The Writers' Circle

Visualise the proclamations on abandoned graffiti walls, in the suburb of Doun-Retore, that in the electric hum of stilted air, runs cruel vibrations and cold stares from critics and the whistling forms of phantoms to reinforce their will of averages. Past the open manholes with fungi growth and dark groans of dirt trains, to the graveyard of Rohm-Axur, where perhaps, Cranach once painted ghastly faces, taut with Prussic ideals, and the burnt effigies of dead saints, with open light bulb eyes, that sing in nightfall, daybreak-sway with cider roots to the shore, and beckon passing trade ships, to unload a new cargo of salt and life.

I was approached by a sterile Mormon on the sub-train in Vicent, came on with handshakes and apologetics in a silver suit, "S-Stub" he smiled, tapping his ticket, and weighing me with the mellow eyes of Jesuit, "Heading to Etienne-du-Sur" he nodded, "Rue-Niaoma" I replied."I'm Meeting Dr. Gorez", he emitted the low whine of a madman.
"Worked on his interns, he did", lost in the flash stuck-match of memories, "it was genius, used intercortical suppression and ablative therapy, you can still see them shuffling through the promontory of San-Retori, half-crazed, looking for lost limbs" he whistled shaking his head.
I had taken in his cold mechanical movements, and placed him among the serving members of the crazed Yahweh worshippers. 
"Vorarephiliacs!" he continued as if he remembered something important "coprophagists, hemophages, lycanthropes, schizotypals and every other known mental aberration, exposed and washed thin into a pure soup of malformations, so evil were the results- the products of the Original Sin, children born out of shame and deviance, and eventually set upon the world, attired in azure suits and briefcases, sun seed-smiles, pomade wet-grease hair, the works" he winked, "You know what happened, eh?" 
I looked down at the brown tethered briefcase he held close with knuckle-white hands. I replied that I didn't. "Nothing, that's what, they thrived in the system, some are even highly respected, with a firm holding in 'business' and 'consulting', to look at them you would never know, it says a lot about our system... comfortable... just like a virus in a Petri dish" he spat in disgust. I registered no surprise. 
"It makes you think doesn't it, if only Gorez was in the field of parapsychology, anthropology, or ethnography, there could be a be serious manifesto on the subject, but no" he yawned "he's only interested in the human body, he's an ethnocentric at heart, you see, he's only real interest lies in creating something corrupt or pure, an ontological agenda to find the pure root of evil!" I was beginning to think this whole spiel was a come-on, so I decided to jump the cue, and hot-wash the bastard at his own game. 
"Your God" I said , "Yahweh", he nodded and the sub-train jolted with a sickening lurch, and continued downhill at an incredible speed, "What would he think about such experiments?", the roar of a passing fiacre train cut me off almost completely, so I repeated the question, on hearing me he shook his head and clutched his briefcase closer still. 
"Yahweh, would not approve of course, but his books themselves preach the value of and good, and the avoidance of evil, perhaps it's man's evolution to understand them better, to isolate them, and then perhaps eradicate the unnecessary elements, indeed, all this is subjective to the mind of the instigator" he moved closer to the slide doors, and stood beneath the flickering wan yellow lights, his face look tired and stretched like that of a anaemic, with the piercing grey eyes of a nocturnal. 
"So, what is you relation with this doctor?" I asked politely, sensing he was becoming irritated, "Purely scientific, not all of us at the RC as fanatic as you might think, I myself have studied anatomy, what the Elders called 'Science of the Soul", which is not too far removed from theology" he reached into his pocket, and presented a carafe of blue liquid which he pressed  into my hand "May Yehweh, be with you son" he smiled, and stepped briskly of the sub-train and into the crowd. I never caught his name.   

Exiting at Rue-Niaoma, I jumped the turnstiles, throwing the guard a daring smile, and watched the passing denizens of Al-Romeri all scattered within thin walls, each segregated with slum-like innocence, and subjected to the deep calm of pseudo peace- the veil that blanks every citizen's mind into an aboulic sense of false security. Archaic nations with flags, blazons, anthems, insignias, all awash in the liquid shame of continual entropy, hidden and obscure in a rich history, run by straw-men with blank static faces, entrained in the vacuity of trivia, and false messiahs. 

But I....I was loose again, set free among these 'people''- a cartoonist, painting the caricatures of life, breathing sentience into bloated forms, and yet understanding the system- more than anybody, and still feeling abused, shut-down, silenced. Perhaps I would of joined the Religious Coterie, in earlier years as an editor for the National Redress, when I was confronted by the acid-rain nightmares of an introvert, that kept turning like bad throws of insanity, a belief in a God, a conformist one at least seemed reasonable, though there are many Guilds that invent Gods, I never found saw the logic behind there worship, only that it serves to shelter the reality of this twisted world (which I needed so badly), and which I found in cartoons and animation, and ultimately the belief in myself, Mortimer Styles, it was also exactly that which led to my arrest.

I hit the street outside the sub-station, in the midst of a flash-rain that swept sideways against the throng of people, working their way down Rue-Niaoma,  I could make out the mendicants that habitually sweep the area, as I braved the rain and raised my collar against the stinging needles, I noticed a particularly deformed bundle of rags, hobbling painfully towards me, as neared I could see the sweltering mass of boils, goiters, scars, and pocks that tore his face into a sweltered mass of sickly-hued bumps.
"Pyrso for a poor man" he said predictably holding out his hand, the stench of decay and foul acerbic rot hit me like a rising wet-blanket, "Good God man, what happened to you?" I choked covering my nose, with a handkerchief.
"Consider this, my good sieur, that this poor mind, beyond the wreath of flesh, has never be inflicted with the presence of a somatic event, that those by auspice of luck, take for granted" he wiped his nose and snorted heavily, holding out his twisted hand once more for payment.
"Whatever you do you mean?" I asked perplexed, he scratched his head and looked heavily around "I mean sieur, that the light of fortune has never hit these heavy eyes, that the very tertiary law of probability failed upon my emanation on this planet" 
"you simply mean this unhappy circumstance, is down to luck?", "not quite sieur, no, not if you believe in pre determinism; I was always to be a beggar, you see, I was once a factotum managing the affairs of courtiers, before I developed these crippled hands" he displayed his gnarled twisted fingers "then a farceur for the troupes along the Mai-Seine, where I developed leprosy and cruel patrons would laugh only in pity, there is a story beyond every affliction you see on my wracked body sieur, that I'm now afraid to turn my hand to anything else" 
"Then you surely, you have turned you're hand to every profession, though I believe it is still that you are unlucky" I put to him.
"Unlucky only that I exist outside natural laws, and by that, I'm forced to break the common one" he smiled a toothless grin, and entered yet another coughing fit, after a while he recovered and said 
"Is luck not after all a word we use to describe physics and the continuity of events, though I believe luck, as you say sieur, is expressed by it's coming and going, and the fact I have none, is  that I am victim to the force that governs luck, when it is merely luck, its lesser beast that governs other men" he gummed his harelip pathetically, with a toothless maw, 
"An interesting theory, you've won your Pryso beggar" I flicked a silver-coin in his direction, and watched in silence as he tried to catch it with his twisted hands, he missed the coin and muffled an anguished scream as it rolled speedily into the flooded rain-swept drain. 
He looked at me pitifully, and groaned "Good sieur, I would very much be relieved if that was not the last of your coin, and the last of your generosity, which by the validity of events, should not now be diminished" searching my pockets and finding nothing, I held out my arm and touched his shoulder, "you've won my belief, which would seem as luck, in a way" turning "if I see you again, I will surely help" I left him nursing his head and cursing, and ran across the street to the Purple District and on past the Rue-Niaoma Bridge, until he was nothing more than a bad memory, this world can play evil tricks on people, it's no wonder so many are insane.

Passed the Oaken River where I used to play as a child, and on passed the broken tributaries of glass and burnt cider and till I found the familiar rising complex, home to my old friend and engineer Bacra, from the UlFR quarter.

On arriving I hit the distinguished metal-oak framed door mercilessly, until I heard the grinding of several locks and the door slowly creek open to reveal my old friend.
Bacra, Thank God", I said soaked and leaning heavily against the entrance "Ah! That's not my name any more Mort you know", "You're not still going with that Castellan bullshit?" he gave me a quizzical look and outstretching his hands he burst into laughter, "come in, I missed you" I entered the foray which was filled with fake Doric colonnades and old Jet engines.
"Did they give you at Marx tattoo?" "Yea, right here" I displayed the gammadion design tattoo of 3 chained linked triangles, it was still red around the edges,
"would you look at that" he whistled.
We walked on in silence, onwards passed 15 floors of repetition; dry oil-mechanics, engines, ancient contraptions, battle armour, pin-up ghosts from the neo-age, all painted sickly-brown, like decorative mannequins were all half meshed within every wall, electronics, robotics and blaring TVs tuned into same channel of industrial music with heavy guitars, interspersed with rooms with whirring clicking ceilings fan, low-lights and endless dusty corridors.
Bacra pushed back his pilot's glasses, "this way, mind the hex engine there" we reached a room, with oil-stained white sheets that covered several furnishing and a large bay window which flooded the room with natural sunlight, there was never any logic to the layout of his rooms.
"when did you get out?" bottle of Grealic-Meed from the fridge, passing a bottle to me, he sat opposite over a ricket-table.   
"just a few hours ago, since my release" I shook my head "people are beginning to seem like characters in a poorly written novel" I said drawing closer "A bum outside the sub-station in Rue-Niaoma, was convinced he was the product of pre determinism and preternaturally unlucky, he was over-polite and spoke impeccably, have you heard of a bum like that?" 
"I can't say I have, but I'd say they're all unlucky" he laughed.
"and I was given this container of blue liquid by a Yahweh worshipper on the sub-train from Vicent, without so much as introducing himself," I handed him the carafe.
"maybe that's just the cartoonist in you?" he mused, 
"are you saying these people weren't real?" I replied; he had always laughed at my profession, "you see, this might well be construed as a plot device" he said tossing the carafe into the air and catching it repeatedly, "you'd have to be one sick bastard to create a world like this, you know that Mort" he said reclining back languorously "It's extremely vain of you to consider if life were a novel, that you, yourself would be the protagonist, when it could just as easily be me, see I'm good looking, charismatic and I have my own castle"
"It's not a castle Bacra! It doesn't even look like a castle! For it it be a castle it needs, turrets, a drawbridge, a portcullis, a moat things like that, it's just...a rather large building" I sighed "Though, perhaps you're right, my life is far too mundane, being arrested was probably the only real exciting event in life" I looked to window at the passing freight trains and low flying Doctylans. 
"well then drink it" he said handing me the carafe with a rogue smile, I turned the container over in my hand watching the reflecting patterns of dancing blue sunlight on the floor, "It could be anything", I said softly. 
I uncapped the bottle, and quaffed the liquid in a single attempt, I looked at Bacra and smiled, the room started to blur and my fingers were starting to itch, I had to draw, to animate.

"Well?" he said.