The Home for Wayward Souls: The East and the West.

The East and The West

Kali, Ash, and Merle were stunned. The choice of Darcy to be the South to Merle’s North was perfect. She was young, and playful, and her Bandaloop Dance seemed to possess some real power of some sort, and her effect on the chimps and bonobos at the Habitat was already legendary.

They were still at a loss to divine the identities of the East and the West an hour later, no matter what Kali tried. They were very much under the influence of the drug, but were starting to get hungry and thirsty, and decided to take a break for awhile, and truth be told, they still wanted to take up where they left off when the spirits came out to play. They even thought that perhaps if they resumed the show that the spirits might return, so they thought they would go back to the dining room to fuel up. They also were feeling like they needed to sit for a spell, so to speak, after kneeling for so long around the cauldron.

Ash sat down at the far end of the table, and Kali sat on his left. Merle sat opposite Kali, on Ash’s right. They noshed and sipped and mostly made small talk until Ash suddenly realized that the mirror they had placed behind the altar faced another mirror several feet behind his head, and it had created a series of reflections that extended back in both directions as far as he could see, producing an almost infinite cascade of increasingly smaller and smaller reflections of the same image, which he brought to Kali and Merle’s attentions, who were quick to point out that if they looked backward at the other mirror, they saw another series of the back of Ashe’s head as well, which he could not see, of course, but after he turned around to face the mirror behind him, when they looked back at the mirror behind the alter, what they saw couldn’t have shocked them more.

Instead of their faces reflected back at them, they instead saw the faces of Charles and Suki, but their reflection showed a curious series of concentric fractures around a bullet hole in the center of the mirror that was not present in their mirror. Charles and Suki had told Ash about the experiences with their mirror, and they had shared their experiences with other members of the parish. Charles and Suki believed they had created a portal for spirits to jump into their world, and had already had some very interesting encounters since the portal had been created. As stunned as the trio was, Kali was the first to regain her indomitable sense of humor and waved at the reflections of Charles and Suki, who waved back….

It was now obvious to everyone as to who would be West and East. They tried to call Charles and Suki, but got a beep-through on their call-waiting, which turned out to be them. As excited as they all were about their discovery, they agreed to table the more complicated subject of their roles as East and West until Saturday.

The rest of the evening was spent in the pursuit of joyful licentiousness and enlightened gratitude, making a great deal of Joyful Noises to anyone who cared to listen, but Raul, Sharma, and Sobe were not the only ones to be their witnesses….

The Home for WaywardSouls: Illumination…warning Adult content. Strong Sexual themes and images…much too good for children.

Illumination

Ash, Kali and Merle enjoyed the meal like bees going from flower to flower, stopping here and there to sip, to sample, to taste, to empower themselves, define and refine their vibrations, and prepare for tonight’s venture. They were careful not to turn their backs to the Orichás and Los Guerreros especially, but although they walked around most of the table, they did not walk behind the alter set at the head of the table nor in front of the mirror.

They enjoyed feeding each other little bits and bites of this and that in various combinations, sharing the tastes, textures and aromas, sometimes by fork, by spoon, by chopstick, by hand…or by mouth. They touched each other provocatively as they ate, and even licked each other’s fingers, faces, and necks as any of them found themselves inclined to do.

As they finished their sake, Merle produced what he had previously called The Knowledge of Good and Evil, which he had put into three black capsules of five hundred micrograms each, plus a buffer that helped facilitate safe transport via non-isotonic concentration gradients across the cell membrane.

Merle had the most amazing insights into visualizing molecules that induced particular changes as well as steady states in the bio-molecular substrates of the neurochemistry of the brain. Even he did not claim to know the sources of his inspiration. He said he would close his eyes, and eventually he would feel an awareness of how each portion of the molecule would function. (He did not discuss this gift with his employers, of course.)

First Kali, then Ash, and finally he opened their mouths like supplicants taking the Sacrament for Communion as he popped a cap into each of their mouths, raising his sake as if toasting everyone, he said “The Knowledge of Good and Evil is too pretentious and long a name to call this. From now on, we shall call it ‘Kali’….”

Ash and Kali stood there with the black caps on their tongues in their open mouths for a second, smiled at Merle and drank the sake to wash down the drug in unison with Merle.

“…Merle…”

“Not now my friends…see what I have seen, and you will understand…trust me, I’m not likely to change my mind about it…at least just for now.”

“Ok.”

Kali was the first to disrobe, pulling just two strings that allowed her garment to fall to the floor, as she stepped out of her sandals. Ash released the tucked ends of the beach towel.

Only Merle remained clothed. He stood there, motionless save for the expressions that passed over his face like local weather cells in Florida. As the expressions changed from neutral, to nearly pensive, to shy, to mischievous, to provocative there was a visible change in demeanor as well as he went from androgynously male to androgynously female to amorphously ambiguous, a curious sort of glow emanated from within Merle’s aura that gave him the appearance of translucence.

“Now keep in mind, that they just dropped the drug, and I haven’t had any of it at all myself…hey, it’s me, Raul,” he whispered.

“…Well…Somebody has to provide unbiased witness to this event…it’s my journalistic duty…and besides, curiosity is not the exclusive domain of Felines you know, and as for mortality, well the reason humans think cats have nine lives is because the Satisfaction of Curiosity gives them a buoyant sort of protection that exists so strongly for them that it becomes real. Apache warriors undergo a ritual that imparts a metaphysical armor that becomes real…I’ve seen Merle administer it to several people before here…and it ends with them walking across a bed of fire…but not me…‘Froglegs’ is not how I wish to be remembered…but I have to know, and I have also to bear witness to such events, after all…inquiring minds want to know, and as a Doctor of Journalism, I am compelled…but watch this:…”

Merle stood facing Ash and Kali in what is often called anatomical position as he slowly raised his hands, palms up, thumbs out as he drew the tips of his thumbs to their respective index fingertips as he first inhaled through his nose, then slowly exhaled through slightly pursed lips. He sighed deeply, and proceeded to loosen his long black flowing hair, shaking his head as a horse shaking its mane. His hands now resembled the beatific, imploring or welcoming hands of several statues of Christ around the world. He then pulled the robe over his head to reveal the chemise and panties. He went from coy to unabashed in less time than it takes to tell.

First he looked them both deeply in the eyes, then lowered his gaze, adding “This is the only place I feel comfortable doing this, and I thank you so much for not only understanding this, but also for appreciating it on a level that enhances the experience…just for a little smile…But tonight is not a fashion show…goodbye drag…for now.

Merle then launches into an English accent he uses whenever he quotes Lewis Carroll or Monty Python:

“Tis Time, my friends,

He said at last,

to speak of many things.

Of ships and shoes and sealing wax,

of cabbages and Kings.

And why the sea is boiling hot

or whether Pigs have wings…”.

With that, the lingerie was gone, and Merle stood before them naked. Six feet, seven inches of red-bronzed Apache flesh sculpture. The word statuesque would never seem the same to Ash and Kali without thinking first of Merle.

(“Just exquisitely a little past too much” thought Kali knowingly.)

Kali approached him first, and Ash followed, as the two men sandwiched her as Kali envisioned being Shish Kabobed; skewered between the two great loves of her life, slowly roasting over the flames of the fires of Passion and Lust, the hot coals sizzled scintillatingly as her juices drip onto the fire.

Kali’s face only comes up to Merle’s heart chakra, which she kisses as she slowly rubs Merle’s nipples, rolling them between her thumbs and forefingers. She then begins to bend over as she drags her tongue downward over his skin until she is nuzzling the peninsular magnificence of Merle’s thick, growing, rising cock. As it swells, the tip of the head begins to peek out past the foreskin, as if trying to look around the corner before venturing out.

Ash kneels behind her as he slathers her puanani with his tongue, spreading the wetness everywhere as Kali moans with a kind of resonance that is felt by both men.

All three of them are now just starting to feel the effects of the drug as their passions and metabolisms begin to skyrocket.

Kali abruptly spins around, bent completely over as she lifts herself at the hips by doing calf-raises in short, staccato beats. As she does so, she faces Ash, her face lightly perfumed by Merle’s pheromones as she deeply kisses Ash, savoring the aromas and flavors she has imparted to his face.

As she does so, she grasps first his shoulders, then his waist as she encourages Ash to stand up. As he does she impales first her mouth, then her throat upon Ashe’s spear. Merle is already standing and fully erect in more ways than one as he first slaps his viande against her buttocks before beginning to slowly rub, spread, and prod her labia gently, yet insistently as she mentally prepares to be stretched beyond her normal limits to accommodate pleasure.

Ash and Merle now find themselves staring into each other’s faces. It has never been uncomfortable for them in this circumstance, and although neither homophobic nor bisexual per se, they were quite at ease with their circumstance. (They rarely ever discussed “…that one night, when they were in college together….”)

Merle then pulled Kali down with him onto a thick rug that covered the wooden floor in front of the unlit flagstone fireplace, laid down upon his back with Kali spread-eagled over his face while Ash penetrated her from behind while she slathered Merle’s sex with her tongue.

They then turned around so Kali could ride Merle, cowgirl-style which took some considerable finesse despite the fact that they had been intimate with each other for years now. But once pinioned on his member, she began to move up and down until almost three-quarters of his length was inside her. Now it was his turn to move his hips as Ash slowly began to press his rigid prick against her anus, then slowly remove it and start again, gently dilating her sphincter as she began to moan wickedly as she gyrated her hips on Merle’s phallus.

The effects of the drug were fully upon them, although Merle said they were nowhere near the peak. Amber, gold, and neon-green seemed to envelop everything they saw, which seemed to glow from within. The music that was playing seemed unrecognizable except when a particular phrase or lyric seemed to jump out of the cacophony of the Gestalt of all the sounds that they found themselves suddenly noticing…

A symphony of airplane noise, fluorescent light transformers, refrigeration and air conditioning compressors, faraway dogs serenading unknown listeners, their own stomachs, several mosquitoes trying to hide in the kitchen under the table, every bird, every lizard, every cat, every frog, the expressway several miles away in the distance, every fly, moth, or caterpillar, a dripping faucet somewhere in the distance, the rustling of the leaves outside, each other’s breathing, as well as their own, in addition to a sound none of them could identify…a soft chorus of voices that seemed to lead the harmonization of all of the combined sounds into an orchestration of noise that suddenly sounded harmonious, as if it all was directed by some divine conductor.

They heard it, they sensed it, they knew it even before any of them acknowledged it. It also sounded like there was a drumbeat somewhere off in the distance… “Dirty Business” from a Jerry Garcia solo album suddenly came to the forefront.

Kali also seemed to be going into a trance of some kind. She spoke in a deeper, more summonsing voice that suddenly cried out the names of heretofore unmentioned deities from the earliest beginnings of Man. When she opened her mouth to speak, the sounds of other voices, as if trapped inside her were also trying to be heard, to get out. One of the voices was definitely speaking backwards. Although an absolutely alarming occurrence, the three of them remained intently enraptured, curious to find out what was next.

Kali’s body was repeatedly wracked by orgasm, again, and again, causing her to cry out wickedly as she began to laugh uncontrollably in short fits before lapsing into momentary silence.

Next, the room seemed to shake as if an earthquake was occurring, as if the house would split, the beams and rafters began to moan in an orgasmic chorus of impending chaos…except that Ash noticed that none of the glasses of sake were shaking, and that the chandelier was not moving or swaying. A clarion call of giant horns sounding like the cries of whales underwater (or perhaps Gabriel’s Trumpet) seemed to drown out everything until one of them spoke softly, in a whisper that they all heard equally clearly.

As frenzied as their sex had been only moments before, they now began to notice figures that stepped out from the wooden paneling of the living room, only to retreat back moments later. A flash of light here, a darkening of the atmosphere that seemed to stream from one point to another, gather strength, and stream off again to another point. Knotholes that became eyes, or vaginas that winked back.

Kali seemed to be possessed of some spirit or spirits that spoke through her.

It was time to discover the source of the Majic that surrounded them everywhere.

Kali went to get a cauldron that she often used for scrying. She was still naked, flushed, and dripping when she returned with the vessel. She kept rainwater that she gathered from a hollow stump during the new moon at midnight. She used a hibachi grill to heat the contents to boiling as they gathered on the porch, naked and huddled in the near darkness. Ash produced three boat seat cushions to use to kneel around the boiling pot of water first to read the vapors, then the reflections as Kali began to question their visitors.

Ash found it difficult to concentrate at first because he kept staring at Kali’s swollen, distended vulva. Kali was distracted by the fact that it wouldn’t stop throbbing, and Merle couldn’t take his mind off the smell of Kali’s snatch, that still lingered on his face. A Wiccan sorceress, a brujo, and a shaman are still human. Time to cowboy up.

They had already decided earlier as to what they considered the primary purposes of this evening were to be. As much as they cherished the sex between them, tonight it was to be the vehicle they used to attempt to expand their consciousness sufficiently to make contact with the ancient ones to learn what they had to offer. Now it appeared that they had enticed the spirits that surrounded them. They still wanted to make meaningful useful contact to gain wisdom.

This “Knowledge…” that they had taken was more powerful than any drug they had ever tried before…and they had done just about all of them, between Merle’s pharmacological and botanical experiences, as well as his status as a shaman, which helped provide access to many things. “Kali” (the drug) was like psilocybin, peyote, LSD, and MDMA combined. It had physical body effects, including powerful stimulatory properties, it produced visions and interestingly enough, an extraordinary euphoria that gave the impression of insight, although they already knew better than to trust their current impressions completely until the next day, and they used the digital voice recorders on their phones for almost everything that transpired that evening. There was also a security camera that covered the entire back porch, just in case something visible appeared.

What no camera or recorder could document was the anticipated God Phenomenon that has previously only been experienced on a temporary basis by direct electrical stimulation of certain parts of the left parietal region of the brain. The unanticipated effects were proving to be far beyond their wildest anticipations.

They expected that the insights, revelations and self-awareness would probably occur during the later portions of their experiences this evening, much as it often does with psychedelic drugs in general.

As they stared at the boiling cauldron, Kali set a mixture of oil and alcohol that she poured onto the surface on fire, adding Dragon’s Blood and several other agents that produced various effects to aid in the process. They held hands in a circle around the fiery cauldron. They chanted, and nothing happened. They waited for a moment, and a very large Macaw (not a native to Florida, it should be noted) flew to the porch, landed on the deck about six feet away and waddled the remaining few feet to the middle of the circle. Just like that. It walked right up to the flames, turned around to Kali, and asked “What’cha doin’ Toots?”

They all laughed, including the bird, who repeated its question as it hopped onto Kali’s lap. “Boop-Oopa Doop…What’cha doin, Toots? As it cocked its head quizzically, shifting its weight from one foot to the other as it bobbed its head up and down.

Kali finally answered the rather persistent giant bird in an amused tone like she was talking to a small child, or like some pet owners do with their dogs and cats (or some spouse’s with their mates).

“We’re looking for a Spirit Guide, my friend.”

“Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?…Boop-Oopa Doop. What can I do for you?”

As stunned as they all were by the remark, they later noted to each other that at that moment they all experienced the so-called “God Effect” while talking with this avian anomaly…not because they believed the macaw to be God per se, but they somehow sensed that it might just be a messenger…and that they experienced a heretofore unknown feeling of the workings of the cosmos within themselves…it’s hard to explain. The Chinese say that to the man who has had the experience, no explanation is necessary, but to the man who has not had the experience, none will suffice. So it was for them that night.

“So you are our guide? Kali inquired as she stroked the feathers on the bird’s head, which it clearly enjoyed.

“No, but I have been sent as a sort of messenger/emissary to you three to give you some badly needed advice…Boop-Oppa-Doop.”

“What advice?” asked Merle.

The giant Amazon turned its head around like an owl (which is quite unusual for this breed) and looked Merle straight in the eye. “Listen carefully…you need more help…you need allies with whom you are quite literally willing to trust with your lives.” It then turned its attention to Ash: “You have a parish, and you have some valuable friends…it’s your decision as to whom you pick, but you and your most lovely wife must be at the center, like a nucleus, and Merle, your medicine man needs to be the North. He requires a female to be the South, and you need to choose a male and female East and West respectively. The four winds, the four seasons, the four elements, the four corners of the earth…it’s no coincident. You can figure it out…I hope you can figure it out, because you face real danger if you go much farther without their assistance…Boop-Oopa-Doop.”

“How do we find them? Kali inquired.

“Keep doing what you started…you’re on the right track, but you need one more ingredient…”

“Wait!” Kali blurted out. “What is your name?”

“Boop-Oopa-Doop…at your service… she did a very impressive full bow as she extended her right wing which she swept from left to right rather formally in front of her. “…but you can all call me Betty.”  She leaned close to Kali and winked as she sniffed lightly… “Baby, you smell gooood! See you in the funny papers, Toots…I gotta go, but I still gotta give you one more thing before I leave so you can see properly…I’ll be Bach”, she quipped in a very poor Austrian accent.

With that Betty (Boop-Oopa-Doop) jumped down off Kali’s lap and jumped into the flames, producing an intense pure white light, like phosphorus, that temporarily blinded them.

As they stared into the neon-purple after effects of their blindness, what they all saw was Darcy, doing her “Bandaloop” dance.

One down, two more to go.

 

THFWS & TTM’s: The Magic Theater is not for Everyone

The Magic Theater is not for Everyone

Merle was the first to arrive. Although it was not uncommon for him to let himself in, Kali made it a special point to greet him at the door. Although Kali and Ashtar were legally married, they all considered the union between Merle and Kali to be a marriage as well. He was not just the other man in her life…they had been deeply in love for as long as the three of them had known each other, and she very much wanted to greet him at the door as a wife does to her husband.

She was dressed in the sheerest and lightest material she owned, a sort of harem-pajama set that included bells for her wrists and toes. The filmy material clung to her voluptuous figure in some places, like her nipples, and made them hard, like they were trying to push through the outfit; clung to her belly and accented her navel and billowed in the most provocative way before burying itself deeply into the crevice of the entrance to the temple of the holy of holies…even the fabric seemed to worship her body. Merle was no exception.

The smile on his face convinced her that her wardrobe choice was correct, and the passion that sparked between them as their lips met was electric. As their bodies pressed together during their lingering embrace in the doorway, they felt a wave of passionate desire wash over them…it had been weeks since they had seen each other, and the extended momentary contact had left them collectively gasping, wet, and hard.

This was exactly the way to begin the evening…an embrace, a kiss and that longing expression of desire to start to build the fires of passion that would engulf the three of them tonight…the more that they wanted to surrender to the tempest of eroticism that their bodies promised, the sweeter the pangs of anticipation they felt as they ever so slowly gazed into each other’s eyes as they gently withdrew, smiling in the knowledge of what was to become even more intense as the evening progressed, leading, teasing, and beguiling them into the ecstatic crescendo that avowed itself, both sexually and spiritually to explode within them when it finally could no longer be postponed.

“I missed you so much…I always do…” she suddenly blurted out as they stood touching only their fingertips together.

“…and if it was not so sweet to miss you the way I do when I am away, just so we can feel like this when we meet again, I might covet what you and Ash enjoy on a daily basis…but what we have would not be possible in the everyday world…you and he have the comfort of stability, support and consistency…for us, each day together is a holiday of celebration of the present moment…and of ourselves.”

“And I must be the luckiest woman in the world to love and know you both.”

“Madame, it would give me the utmost pleasure to do everything in my power to convince you that you are right.”

They both began to laugh as Ash pulled into the driveway.

Ash’s face beamed in a way that no ordinary husband could, given the fact that his wife and his best friend are also passionate lovers. He took great pleasure in knowing that in granting Kali and Merle his blessings and support, he gave them something that can only be given out of the greatest sort of love any person can know…to bequeath another something that is already theirs to begin with, even if they don’t know it until it is proffered….

It seemed to take a thousand forevers for Ash to carry his guitar up the driveway to the house, and as he entered, he put the guitar down to embrace Kali. Once he kissed her, the three of them stood together hugging, with Kali in the middle, a position in which she was exquisitely comfortable…and adept.

“I need a three-minute shower and a change of clothes if I am going to be any kind of company this evening. I’d like to slip into something more comfortable, and I can’t imagine anything more comfortable than you my dear, but for the time being, I’ll have to settle for something befitting the occasion…something…auspiciously sexy?…hmmm….”

“How about something that comes off easily?” Kali volunteered.

“I know just the thing”, he quipped.

In less than five minutes, he returned, freshly showered, wrapped in a Hawaiian-print beach towel.

There is something mystically supernatural in the connection between seafood and sex and the very oceans themselves. Mere fresh water does not impart the galvanic charge, the ion potential that is to be exploited from that Strega brew conjured in the provocative saline diluvium of the seas so as to be vividly swept away by a flood of passions that are evoked by the taste and aroma itself. Seafood tastes like sex because sex tastes (and smells) like Life.

For just a moment, the three of them stood there, just staring and smelling the banquet, before Kali broke the silence.

“But wait! ….There’s more! I took the liberty of turning and setting the vaporizer…Merle, if you would be so good as to do the honors…as a prelude to the prelude….”

“But of course, Madame Weasel” replied Merle in a very thick, phony faux Français as he pulled back his thick, coarse straight black hair into a pony tail and produced a vial of concentrated THC from a hidden pocket in his robe. “I feel sorry for any family that does not have a resident Chemist to keep them properly supplied with the finer things in life.”

“For which we are eternally grateful, Monsieur H’Ouiselle.” quipped Ash in an even worse accent.

“The benefits derived from ingesting Cannabis Sativa, Indica or any of the associated derivatives, extracts and elixirs containing trans delta-nine tetrahydrocannabinol by the method known as vaporization is immense. Eliminating the need for combustion to administer potent concentrations of its psychoactive properties has decided health benefits as well…and this trio of pranksters literally thrive on the stuff…”

“Oh yeah, Hello, It’s Me, Raul, again, your narrator for the evening…I hope you enjoyed some of my previous appearances and performances as the Talking Cuban Tree Frog…Needless to say, I wouldn’t have missed this evening for all the flies in the Everglades…but wherever are my manners?”

“Please allow me to introduce Sharma and Sobe, my companions who will be acting as ushers for the impending guests who may start arriving any time now. Although they appear to be a matched pair of male and female lizards, they are (within a certain variety of Reality) very old souls who were summonsed here a long time ago, who just fell in love with the surroundings and decided to stay…who knows how long? How long is a piece of string? They have no use for Man’s preoccupation for measuring something that He himself made up which does not really exist at all…do not be offended if they do not speak…they prefer to rely on The Knowing, and hope that they may help you experience it for yourselves.”

(Camera simultaneously pulls back and zooms out slowly from the extreme close-up of Raul, headset, script et al, to reveal two beautifully incarnated Iguanas gracefully choreographed into an almost continual soixante-neuf ballet of mutual pursuit, who suddenly stop to look toward the camera long enough to wave like British Aristocrats before suddenly nodding and crouching in unison twice before re-commencing their pas de deux on the massive trunk of the banyan tree that overlooked the spacious front and rear windows of the house.)

(Raul continues…) “Some of you may be offended that a respected Botanist/Research Pharmacist, a Cleric and their mutual Concubine are ingesting a substance currently illegal in the State of Florida…for any purpose, even Scientific or Spiritual Research or Worship, but that’s just the way they roll, and to quote Ash ‘If you can’t take a joke, them go fuck yourself…if you can’t find anyone to do it for you…’ but it is now time to resume observation of our subjects for tonight’s episode of Galactic Geographic.”

(Raul now turns his attention back to the interior of the house as the camera dollies and zooms back in through the window.)

English: Tetrahydrocannabinol; THC; Marinol-aka mary jane. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3D rendering of the THC molecule (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Chemical Kali (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: “Album of popular prints mounted on cloth pages. Colour lithograph, lettered, inscribed and numbered 27. Kali, draped with a necklace of skulls, stands on Shiva. The surrounding landscape is littered with body parts. The figures of Brahma, Vishnu and another are seen observing the scene from within the clouds. See 2003,1022,0.53 for a depiction of Tara standing on Shiva from the same series.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Coming Late Tonight: The Things I’ve Learned About Women from Lesbians

I promise it will be worth the wait…See you tonight in Dreamland.

The Talking Monkeys: Charles

Charles

Charles raced back to his cubicle to avoid any additional occurrences being recorded on his schedule adherence record. On a fifteen-minute break, he was allowed a one minute “grace period” before he accrued half a point. Anything up to three hours was also half a point. Beyond three hours was one point. Sixty-One Seconds late for work was half a point, up to three hours; no doctor’s note, traffic citation, accident report or note from your mother made any difference; if it was an “Unscheduled Event”, you took your half a point, no exceptions. If you clocked off your computer more than three minutes before the end of your shift, you got half a point, but if you were smart, you waited for your supervisor to clear you after it was established that there were no more calls in cue. A supervisor could make your life a living hell if they did not actually like you, because by PharmaCorp’s rules, you were already fucked by definition, since you were only tolerated by The Management for as long as you didn’t bring too much attention to yourself, made them money, and didn’t cost them any more than anybody else.

It was not at all unusual for an employee to receive an “Atta Boy” (complimentary report from a member/customer/patient), only to have the call reviewed by a member of the Quality Management Team, and receive negative, derogatory, or disciplinary actions to be put in their file, to be used at corrective action hearings, or during yearly evaluations, when your pay raise, if any, was determined. Keep Your Head Low…Stay Below the Radar at All Times.

For every Memo or SOP, there is its antithesis, waiting, to be sited by Management, at their discretion to fit whatever agenda suits their purposes at that time. No Exceptions (…except at the sole discretion and express stipulation of Management, as determined by them, at any time, and without any further warning or written change of policy).

Charles had acquired IFMLA (Intermittent Family Medical Leave Act) certification for a short laundry-list of medical conditions that had been documented since he began to work for PharmaCorp.  If he was going to be late for work, or needed to take off too much time for his own doctors’ visits in addition to a number of other medical conditions for which his wife was being treated, as long as he had an adequate supply of PTO (paid time off), he simply needed to call out on the Attendance Line, call his supervisor, and then log onto an automated response telephone line run by an independently-owned contractor that took about fifteen minutes to record, if everything went well the first time…it usually took almost thirty minutes, even if you were prepared with the claim number, ID number, password, date of claim, time of claim, and type of claim. It was not at all uncommon to have the automated response system inform you that they had no record of that claim, and then disconnect you without warning or recourse. If it required being referred to a live person, that time would usually last about an hour. Believe it or not, although by comparison, Charles had learned how to use the system to his benefit; it still required him to document illnesses and conditions he had acquired while working for that system, and even then, your lunch and other scheduled breaks could get you fired. Twelve points in twelve months equals termination.

Last week, an associate of his had been fired without warning for too many accruals. Just like that. Came to her desk right after lunch and Security escorted her away to (In)Human Relations for a meeting, while another supervisor cleaned out her personal belongings from her desk, placed them into a white cardboard archives box, and handed them to her as she left the office, once they told her she was fired. No previous incidents, So sorry. Just like that.

Eight years earlier, he took the job thinking it was a temporary alternative… (to being unemployed). Freedom Medical Supply was then bought by Rexco, who was then bought out by PharmaCorp, his current employer. Four years earlier, he suffered a general nervous breakdown. Anywhere else, he never would have been able to keep his job. Here, hardly anyone noticed. He had been up and down so many times he lost count. Eighty thousand dollars in commissions, plus over thirty thousand in salary and overtime in one year, but less than half that amount a year later. Sixty grand gross the next year, and half that the next. He was back on the upside for about the last year, but any good fortune that came along just made him hold his breath as he prepared for the next shitstorm…not if, but when….

He often referred to himself and his peers as Lab Rats. As he saw it, they all were participating in a carefully controlled experiment in Human Engineering, to see exactly how much productivity could be extracted from a human being before it was officially documented and proven to be inhumane. Fuck the MLD (a pharmaceutical reference to the median (lethal) dose needed to kill one-half of its recipients.)…just wait until Congress decrees it to be inhumane, and then just claim “Who Knew?”

Just like the tobacco companies, except that in this case, psychological harm and mental impairment are very difficult to track and document in terms that the courts would find to be meaningful or significant. Similarly, being able to link cardiac, cancer, or diabetic diseases, or even erectile dysfunction to stress might prove to be even more difficult, no matter how obvious it appeared to the doctors who treated those employees. The healthcare insurance that PharmaCorp provided was a PPO, and the network providers in general had a distinct proclivity for avoiding addressing the issue in the first place. Most of the providers worked in the same building, and were sub-contracted by a single Management and Payroll contractor. It doesn’t take too long to realize upon what side your bread is buttered. Risk Management (Damage Control) Divisions work
hand-in-hand with Legal departments to push that envelope as hard and as far as possible, using seemingly unlimited resources and funds to discourage any challenges, even to what would have been regarded as flagrant violations of several civil rights and liberties formerly believed to be Constitutionally guaranteed.

How much time was spent on “personal non-work” (Bio-Breaks)? Management knows…to the second. How much time was actually spent “talking”? It’s also timed to the second automatically…. What was your “wrap-up time”? Tick, Tock, Tick Tock….What is your Adherence? How many conversions? What is your ratio of Rx’s per hour? What is your work percentage? Better hurry up, the clock is ticking, the recorder is documenting…Charles began to joke about “repetitive thought injury,” calling it “Cerebral Tunnel Syndrome.” All verbal responses, even the rebuttals, were very tightly scripted. If you stuck close enough to the script, you could even type while you rattled off paragraph after paragraph of required statements, legal disclaimers and other verbal mantras that no longer required mentation to recite. The script was the doctrine and dogma of the call center, and all heretics were subject to be burned at the stake (at the sole discretion of Management).

He would awake from bizarre dreams involving programs that wouldn’t open, or screens that populated with inappropriate information, all the while chanting the script. Then he started to notice that he couldn’t recall familiar names or words or terms that once sprang from his tongue like flushed quail from a bush…or his own phone number…or the name of an old friend.

It was the brain’s version of repetitive motion injury. He speculated it was from excessive stimulation of specific sets of neurons causing a build-up in acetylcholinesterase in response to high levels of acetylcholine caused by the rapid-fire stimulus-response mediated reactions to a very limited number of stimuli, but that was just his own best guess. After all, he was just a retired paramedic, not a neurologist. It just seemed to him that it was too much like stepping on the gas and revving the engine with the brakes locked and the transmission in gear. And that never even took into account the effects of SS/NRI (selective serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) that so many of his colleagues, as well as he were taking for depression. Charles once described the effects of these “next generation” anti-depressants as like experiencing a home invasion of your brain at the hands of party crashers you never met before, or having homeless people set up housekeeping in your attic.

He also began to realize the effects of the two-edged sword of stress and depression upon his general, as well as his mental health. Eventually he realized that after he could no longer feel anger over the daily offenses to his character and intelligence, the Depression would set in. For a long time, those seemed to be his choices, Unruly Anger or Compliant Depression. Eventually, humor proved to be his saving grace, although it frequently got him into trouble with Management, or rather middle-management, who became his nemesis over his “attitude”, fearing that it might “corrupt” the other employees.

Charles no longer possessed the ability to feel fear the way he had once felt it before. For one thing, Romance was back in his life in a very real way, and he and his wife were back in love and back on track as a joint entity in a way they had never experienced before, after over twenty years of marriage and three children, no less. Over the years, they had grown progressively farther and farther out of sync until only dysfunction and hostility remained until a series of intriguing coincidences brought them together again. Off and on, one or the other would try to revive the corpse of their marriage to no real avail. It was as if this was the one thing in his life that was so hopelessly fucked up for so much of his life that when he finally realized how easy it is to be happy and essentially fearless, a discernable calm passed over him that had been conspicuous in its absence. He said that Zen had taught him the difference between being emotionally dependent upon the kind of love that needed to be reciprocated from love that needed no payoff, that gave you pleasure just to give without expectations…now for the first time they were both doing the same thing at the same time for each other.

They spoiled and indulged each other in every way they could, even when they were broke, because acknowledgement, validation, appreciation, and some good old-fashioned idolatry cost nothing. As a result, it seemed like nothing threatened them anymore, as long as they had each other in the here and now. It seemed like they encircled each other in a protective spell of positivity that remained unbroken and imparted a state of mind that is infinitely calm and focused that generates, self-replicates, and attracts more Joy and subtle manifestations of power and peace into  Life itself. They became fearless as each became the other’s idol.

Charles was something of a Jack of All Trades, but he had developed a mastery of more than a few things that made him invaluable to The Home for Wayward Souls and in many ways, he could have been their poster child, and The Home for Wayward Souls was a perfect outlet for his energies. He generally shunned the spotlight, and preferred to play a more supportive but occult role. His expertise ranged from Music to Martial Arts, from Saucier to Security and Countermeasures, from Medicine to Mayhem, from Electronics to the Occult, Auto Mechanics and Gunsmithing. He could troubleshoot almost anything that was broken or inoperable well enough to at least to get you home on a wing and a prayer. He loved to improvise, and if anyone knew a way to make high explosives out of a stick of butter, it was him.

Pandora’s Box

Pandora’s Box

We were children when first we opened Pandora’s Box,

Precocious, Curious, Unselfconscious,

and Unsuspecting.

We had already learned

How to fashion

make-believe armor

from Sarcasm and Cynicism

to cover hearts

Too tender

for their own

Good.

I remember the morning you stood outside my window

asking if I could come out and play.

The sunshine lit your smiling face like

Heaven,

and I had a new friend who made me laugh

and long for adventures yet undiscovered.

We found Pandora’s Box down in the basement

One rainy day in January,

but we took it up to the attic

to try to find a way to pry open the lid.

The instant we started

the most amazing, blinding light came pouring out

Like a nuclear blast

Bathing us in cool fire.

We were so excited

and couldn’t wait to discover more.

As we threw open the lid

the room was filled with Angels and Wizards,

Majic and Mischief, Dragons and Drama.

and the Music was from another world,

familiar, but unrecognizable

It mesmerized us both

 until we were hypnotized

in a trace from which we thought there was

no escape

because we sought none,

and Bedknobs and Broomsticks

would never seem the same to us.

When we opened Pandora’s Box

we created such a ruckus

that we were banned from both the basement and the attic

But once that majic had been let out

there was no way to get it all back in.

It just refused to go.

Something there is that does not wish it so

To be confined or limited

or be told NO.

But as much as I miss the box,

I miss our friendship more.

Sincerest Thanks Astraltravler

Like the Earth Mother, you are the source. In acting as a Liaison between parties of similar interests and tastes, your blog is a sort of human stew…I keep “cuming” back to find out what you’ve conjured next.