156 Baptism

Katheena sacrificed the last of the magical desert dust, blowing it into the air around her as she spun.


That was her instinct, to sacrifice something she had discovered only that night, which held power and ecstasy in her mind. She was infatuated with it, as is due course for any poor soul who beckons for a dance.


The end of the song would always leave the dancer in the gutter. Never doubt this.


But the idea here is that such powder did not hold any sort of magic power in and of itself. It was something else, which is this: the idea of sacrifice.



It is the inherent intention behind an act that warrants the act itself the strength of magic. In a ritual, a rite, a sacrament, the tools used are not themselves magical. But the focus of the mind makes them so. And, to get it right in one’s mind, then the tools must be something that is held in high regard.


This means it is rare, hard gotten, and therefore precious, to the holder, and to those who witness.



Here on Sunday, folks gather at their meeting place, and it is decorated in order to bring the mind into focus on the intention. All who enter the place are themselves the temple. So the priest or minister or rabbi or emir or what have you will present the ritual tools at the altar.


It is the focus of those who mediate, who pray, that bring to this focal point actual, real power. Real magic.


“Take this, each of you, and drink from it. This is my blood. The blood of the new and ever-lasting covenant.” ---Catholic Sacrament.

Human sacrifice, indeed.


In any ritual, it is the intention behind the sacrifice that brings the power. The chalice and the wafer are intended to represent human flesh. No one actually dies each Sunday on the church altar.


The intention is the key.


Katheena sacrificed her new found love: desert powder, and she did it to protect herself from evil. Ironic, isn’t it, that one form of evil would protect her from another form of evil?



OK, Church is out. Go now and spread the willies. Peace be with you. Rest in peace.




+++++++++++++++++++++

As The Rush Comes   by Motorcycle, Gabriel and Dresden Mix  

Katheena flew from the library into the hallway and headed in the same direction as she had been going on the outside of the lovely mansion. Ya know, when a chick has a good sense of direction no matter what twists and turns appear on the path, there is nothing sexier. Debrouillage, baby.


She found herself near the towel room with the pool that lay beyond, and that is where she ran.


=++++++++++++++++++++++++++=


The door knob would not turn. It was solid, if you tried to twist it. I punched it in my frustration. It clicked and popped out. Then the door crept open and old slats of cedar stripping interspersed with white, hard drips of wall-mudding faced us.


I turned back to Joey and grinned. “Looks like we were walled in---“ BOOM!


The wall exploded. Bits of gypsum struck my turned face and hit my ear. I staggered back and almost fell, then turned and looked at what the fuck.


An axe head gleamed for a moment, and then it was gone. It left a slice, and also an eruption of busted cedar slats and broken wall mudding. You know that another explosion was about to happen, and so did I.


I jumped down and away, just as Sean swung the axe into the wall again from the other side.

A hole appeared.


Sean’s face appeared in it and he saw me below. You shoulda seen how big his eyes got.


He laughed. “I knew it was you guys! Hey, Willie-Boy, why you all dusty? You look like you been to the moon or something! Joey? Why you all half-red?”


I laughed too, all covered in wall-mudding gypsum and cedar slat splinters. “What the hell you doing up here?!”



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Katheena looked around the edge of the wide entrance to the pool area. There were some purple robes gathered around one of the tables. She crept back inside. There would be other exits, and she needed only one. A window, a door, even a wall can become a portal, evidently.



She headed back to the hallway, and went off in the direction of her Orion.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=


Sean stood back as Joey and I kicked at the wall. We busted those old slats out into the hallway beyond with our boots. Shit got everywhere.



Bright light made our eyes squint. Sean stood there in his trademark long plaid shorts and Birkenstock sandals, and beside him, Tellesco was dressed the same. I chuckled.

“Hippy uniforms! Been smoking your Cheerios again Tellesco?”


They just looked at each other, and then Tellesco smiled at me through his weepy eyes. “Hey, who’s the chick?”




He looked past Joey, who was climbing through the gaping hole in the wall.


I looked to where he was staring, and saw nothing. He said, “Oh, she went back down in there?”


What


The


Fuck?




=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Katheena looked down from the rear window of the hallway and saw a white Celica parked near the land keeper’s structure, which hid her car on the other side of it from open view. She saw a tig bittied chick walk from the Celica and disappear to where Katheena's car Orion sat, waiting.


Katheena growled. “Stacy. That bitch!”


=+++++++++++++++++++++=



“Tellesco, what are you talking about?” I felt the shivers. He could see that dark shape too? How could this be?


Tellesco shrugged. “She went back down the stairs. Where do the stairs go?”


Joey smiled. “This is your escape route. We gonna go down and out, boys. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”


Sean shook his head. “Nope. Not right now. First we going to the roof. We gonna fuck shit up here. We gonna baptize this hell hole. You don't even know what the fuck happened to me and Tellesco here. We will not be going down into the floors below. There is some fucked up shit going on down there. Fuck that shit.”



I wasn’t hearing him. I said, “Tellesco, what did she look like?”


He smiled. “She’s very pretty. She has white hair, but its all wet like you guys. Well, except for you, Mr. Will. You getting kinda muddy from the white chalkboard dust all over your wet self.”



I could not believe it. He had seen Lorelei.



Huh.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Rizzle Kicks. Down With The Trumpets






Katheena tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t budge. So she looked around for something to smash it, and saw a potted palm tree. She ran to it, but found it must have weighed a few hundred pounds. She began to panic. That Stacy bitch was going to do something to Orion, she was sure of it.


She ran back to the towel room and found some weights. There was a long bar laying across the bench press on its arms. Although Olympic bars weigh exactly forty-five pounds, Katheena was a strong lady with adrenaline and desert dust fueling her anger at Stacy.


She carried the bar out of the towel room and down the hallway. She smashed the window, cleaned up the shards sticking out the sides with it, and then chucked the bar outside. She flew out the window and landed near the bar. She picked it back up, and she went after Stacy.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



Sean pointed behind him. “We gonna go knock down the water tower. It has four legs. If we do it right, when it falls it will crash through the roof. I been up there quite a bit. Some parts of the roof are old and weak. I got it all set. I was gonna finish the job with this axe here. When I grabbed it from the hallway firebox, that’s when I heard you guys. You guys sure know how to announce your arrival!”


I was amazed. Joey just grinned. “Sean, you’re pretty bad ass, dude.”


Sean shrugged. “That’s not why I’m doing this.”


Joey nodded. “You need help?”


Sean grinned back at Joey. “I was hoping you’d ask that. I’m all out of breath from busting that wall apart.”


Tellesco just stood there, looking down into the hallway where we would be exiting in a little bit. He was looking for the girl with the wet, white hair that was once a wild fire on the planet Mercury.


=+++++++++++++++++++++=


Katheena rounded the corner of the structure and saw Stacy looking around the other side. Her back was to Katheena. Stacy was looking at the diminishing crowd in front of the lovely mansion, trying to see what had made the sound of breaking glass.


Folks in their vehicles queued to exit the property, and the pink moon above glared down at them with wrath, and it held the fat rain clouds with skeleton fingers. It was about to squeeze the rain from them.


Katheena carried the long metal bar with her as she went to the other side of Orion, into shadow. She held it out on her shoulder, pointing at Stacy.


She waited. Stacy shrugged and turned back around, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then she walked over to Orion’s front hood. She had her hands out. She was going to scrawl something on Orion’s hood, and whisper strange things under her breath while she did so.




You know, she had cursed Matilda in the same way.



=+++++++++++++++++++++=



We followed Sean up the stairwell to the roof. It was a newer set of stairs, but still, not used all that often. It smelled musty, like a grave.


The water tower sat at the rear of the roof, over on the other end of the mansion, where the water lines connected the mansion to the city's water supply. At one time, this old place would have been supplied from a very deep well, but the discharge of such a huge place must have cost large amounts of money continuously to maintain the effluent back before it was connected to municipal sewer.


Back then, the tower would provide water pressure. Now, its only purpose was in case of a fire.


The water tower was not in view from those who stood at the front of the mansion. It would have been a sort of eyesore, interrupting the roof line and beauty of the place.



So we were hidden.


“Sean, what do you have in mind?” I walked around the wooden legs of the tower, and my boots felt a soft area of the roof. It sagged in here and there. I could feel that some of the boards were punky from dry rot, and were held in place only by the tarred surface above them, to which they were adhered. Gravel lined the topmost surface. Extra weight.


I already knew, at that point, what he intended to do.


Break the legs, and the beast would fall. It would fall down, bust through the roof, and pour its contents into the top floor below it.


Fucking wow.


Would we have time to escape? How would we escape with all that water exploding inside?


Would we drown in the desert?



Sean just shrugged. “We make the two side legs weak, and then we bust the one on the other side. I will have to do that, while the rest of you bail. Someone has to take that chance, and I’m willing to do it.”


Huh.


He was willing to risk sacrificing himself to save the rest of us.


Well, we could just get the fuck out and not do this.



Of course we could.


Just go home and take nice hot, candle-lit baths and do our nails….


=+++++++++++++++++++++=


Benny Benassi Featuring Gary Go. “Cinema.”









Stacy scrawled her finger tips across the surface of Orion’s hood, and tiny sparks glinted from them on the giant black bird decal there.

Katheena grunted under the heft of the steel bar. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my car, bitch?”


You shoulda seen Stacy’s eyes. Holy fuck. They had a deep red spark inside the pupils. This gave Katheena a start, but Stacy was startled and those sparks disappeared. She jumped back. “Who--?”

Katheena rammed Stacy in the chest with the bar and then heaved it at her.


Stacy went down with the heavy bar on top of her and Katheena flew upon her, wailing her fists at Stacy’s head.


=+++++++++++++++++++++=



We hacked away with the axe, taking turns, and while I rested between my turns at the old, iron-wood structure, I saw that Sean had been busy up there.


He had used a pick axe to clear away the gravel in long lines, and he had sliced the tar roofing away in a grid. This was so that the tar would not keep the roof together when the water tower fell. It would go right through the roofing, and splash its contents inside, away in the other direction from the stairwell structure behind us.



Joey handed the axe to Tellesco and wiped his brow with his leather. “It’s notched pretty good on both of those opposite legs now. Don’t hit them anymore. I think we are ready.”


Tellesco nodded. You see, we had notched the leg on the further side from us in one part of it down low and then in another place four feet above on the same leg.


That leg was ready for a good kick from the axe to make the notched piece fly out.


We had just finished making the two side legs weak with notches.


The fourth leg we left alone, so that the tower would fall away from us.


Indeed, the wood creaked and groaned, and there were tiny snapping noises coming from the side legs.


Sean shouted. “Time! Everyone get the fuck out NOW!”


He grabbed the axe, but I took it from him. He was not fully healed from his punctured lung, and that was why we did not let him do any chopping. Lord knows what he’d done to himself in busting down the wall to the hidden stairwell to let me and Joey through.


He shook his head. “I got this Willie-Boy. You follow them two.” He nodded at Joey and Tellesco who had run off across the roof to the stairwell door.


“NO! Now git. I got this. Move your fat ass and get the fuck outta the way Sean. You need time to get out. I got this.”


He stared at me, and the wood legs snapped a bit. Then he smiled. “Fuck it. Alright. Don’t waste time, Willie-Boy. See you on the other side!”


He ran off, and I went around to the trembling first leg.


I looked up at the huge water tower in the bright light of the pink moon. Red and white, water and sand, ocean and desert. The twain would meet again.


Holy fuck.


What the fuck had I gotten myself into?


What would you have done?


=+++++++++++++++++++++=




The Doppler Effect. Beauty Hides In The Deep.










Stacy lay unconscious, and Katheena dragged her by the legs away from the front of Orion. But she didn’t stop there. She hefted that steel bar back up and stalked off to Stacy’s car.


She had a score to settle. Gobless her.


She smashed the headlights and the windshield, then the side windows. She punched the hood of Stacy’s car with the heavy bar, and a hole appeared. She raised that bar up and then punched it down through the hole. The bar ruptured the top radiator hose and snapped some belts. She pulled it back out and then she ran at the front grill and ram-rodded the radiator.

She left it there.

Coolant dumped out on the ground.


Eye for an eye.


=+++++++++++++++++++++=



I saw Sean disappear into the stairwell structure, and waited for as long as I thought I could. The friggin water tower was moaning and groaning like an old man trying to get out of his death bed.


It was going to come down anyway. I could simply run off and let it do its thing by itself.

But,


…I had to be the reason. Don’t ask me why.




My skin crawled and I felt like I was going to throw up. My knees trembled, and the axe became heavy in my panicked grasp.

I chust stood there like a fool.


I faced down my fear.


I would not run off, not yet.



I waited chust one---


---more---


---second---



Then I swung that axe and saw the notched section fly off into the night sky, to the stars beyond.




I dropped the axe and ran as fast as my legs would go, and heard sharp, loud splitting and shrieking from sun-hardened iron wood squealing in pain as the water tower legs buckled.


I took a lesson from Lot and did not turn around to watch the fall. I dove into the stairwell and slammed the door behind me.


I did not want the water to follow me.


Fuck that. It had other places to go instead.


The roof let out a siren’s wail when the fourth, solid leg tore itself out from the roof and went skyward, as the tower leaned over the other way to take a nice roof nap.

Down

Down

Down.


The mansion shook as the water tower crashed into and through the roof. I could hear the it smashing through the support beams and into the rooms on the other end of the mansion.

Water roared through the rooms and hallways like a dragon with Tiffany lamp teeth. Furniture flushed out into the hallways, and windows exploded into the night with shards of glass and old paintings and such.


I found the hallway with the hole in the wall and on the other end, a wall of water charged towards me.


FUCK



I dove into the hole and stumbled and tumbled down the old stairs in my panic. Someone grabbed me up, but I could not see who. I ran down the stairwell and into the raining hallway, just in time to see Sean exit the servant’s entrance.

Water crashed down the secret stairwell and blew those old filament lights apart in their decades old heat. Finally, they were allowed to sleep.


I ran down the hallway, past the fire alarm I’d pulled on twenty minutes before, and out into the warm night air. I did not stop there. Sean was following where Joey had tugged Tellesco after him, behind the large garage.


All the windows exploded on the top floor, and then the next floor below.


Expensive things flew to the ground in a cloud of water and glass chards, and just before I ducked behind the garage, I stole a view of the front, like Lot’s wife.


The front driveway held the last few vehicles, and some were now covered with ancient rugs and lamps and chairs and shit.



It looked like a yard sale from hell.


The water coursed around our ankles and then the windows on the bottom floor flew apart and out.


We clambered up onto the fuel tanks.



Sean looked down at them.


Then he grinned.


He said, “You know what would be really funny?”




Join me next time for the aftermath, my friend.



LINKS


Cartoon for your Sunday Morning pleasure.





I got your number. Evil Norwegian kid.




Lukas Hammar - 1888 - Hair & Cat from Cobblestone Filmproduktion on Vimeo.




Kind child. Dotta is studying etchings in one of her classes, and here is news of 100 new etchings from Picasso.




Normal child. “I caught my kid looking at pron on the intarwebs! Friggin Christian kids. Jeez.





Church and the next presidential election. By Penn Jillette. Good enough for me on a Sunday.




Steve O gets a wha wha.




Pole dancing for your Sunday prayers.






Be tough, gritty, and don’t take shit from anyone. John Wayne Toilet paper, which is found in the MREs that troops use.




Chust drive, baby. Drive.






Pics of our new home, someday. Mars. From NASA.





Reality Check.


School Portrait (2011) from Michael Berliner on Vimeo.




Julian Astrangeguy: If you have a smart phone, you are being watched by Big Brother. Screwed!







Photomis.






Meat Planet, by Carl Sagan. “Meat-based chemistry.” LOL





Speaking of odd shit, here are history’s most infamous evil duos.




Mmmmm. Fish sticks










Thanks for checking out the TDC today.


God Help You.


God Help Us All.



---willies out.





OK, One more For Ya.


Validation.










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