Am I a cheap bastard my Angel, he said smiling with that beautiful smile that made her heart beat faster.
Of course, not she answered while throwing herself into his arms. How are you, she whispered her head buried against his collarbones.
I am well and so happy to see you in a single piece, he said.
She found out that he had been informed about Abdelkader’s visit and his intention to see her and scare her off. She also found out that the Head of Boko Haram in Nigeria had asked both Abdelkader and Manas to step up the operations in the UK. It would seem that they wanted to have a significant event on the 5th of May at Westminster to mark their stronghold in the UK. The earlier bombing had not been significant enough and they had received confirmation that the bombing had not been strong enough to completely destroy the tracks and Transport for London would be repairing everything in a matter of weeks. They had hoped to cause more damage than that and that is why the Boko Haram cell in Nigeria was connecting with the followers in London to inflict more damage, especially at that date as the next day would see the crowning of the new King. They wanted to make sure those plans were thwarted.
- Why are you telling me this, she said
- I am telling you so that you do not take the tube that day and the day after as more attacks may follow above ground.
- What if I told the ATU or the local authorities
- If you tell them then we will both be dead. There are several Muslim policemen and a few of them are followers of Boko Haram although you would not know this by looking at them. The information is bound to come back to them and if they identify you then this would lead them straight to me and they would report me to the cell in Cameroon or Nigeria.
- I can imagine I would be dead but why you`? Aren’t you their leader in Cameroon?
- My credibility took a blow when you informed the authorities about the projected bombing of Westminster after I had informed you. This time I will not be able to escape suspicion as most of the cell members know that you are my girlfriend. They will be sure that it was me who informed you.
- Why do you not forego this life my love. I am sure that if you gave it up the ATU might actually be able to use your skills to catch other terrorists. You are an incredibly intelligent man and I know you have the physical capacity to keep up with ATU members
- I cannot do that my Angel. This is the life I have chosen for myself because our countries have suffered under the colons and Muslims have been repressed for so long. In Cameroon the situation flares up sometimes and we have to make ourselves heard. We have to be a force to reckon with so that the West may listen to our demands.
- I thought it was all about killing kafireen and increasing the number of Muslims
- That too, my Angel but also letting the countries that do not allow Muslims to practice their faith properly know that they may not continue what they do.
- But the UK is not one of those countries.
- The UK has another purpose. It is an important financial center. Our purpose is to cripple the most financial centers the West has and then put at the forefront those centers that Muslims are backing. This is also why I was in Dubai. It was possible to assess how far Dubai could go. I also went to Malaysia to assess whether they could take over parts of the operations.
She fell silent. She simply could not understand how a man as intelligent and loving as Manas was could be a terrorist and align with the dogma taught by them. She understood in part the anti-colonial aspect as she too came from two countries where colonialism had left deep scars in the countries and the looting by colons had impoverished them. Yet she could not see herself as capable of being a terrorist. Then again, if she kept quiet about the projected bombings, was that not terrorism by absence of communication to the authorities. If she did mention something, though, she would not even know if she was mentioning it to one of the followers of Boko Haram who had infiltrated the police. It could also be Al Shabab followers. Should she risk her own life in order to save people she had never met? Would it be possible for her to live life without any regrets if she did not mention it at all and attempt to stop it?
Manas could see she was torn between different decisions so he took her by the shoulders and told her that it would not change a thing as they would just change the date and both of them would be dead for nothing. He tried to make her see that it would all just be pointless and their families would also suffer from the fact that they would no longer be alive.
She pulled away from him. She felt all at once exasperated with his convictions and so drawn to him that she only wanted to be back against him again. She told him she was not sure she could just leave things as they were even though she risked being killed. She could not let him be killed though and she knew for having undergone it how horrible their methods were when punishing someone. They would no doubt punish him much more than they had punished her as he would have been the cause for their plans to fail. She threw her arms around him and cried against his chest. I know it is difficult for you he said and held her closer.
Wael Kfoury ... Kifik Ya Wajaai
A terrorist to love – part 10
12 February 2023
The driver grabbed her by the arm and took her to the cab. He lowered her head before pushing her into the cab. It was so symptomatic of how policemen put their prisoners into their police car that she wondered if he was a policeman on an errand for Boko Haram. She looked up at him after he had sat behind the wheel again. She could see in his eyes a flutter of recognition of what she was thinking. At the same time there passed in his eyes like a shadow of guilt and that persuaded her that he was indeed a policeman but perhaps also a hired gun for Boko Haram. He lowered his eyes so that she could not decipher anything in them.
- You are an English cop, right, she said
- I am in no mood for your mind games, he answered
- No mind games at all. I would just like to understand
- There is nothing to understand. I am a devout Muslim and am doing my part to cleanse the world of the kafireen (non believers). We will soon prevail. Our numbers are growing and we have struck into the heart of the financial system in the UK. The same will happen also in the US and other western countries who do not respect our religious beliefs.
- How can you kill people who are also God’s creatures. Is Allah not merciful and desirous of preserving the creatures he created?
- You know not what you say. Shut up you poor excuse for a Muslim. You have no right to speak of Allah and what Allah wishes for humanity. I know all about you and your involvement with the ATU. I also know how you bewitched Manas and weakened him first in Cameroon and then now in the UK. My superiors may not think much of your prowess, but I can see how you are bringing down a great man and an excellent strategist for our Jihad. If I were to have my way, you would not last long and Manas would then be fully occupied by our Sabil (way) to the higher realms.
She chose to keep quiet as she realized that the driver was a zealot and he might kill her if she went too far. He visibly had no respect for the Boko Haram hierarchy and was only drawn to the cause in order to be able to kill the most kafireen as he could. She had seen countless times men like him, so devout to the cause that they would take matters into their own hand regardless of whom they were supposed to answer to. Their leaders were of course unable to punish them overtly as they would then be questioned on their motives and might also lose a large part of their following if it were known that they had castigated a devout follower because he had killed a kafir. There were fine lines within Boko Haram just as there were in the ATU. In reality, the two organisations had quite a lot in common although they were working on opposing sides.
Her mind drifted back to her time at the ATU when she was charged with finding Manas and either bringing him to justice or making sure he died. It had been at a wedding of one of Manas’s cousins and she had yet gotten the order to take him down regardless of who else died with him. She had realised at that time that she would not be capable of doing that and hurting several people who were very likely innocent. There had not been any intel, indeed, on the cousin who was getting married and in all likelihood he had nothing to do with Boko Haram and most of the marriage party were but innocent bystanders. She remembered her boss’s anger at the fact that she had not planted a trigger and left but there was no way she could have done such a thing. She had killed many people but it had been during face-to-face confrontations with terrorists and other armed followers.
She lifted her eyes again and caught the driver looking at her. She looked away, not wishing to ignite again his fury against her and his anger at the thought that he was not allowed to kill her. She could see from the corner of her eye that he was still looking at her seemingly ruminating murderous thoughts about her but she chose to steadfastly look away waiting for them to pull up to her building. Soon enough she found herself next to the building and the driver came out, opened her door and tugged her out of the car unceremoniously. She let herself be hauled out and quickly started walking towards the building hoping that he was not following her. She heard the car start before pulling away and sighed a sigh of relief. When she reached her flat, she could see that someone had got in. The rocks that she put in front of the door to check whether someone had got in were moved about. She opened gingerly the door and looked into the room. She did not have any weapon with her. She decided that if anybody would have wanted to kill her it would have already been done by Abdelkader, Younes or one of their followers. She went right into the flat yelling come out now you cheap bastards. Her heart skipped a beat as Manas emerged slowly from between the plants on the balcony…
Sweet Blasphemy – Dhafer Youssef
Elixir part 5 – A new generation of Melancholists29 January 2023
Courtesy pinterest.com
The Supreme Guard of the Melancholists reached out to Amelia in the early hours of the next night saying they would escort her from her home to Melancholy, ensuring that she would not be bothered by General Stein or his men. Although this seemed like a great solution for her safety, she also realized it would mean her giving up the secret of her second home to the Supreme Guard and she would then be either under surveillance or easily taken out of her home with no possibility to react in time as they would have the knowledge of exactly where she lived.
She phoned them back saying she would meet them in front of the second exit of Melancholy to the back with all the vials she had made. In the end, they had to accept her conditions as she was the one who held the solution to the chronic problem of dying teenagers in Melancholy. Amelia took all the vials of Elixir and put them in a couple of plastic bags which she placed carefully in her sling bag. She headed out of her apartment from the window of the 1st floor which gave directly on a straight ledge and slowly lowered herself to the ground from the pipe that was tapered to the wall leading down from the ledge. She looked around but could see neither the General nor his men. It was true that she had only rented this home a fortnight ago so nobody would know about her whereabouts yet.
As soon as her feet had taken the first step outside of the security of her home, she quickened her pace almost breaking into a run. She walked hurriedly along the early risers in her town who were mostly farmers bringing in their crops from far away, bakers hurrying towards the making of the daily bread and beggars eager to catch a loaf of free bread or some groceries which were left over from the night or brought in by farmers. At the end of the street, she could see some people who looked like neither of these usual early risers; they looked like trained mercenaries. While it was mainly General Stein and his men who pursued her for the Elixir, she realized that there could be others who wanted to just steal some vials from her and sell them on the black market.
She rushed on, heading to Melancholy that stretched beyond, shining dazzling gold and green, sometimes rainbow colour as it shone on. She could now see the backs of General Stein’s men. She stomped on the Earth, trying to make as little noise as possible while she sunk into it. She counted several hundred meters before she emerged again, all the while alerting the Supreme Guard that she was penetrating the grounds of Melancholy. She always had to notify them that she would be stomping through as she would otherwise be electrocuted by the energy field they surrounded Melancholy with in the air and within the ground. They did not want anyone to sneak into Melancholy without them knowing it. As she emerged, she could see the Supreme Guard on one side and on the other side the Melancholists both young and old. She realized that these were only the Elders of Melancholy and their young teenagers.
Amelia rounded up the Melancholists present and told them to stay around her in a circle within the grounds of commemoration where a slab indicated yearly the sacrifices of the Melancholists. She asked them to open up their noses and mouths and to also press on their sides, concentrating on their hearts. She mentioned that it was necessary to do all of this at the same time to maximise the effect of the Elixir. She arranged the Elders to one side in a semi-circle and the teenagers to the other also in a semi-circle. They all silently did as they were told and waited around her with abated breath.
She took out of her bag three vials of the compounded Elixir and put them on a slab of stone in front of her. She prayed slowly the prayer of cosmic healing and broke the first vial. She could feel the Melancholists take in a sharp breath of the Elixir. She broke the second vial and could feel all the Melancholists chests dilate while their minds seemed to break into a humming of contentedness. She prayed again and broke the third vial of Elixir and could feel a pulse heave through the Melancholists before a wave of energy shot through the crowd of Melancholists and seemed to implode into their ranks then breaking through their ranks lending all their bodies a shiver. She looked around her at the Melancholists and all she could see was youth and beauty everywhere. She smiled and the Melancholists smiled back at her. This was now a new generation of Melancholists. Her potion was much more potent than she ever thought it could be…
Lisa Gerrard & Marcello De Francisci — 'Until We Meet Again' (Official Video)
Before she could finish thinking about a solution to her predicament, she felt the ground shake. She thought it was an earthquake and peeked out of her flat to see whether she should stay indoors or go out. She could see the tube station which seemed to have caved in with large pieces of metal and rock protruding from the hole that had once been the ceiling of the tube station. She looked all around and there seemed to be no sign of an earthquake. She retreated from the window, slowing realizing that this was a terrorist attack. She could not figure out why there was one in her neighbourhood of Canada Water while Manas had only spoken about Green Park and Bond Street.
She put on the TV and saw gory pictures of what remained from the stations of Green Park and West Minster. It seemed that they had changed their mind about Bond Street. The police were asking witnesses to give their recount of anything suspicious they had seen. Apparently the most deadly hit had been at Green Park. They had not only bombed both sides of the station but they had also bombed some of the neighbouring buildings at Green Park. They had come very close to Buckingham Palace as one of the ISWAP members was working on a building site nearby and had been able to plant a bomb there. The police found two guards who had been taken down at the site and it was obvious that the terrorists had put a trigger there. It was not clear whether the terrorist who activated the trigger had survived.
She felt sick and almost threw up. This was all her fault as she had not alerted the ATU in time. She watched other images of the Westminster massacre and realized that the small dark blots were bodies covered up and it seemed like BBC did not want to show the full extent of the horror that had hit both Green Park and Westminster stations. She knew it was Manas’s men who had triggered this horror in London. His men were probably elated at how much terror they had struck into the hearts of Londoners. That day was going to remain for years in the hearts and minds of not only Londoners but all the English people as well. Boko Haram claimed the terrorist attacks as their own and broadcasted the set-up of the operations, boasting about their ability to trump British intelligence. They had used two terrorists who had been working under cover as Electricians with a black card access to the Tube so they had been able to practically go anywhere.
She looked out of the window again. There was absolutely no reason for them to bomb Canada Water station. Could it have been a warning to her so that she stopped seeing Manas? Was Boko Haram sending a message to Manas so that he would stop seeing her? She could not bear just sitting at her flat so decided to dress up and leave in search of Manas. There was always a code blue that she could use if she needed to see him at all costs. She needed to get to Edgware road so that she could use one of the burner phones that was linked to Manas and type in the code. She decided it was better to get a cab than use the tube as it would be in shambles and with stations on high alert as it wasn’t clear if the terrorist attacks were over. She buckled her belt and looked at the driver. There was something odd about him…
Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence [Official Music Video]
She knew she had to alert the Terrorist unit that had been hers for so many years. She picked up her other mobile and called the head of the unit. After an exchange of salutations and a few pleasantries, he asked her what the purpose of her call was as she had been excluded from the unit by her boss who had asked the head of the unit to refrain from speaking with her anymore and to ensure other members of the unit also did not exchange with her. She answered that an attack might be imminent in Westminster but she did not know for sure there would be trouble. She explained that it was expected that individual cells from Boko Haram and ISWAP would meet at the station and perhaps things could go awry from there. He asked her for a few other details and finally told her not to worry and that the unit would be ready for them the whole day and the couple of days after that if they did not arrest them the same day.
After hanging up, she wondered whether it was really the best choice. She had no idea whether Manas would also join the Boko Haram cell. After all he was the head of Boko Haram in Cameroon and he might need to prove his value to the headquarters in Nigeria. She wondered whether she should call him and tell him not to join the meeting but she had already broken her burner sim and she was not sure she would have enough time to get a new sim so she just typed ATU coming on her phone and hoped that Manas would see it in time to avoid the Westminster meeting. After that she ran to the shop to purchase another sim which she used to call the other number for Manas. The phone rang several times but nobody picked up. She kept calling, all the time worried that something happened to him. Suddenly she saw a message flashing on her normal mobile. It said “OK, out”. She felt so relieved that he was no longer in any danger.
She wondered what was happening with the other members of the two cells. She tuned into the frequency that the members of her old unit used to use. The satellite phone she had was able to link into the frequency and she heard everything her old team was saying. Funny that they had not changed the frequency after her departure, she thought. The head of the unit probably thought she would not remember it but he visibly did not realise how good with numbers she was and underestimated her incredible capacity to learn strings of numbers without any problem. She was not just a tactical part of the team, her ability to leverage a person’s psychological issues in order to turn them away from what she wanted them to stop doing was considerable and had made her boss interested in deploying her in the Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU).
When she was in the ATU for Africa, she had been able to decipher several transfers of money using her pattern-matching capacities. It was thanks to this that she had been able to establish that several transfers coming from high-ranking officials in Qatar were funneled into an Islamic organization that professed to be a non-profit for building mosques and then routed through the disguise of Sadaqah, or charity towards the poor, to reach a similar organization in Nigeria and be distributed to what looked like ISWAP’s accounts in Nigeria. It was difficult in practice to establish that these accounts were indeed ISWAP’s accounts because the front was a non-profit that looked like a charitable organization but when you linked all the entities with the payments made and you realized that the individuals who received the payments were indeed suspected ISWAP members, you knew that these had to be ISWAP accounts. The only problem was that they could not establish for certain that these individuals were ISWAP members because they were perceived as God-fearing individuals who were devout Muslims and there was no actual proof of wrongdoing. In the time she worked with the ATU, she had never established a clear link and her unit was never able to bring the ISWAP down through the money trail as they had to proceed with caution, owing to local cultural and religious sensitivities
Enigma - The Rivers Of Belief
Elixir part 3 – The paradoxes of Melancholy3 July 2022
Courtesy Adobe Stock
Amelia found a seat not far from the dead teenager and threw herself on it as she could hardly bear the crescendo of the wailing that emanated from the Melancholists. The wails subsided after a while and the Melancholists slowly exited the burial ground passing by the parents and other family of the young teenager and offering condolences to them. Amelia knew they would soon be gone to their dwellings all around Melancholy. She wished to see how they entered their dwellings that seemed hermetically shut and asked if she could follow them. The Melancholists accepted in hope of making of her an ally who could create the Elixir their breed needed so much. Even they, as a matter of fact, would do better with some drops of Elixir to make their lifeline longer and the beauty of their life greater.
Amelia followed a crowd of Melancholists back to their dwellings and she saw one family after the other slide into the slit that revealed itself to them and be gone into their mushroom-like dwellings. She realized that the slits would appear only to the owners of the mushroom and not anyone else – not even the other residents of Melancholy. One of the Melancholists by her side told her that it was only if the owners gave specific orders to the membrane that covered their dwelling that it would open to someone else. The orders had to be accompanied by a ritual if the dwelling was to open to a non-resident of Melancholy. This was to ensure a double protection from a potential non-resident of Melancholy trying to harm the Melancholists by forcing them to say the orders. Indeed, even if the orders could be given under constraint the ritual could only be made by someone who was free of all constraint.
Amelia watched them disappear one after another in their dwellings and realized that on the other side of Melancholy far from the burial grounds, there was a group gathered and whose collective sorrow seemed to draw her in like a magnet. After the last family had gone into their dwelling, she headed towards the group of sorrowful Melancholists. When she reached them, she realized that they were all youngsters, so beautiful that she could not identify who was the most beautiful of all. It was as if their features kept morphing and the one she looked at seemed always more beautiful than the one she had looked at just before. Despite so much beauty, they were full of an agonizing sorrow that seemed to be tearing them apart. They talked about their fallen friend in hushed voices and seemed to be betting on who would go next.
Amelia asked them why it was that they needed to shorten their lives and they answered as if surprised by the question that this had always been the case. Amelia assured them that they did not need to follow what had been done and that they did not need to shorten their lives. Somehow, they seemed to believe it was the only way that their parents could live longer and were happy to gift them with their lives. Besides, they said that while they were alive, all they could feel is sorrow and woe and they simply could not live with such a heavy burden. They were therefore doubly happy to gift their life away. Amelia asked them how they could possibly feel sorrow and woe in such a beautiful place and one of the taller ones answered that behind the beauty lay the thought of the death of their parents so they could only see the death and the beauty of the surroundings evaded them. It would seem like they had uncovered these feelings after they reached the age of twelve.
Amelia thought that it was such a strange paradox that the young ones should live in a place of beauty but shun it and concentrate on the sorrow and giving their life away for the elders while the elders of Melancholy not only found the place beautiful but were also able to get within it the gift of life from their youngsters. It was not a gift of extending the life eternally like the Elixir though but a gift of just a few more years. The Elders appreciated Melancholy and the gift of the youngsters but at the same time wept the passing of their youngsters and their gift that they so wanted to return and have their youngsters healed by the Elixir. It seemed like Melancholy was indeed a place of paradoxes.
Agnes Obel - The Curse
She looked again at Manas’s beautiful black face filling the screen with his lips parting on pearly white teeth in such a beautiful smile that it made her heart ache with longing. His face seemed to pop out of the screen.
She smiled back, yet she wanted to know the truth, even if it were to hurt her.
- Did you order my torture, Manas?
- How could you think that my angel?
- I don’t know. It seemed impossible that your supporters would do it without your permission.
- Those who have tortured you have been castigated. I know I cannot make it up to you, I can never remove the effect the torture had on you, but I have punished those who took it into their hands to punish you for my imprisonment. As soon as I was let out of prison, I tended to that.
- It was awful
- I know. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I should have left instructions that you should not be touched but everything happened so fast, and we had to run away from your anti-terrorist team.
- I forgive you. I see now that it could not have been you and you did not have time to make sure nothing happened to me.
- Meet me alongside the Thames, near the London Eye at 4 pm
- Tea-time! I see you are getting acquainted with the locals
- Anything for you, my angel. I have followed the change of your career and know that it is now here that you have settled down. I want to be with you and give you the best of myself.
- What about your terrorist gang? Are you going to be attacking civilians here?
- I wish I could answer you, my angel. Let’s not think about things that separate us. We have so much to catch up about. I have missed you so much
- Me too
The words almost suffocated her. She had missed him so much that it actually hurt her. She felt as if her chest had been bashed in, so difficult it was to breathe. She quickly put on her clothes and ran towards the tube. It would not take her long to get to the London Eye from Canada Water. She kept wiping nervously her hands on her jeans as she was sweating profusely, and her hands were wet too. She wondered what it would be like to be in his arms again. Would his love for her be the same? Had he been with other women while they were not together? What had he been doing after his release from the Cameroonian prison?
She got down at Waterloo and walked towards the London Eye. From far she could see Manas. He was disguised and now had a beard on as well as a wig, but she could easily recognize him. Suddenly she felt someone gazing at her on the side and turned to see one of her team members from the Cameroon operation. She also felt someone staring at her from the back and turned around to see another of her team members. They were closing in on her and she realized that her phone must have been tapped.
The good thing was that they had not yet recognized Manas so she turned around and looked squarely at the team member behind her. She pushed him and he fell to the ground. The other team member at her side closed in on her and caught her wrists. Stop fighting, he said but she started throwing punches at him while kicking at the other man who was trying to hold her legs. She saw Manas slowly back out of where he was and then turn and walk away. At least he is safe, she thought as her two team members jointly held her by the wrists and legs.
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (Official Music Video)
There was no explanation for what had just happened. He seemed to think that everything was her fault and she thought that he did not seem to have outgrown the childish level where everything was always the fault of someone else than himself. She decided that this time she had had it with the accusations and all the heartache that he had been giving her over the past few weeks. It had first started when something went awry in the business and he had resorted to her for help but she could not and he had then blamed her for being so incapable of helping him while he was in dire need. It was not that she had not tried and try she had repeatedly with shady figures that she would have normally never dealt with, but it was simply that the outcome had been negative. He had of course only looked at the negative outcome and ignored all her efforts to reach that result.
Every time the accusation had been either that she did not love him enough to try harder or that she did not trust him enough despite all the love he had showered on her. When she thought back to it, however, she realized that it all seemed like a puzzle painstakingly pieced together to create the illusion of reality with ready-made items of the puzzle springing from his past. The more she thought about it the more she realized that it had never quite felt like real love although the declaration of it had been overly intense. At first she had been puzzled and her natural instinct had been wariness, especially with what her sister had to say about it, but in time the sheer quantity of love messages had gotten to her and as she had a soft heart, she had let herself be persuaded that it was indeed an intense budding love.
The last time he had resorted to her for help it was for something that could have put her livelihood at risk but at first she had jumped up to help without paying attention to the request despite all the news she had heard and her work training. A few minutes later though, the doubt on whether what he was asking of her was legit started gnawing at her mind which had buzzed alit from the previous training. When she went to the bank, sure enough, they confirmed to her that what was proposed was illegal and that she could get into big trouble for it. As a result of her discussion with the bank, they had closed her account and she was left without a bank account and without time to open a new one in time for her salary to be paid to her.
With hindsight she realized that this was the least of her worries as she could have gotten into much worse trouble had she not reached out to her bank. Indeed, she would have been suspected by their compliance of being a money mule and potentially charged with money laundering. What had she been thinking when she had given him her bank details, especially after he had asked her to transform the money received from his contact into bitcoins and send it across to his bitcoin account! There was no justification for her foolishness and to add insult to injury, he was now angry with her that she had gone to the bank to check in the first place whether such a thing could be done. Their last exchanges were cold and bitter and she thought to herself that the next time she would be wary of anyone who professed so quickly to be intensely in love. You live and learn she thought. What an experience!
When she had first started using the shamanic gift on a large scale to summon rains she had known that this would happen according to the Ancient magic rules. These dictated that whatever the outcome in the immediate physical it would be replicated within one year or up to eighteen months from the time the ceremony was carried out thereby molding consciousness at that time. This was known as the frontal projection of the consciousness stream and required the shaman to separate from his/her physical self and stay astral during the intended time. Conversely, in a backward timeloop, one had to make the astral body go three years before the present time to carry out a shamanic ceremony that would affect the present.
Initially, she was meant to migrate from her current city to a special place called Alice Springs. She had pondered about it when the city had come out as a result of her dowsing ceremony as she did not know what this meant. It was then that she realized that there existed an Alice Springs and it was in Australia. By coincidence her own helper was dreaming of going to Australia but rather to Sydney than anywhere else. She thought that consciousness combined with her spells should take her to Australia then in astral form if not in the flesh.
At first, she realized that it was the fires of the phoenix that had been let out in the combined consciousness and to combat the ensuing drought-like state it was necessary to summon the rains. Her location was quite far from the regions affected but she knew that consciousness could carry through the shamanic trance joined with the witches’ spell if she released them within the right level of consciousness and at the right moment for them to manifest.
She knew that GAIA’s program was to regenerate herself by reducing what she considered weeds spread amongst her beautiful flowers. As a good gardener knows, if a beautiful patch of the garden is contaminated by weeds or by parasitic flowers, it is necessary to sacrifice patches of those flowers to save the whole garden. As a result GAIA had decided to wipe out many of what she considered weeds and that were in effect human beings. She did not consider them as more important than others because humans had long lost their connection to GAIA. She decided to do this in the region that lent itself the most to this and entire cities in Australia had suffered raging fires. The shamanic trance and combined witches’ spell helped with bringing some relief with the rains to the lands although it was insufficient as not enough levels of consciousness were drawn in by the worded intention. In short, the magic was diluted…
Ming-Hoa’s sight was darkening as he felt the pressure of Chow’s hands around his neck strengthen. Soon he would be reunited with Cuifen he thought for an eternity or at least until only their bones were left. Ming-Hoa believed that once the flesh was gone, the consciousness of the person was also gone unlike the other villagers who believed that the life energy ceased to exist once the breath had gone. He could feel the blood beat at his temples as he mechanically gasped for breath. Suddenly he felt himself freed from Chow’s clutch. Those restraining Ju-Long had come to his rescue and pulled her off him. The women came over to try and reason with Chow so that she would stop trying to go back and strangle Ming-Hoa.
Slowly it would seem that Chow had been reasoned into passivity, so the men returned to their rolling of the coffin on the platform. Somehow none of them felt it was safe enough to directly haul the coffin over their shoulders like they would normally do. Besides, with all the marble of the coffin it was easier to roll it to the graveyard than carry it. Ming-Hoa who was now freed from Chow’s vice-like grip was wailing and following Cuifen’s coffin, uttering from time to time nonsensical whimpers that sounded like muffled words. Eu-Meh thought she could hear something like “Three drops of blood”… “One minute you were”… “body so pure “… “why did you tear” “my ponytail”. She wondered whether Ming-Hoa had attempted to abuse Cuifen and subsequently murdered her when she refused. It all seemed so logical. She should remember to mention that to the police when they would come.
There was no policeman in their village, just one in the nearby village and it would take a day or two for him to come over. She knew that the inquest would have to be handled by more than just that policeman so he would need to wait for the other ones to arrive from the city. This could take another two or three days so the inquest would only start around a week from then. She wondered whether it was wise to already bury Cuifen and have her dug out when the inquest started. There had been one other murder a long time ago and although the murderer had been known, the inquest had still decided that the body must be dug up to corroborate the way the murder had been carried out and the murderer who had been responsible for that murder. She wondered whether she should ask the villagers to stop the burial but realized that everybody seemed to want to be rid of the sight of Cuifen dead.
Chow who had now been relatively quietened by the women was now following Eu-Meh. This latter slowed down so Chow could catch up with her. Without a word Eu-Meh put a reassuring arm around Chow sustaining her frame as she could see that the normally stoic Chow was very near to collapsing.
I think I know who killed Cuifen, she said in a hoarse whisper, but promise me you will not do anything if I tell you.
