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.
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http://memoirsofadrunkensailor.blogspot.com/
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