normal or absolutely: that is an axe murderer outside of my door.  Difficult

decisions.  I erred on the side of caution and decided that it was more

probably the axe murderer and, knowing my luck, it would be the axe murderer

and not normality that had returned.  I would probably have to throw ten dice

rolling sixes all at once to get back to normality, the way things had gone.  I

had crossed the bloody line with the over-unity, the dark energy.

Whatever!  So what?  My fault.  Let’s get over it.  Let’s face it.  Let’s deal

with it.  After all, it was my job.  I had been dealing with this shit all my

life.  So, what did I expect?  I tell you what I expected.  I expected the

bloody worst!  So this had gone through my mind.  I put on my trousers, put on

my shoes, put on my shirt and I started thinking: “Hey, I’d better start arming

myself pretty damn well.”  Let me tell you one thing, it’s all very well to

think, “That’s a good weapon.”  Wham, bam, whatever – butterfly knives, swords,

this knife, that knife, guns, whatever.  But at the end of the day, when it

comes down to really having to do the deal, all that is bullshit.  At that

moment in time you’ve got to weigh up which sword is lighter, sharper, faster –

but what’s the situation?  It’s quite a hard decision to make and I had limited

access to weaponry in my cabin.  Personally, on reflection, I think that a

forty-five or a nine millimeter handgun is very efficient.  Unfortunately, I

didn’t have access to a forty-five or a nine millimeter handgun.  A thirty-

eight would have done, but unfortunately I didn’t have access to that either.

The only things that I had access to were some short swords, kung fu swords,

some knives – and that’s fine if you’re A1 at kung fu, and really fit, and very

on-the-ball.  They’re bloody heavy to swing around really fast...I would have

... oh, I wished I had a thirty-eight or a forty-five!  Or a nine millimeter.

I had to face reality: I didn’t.  So I’d got my pants on, my socks on, my shoes

on, they’re the best weapons you’ve got, for starters.  They make you feel

safe.  You’re not naked.  That’s a damn good start.

My butterfly knife was nearby.  I had left it out of the box that I’d lost the

key to.  I picked that up.  I was pretty fucking hot wih that but – God

Almighty! – it’s all show, show, show.  You can make it spin round like a fan

blade, it doesn’t mean a thing.  Unless it’s in your mind to cut somebody’s

throat, you have nothing.  Personally; I’m happier with a sword or something,

you know. I had a thirty-eight inch sword.  I put that in my belt.  It was

Malaysian, a very nice antique, a very sharp, engraved sword that I put in my

belt.  Of course, I put my butterfly knife on board as well.  But, really, I

felt very under-armed for the sort of darkness that I might have to face.
 Quite honestly, if you see an axe coming, you can’t beat it with a knife or a

sword. But... I don’t know, the intent, the intent is the think to deal with...

The game is about intent.  The power of intent is greater than the pre-

meditated spinning knives around like a prat.

Anyway, I armed myself as best I could with what I had.  It consisted of a

thirty-eight inch Malaysian sword with twin-edged blades, sharpened like a

razor.  Well manufactured, well balanced.  That was okay, I felt that was a

good weapon.  I thought I could handle anybody with that weapon.  I put the

butterfly knife – it’s all very well, but if you put a butterfly knife in your

pocket, in the second it takes you to pull it out, you’re dead!  It’s too late!

 I had it there anyway as a back-up.  It’s all I had.  That’s all I had to face

this axe murderer...potentially.  Or, potentially, everything would be fine. It

 would be sunny, the slave girls would be up there cleaning fish.  The Captain,

in her stinky tabbard, would be there, everything would be fine.  That’s what I

hoped, but I knew: life ain’t that easy.

I prepared myself.  I swung my sword around.  I flicked my butterfly knife,

changed hands with it.  Whum, whum, whum, whum, fwi, fwi fwi, fwi, fwi like a

butterfly.  They are very cool but – you know – they’re more for show, more for

Hollywood.  Well, they’re fucking deadly, don’t get me wrong, but, as I say,

it’s intent that’s much more important than the weapon you carry.  Personally,

being a peaceful person, my murderous intent is fairly low on the agenda.

I thought I was as armed as I could be, as I carefully unlatched the door and

opened it without it squeaking.  Whoever had walked by my door had been gone at

least a minute or so.  They could have been on deck, they could have been

below,I didn’t know.  I thought that maybe I should just stay where I was and

wait things out.  That would be the wise thing to do.  At that moment in time,

the wise thing to do, actually, would have been much wiser than it sounds.

Really what I should have done was wait, and wait, and to learn as much as

possible about what was actually going on.  But one tends to get a little bit

bored, tense, anxious and one is tempted to open one’s door and go and find out

what the hell is going on.  So that’s what I did.