A Black Cat, A One-Eyed Parrot and Madame Fabula diFalooza Sees the Past and Future
Chapter 16 - Life Among the Three Dimensionals
Life Among the Three Dimensionals is a serialized sci-fi novel. Have you skipped chapters and don't know where we are? Have you skipped chapters of your own life and don’t know where you are? For earlier chapters click HERE.
In the preceding Chapter 15, Hugo and Szofia had an animated conversation about the birds and the bees in a 'borrowed' car at 100+ mph. They ended up on the beach west of Los Angeles. Szofia went to get tattooed. Hugo Nash saw a wooden sandwich board with an arrow that pointed up a narrow flight of stairs to an upstairs office: Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic. She could read palms. She could read Tarot cards and tea leaves. She knew the past. She could tell the future. She could cleanse people's auras. Hugo Nash climbed the stairs of Madame Fabula diFalooza, psychic.
Chapter 16 of "Life Among the Three Dimensionals"- A Black Cat, A One-Eyed Parrot and Madame Fabula diFalooza:
THE STAIRWAY was dark and the wood risers creaked with every step.
The door at the top was partially open. I tapped lightly on the door.
No one responded.
I slowly pushed the door open. The hinges creaked.
Gingerly, I stepped in.
Inside, it was dark and claustrophobic. The walls were covered with raspberry red tapestry and faded gold-trimmed ropes and tassels. The room smelt musty. The furniture was heavily brocaded and dark. A black cat standing on a stool arched its back. Its fur bristled. It watched me with green eyes. A large African gray parrot perched in an open cage hanging in the corner. The parrot was munching on corn flakes. It studied me with a single yellow eye. The parrot only had one eye because the other was covered with a pirate's patch fastened around its head feathers.
The room was dimly illuminated by burning aromatic candles. There were some heavy, old-fashioned oil paintings with gold baroque frames hanging on the wall, portraits, or copies of portraits from centuries ago.
In the corner I saw a shape, a large woman in a dark robe with something wrapped around her head. She was not moving. Her back was to me. She was hunched forward. She seemed to be looking very intently at a glowing glass that was emitting a stream of changing shapes and colors. I heard the faint babble of ethereal voices, voices that were clearly from the past.
It smelled of incense inside the studio of Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic. It smelled of incense and... and... and it smelled of tuna fish?
“Just sit down and I'll be right with you,” said Madame diFalooza in a distracted voice. “I'm having lunch. Have you ever seen this rerun of 'Gilligan's Island?' The one where they have the beauty contest to choose a Miss Castaway and Gilligan, is the judge? I must have seen this show a hundred times. Do you want a sandwich? I've got some extra tuna fish in the fridge.” She turned around to look at me. “Oh, I was expecting my sister, Sheila. Can I help you?”
“Are you Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic? Can you tell my future?” I am sure that I looked and sounded as troubled as I felt.
Madame diFalooza, Psychic, stared at me quizzically. “Yes, of course. You're my first customer of the day. In fact, most of my customers come after sunset when they've gotten into an altered state of mind, if you know what I mean?” She turned off the television set. “Let me change into some proper clothing - I just took a shower, my hair's still wet and I'm still in my bathrobe. I'll be right back.”
Madame diFalooza, Psychic, retired with her black cat and her one-eyed African gray parrot into a back room and reappeared a few minutes later. She was now dressed in red and purple and had a large felt fez on her wet hair. Gold and silver stars and crescent moons decorated her dress and her fez. The cat also returned and it, too, wore a tiny fez with gold and silver stars and crescent moons. The one-eyed parrot returned to its perch in its cage, also wearing a little gold and silver trimmed fez.
“So,” said Fabula diFalooza sitting down. She adjusted her fez. “What can Madame diFalooza do for you? What do you need to know?”
“Everything,” I replied anxiously. “I need to know what will happen to this planet after the Big Burp now that the 5 dimensional gaseous engineers are being inserted as humanoid simulacrums to run the world. I need to have my aura cleansed. It is very important because I am writing my end of life memorial in anticipation of my Complete Immersion, Disintegration and Recycling in Tszũm'paáß, the universal omphalus.”
Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic, squinted at me.
“I see,” she said. “The Big Burp, immersing yourself in an oompah phallus and 5 dimensional engineers running the world.” She slowly kneaded her fingers and pursed her lips. “Did you, by any chance mean to see Dr. Drooper?”
“Who is Dr. Drooper?” I asked.
“Oh, he's the shrink just down the block. Some of his, uh, clients, sometimes drop in here by mistake. Dr. Drooper cleans peoples' auras, too, in a manner of speaking. Are you, maybe, trying to get a prescription refilled? You do seem pretty depressed. There's also a lawyer down the street. Do you need to, you know, see a lawyer? I mean, are you about to get into some kind of a committed relationship, in a manner of speaking?”
“I need a psychic who can read the future,” I told her, sighing. “It is very important to the future of all stellar cycles in this slice of the multiverse!”
“I see, I see,” said Madame Fabula diFalooza. She kept her eyes on me while she rummaged for something inside her desk. “You know, most people want to know about their boyfriends or girlfriends or their girlfriends' boyfriends or their boyfriends' boyfriends, or their careers or whether they're going to win the lottery or what stock they should buy... It's not the typical Joe who wants to know about, you know, the, uh, 'Big Burp' and the end of the universe, if I follow what you are talking about...”
She continued to rummage through the desk while watching me intently. “You seem like a, uh, 'sensitive' young man. What's your name? When were you born? Where were you born? You do look a little familiar to me. Have you ever been on television?”
I did not understand - if Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic, was a true psychic, then she should already know the answers to these questions. Time, it almost goes without saying, is not a spatial 'dimension,' but a perception, a continuum of experience. One normally can slive forward, backward and even sideways across that continuum with little difficulty. Without Drůkk' ąou location buttons, however, I could not risk movement along any coordinates without getting hopelessly mired in the multiversal mucilage. But although I was time-blind and could not perceive the future, certainly one who was a psychic could. Perhaps, I reasoned, perhaps Madame Fabular diFalooza, Psychic, knows the past and future in three dimensions only and that was why she did not know all about me. But how could I tell her who I was without informing her that I was this planet's most wanted criminal? Although the program was shuttered, I was still a 5D Pioneer committed to learning the truth and speaking the truth. Thus, I could only answer her questions honestly and hope for the best.
I finally answered: “My real name is Ugoñaschßtenätraξo. I was not born, but I emerged from my cocoon on 401-9/67☼Ψ.2 in the Spΐntz-'há epicycle. I am from the central Looo Nebula many unislices removed from here. And, yes, my picture, unfortunately, has been on television.”
“I see,” said Madame diFalooza gently drumming her fingernails. “Are you, uh, an alien from outer space, by any chance, stranded on earth? There does seem to be a lot of that going around these days, hmm?”
Oh, now I understood just how sublime was this Madame diFalooza, Psychic. She knew! She knew! “You are right, in a way, Madame! I am indeed an alien, an intelligent plasmoidic. You are most perceptive! But I am not from outer space but from an adjoining space! An adjoining unislice in five dimensions right next to this one yet simultaneously an infinite number of unislices away. I was inserted here to study three dimensional civilization. Yes, it does look like there are a lot of us around these days - I encountered many more of them at the airport just today! And I have lost my Drůkk' ąou location buttons so, yes indeed, I am stranded here on this planetoid! It is my future I came to see you about, that is, if I have any future at all...”
No one spoke. The black cat's eyes grew very large. The only sound came from the one-eyed parrot munching corn flakes.
“Mr. Unganestrovsko? I'm sorry,” Madame di Falooza said at last. “Is that a Swedish name? Oh, no, you said you were a space alien, or a next-door alien, or whatever, and you don't look Swedish or sound Swedish. And, yes, indeed, Mr. Ungarianstrovski, I can see that you really have lost quite a few buttons. In fact, you have more buttons missing than anyone else I've ever met before.”
“You have met the others?! You have met the 5D enviro-engineers or the medical tourists or the Unstables or Naifs?”
Madame diFalooza's black cat screeched and bolted from the room. The one-eyed parrot flew down and landed on Madame diFalooza's shoulder. It stared at me sideways with its beak agape while scratching its head with a talon.
“Okay, look , Mr. Ungonaztroponov, everyone's entitled to have their future foretold... even if they're whack jobs who've lost a few buttons, like you. But I'm not running a charity, you know, so the first thing you have to do is pay up. Normally, I'd charge twenty-five dollars, cash, in advance, to peer into my Acrylic plastic ball or read your palms. But because you're obviously a special case, I'll make you a special deal and charge a hundred. Come on now, show me the money, Mr. Ungonastravinski.”
“Awwwk,” said Madame diFalooza's one-eyed parrot, “Hundred bucks! Hundred bucks! Awwwk!”
I took out my wallet from my jacket pocket. Oh my! I had filled it with money from the last cash machine Szofia and I had emptied before we got on our flight. But I forgot that I had given it all, including the McPfeffers' cash, to Szofia ten minutes earlier so she could pay for her tattoo! “I am so sorry, I told Madame diFalooza. I do not have any money on me right now! I gave it all to my traveling companion, an intelligent four dimensional carnivorous vegetable.”
Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks. “Oh yeah?”
“Awwwwk!” screeched Madame diFalooza's one-eyed parrot. “Off with his head! Off with his head! Awwwk!”
Madame di Falooza abruptly stood up and pushed back the table. She had an 8" long S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver in her hands like what I had seen Dirty Harry Callahan use in several Hollywood movies. Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic, thrust the barrel of the revolver into my belly.
“Awwwwk!” cried Madame Fabula diFalooza's parrot. “Make my day! Make my day! Awwwk!”
“So, you're not just a space alien, but you're a space alien comedian!” said Madame di Falooza. “Okay, sucker, up against the wall. Hands up, palms out! Right now! Now! Now! Do it Now!” She was almost spitting her words at me holding the gun barrel at my belly the whole time.
I was so terribly frightened! “Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“Oy veh? Oy veh? What? Now you're suddenly a Jewish space alien comedian? Keep those dukes up there, sucker. Alright, take those kitchen gloves off - let see your palms, joker.
---- KEEP 'EM UP THERE OR I'LL USE YOUR TUKHUS FOR TARGET PRACTICE!”
She started to rummage through my pants pockets and then my wallet.
“Hmm,” she finally said. "Reading your billfold... I can see... that you're a loser, a real poor loser. And as for your future? Well... " she said dumping out the contents of my wallet with one hand onto her desk, "... I foresee that you're also going to be a poor loser in the future, with the emphasis on POOR, --- DID I SAY YOU COULD PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN? KEEP 'EM UP!”
“Awwwk!” cried Madame Fabula diFalooza's parrot. “Make my day! Make my day! Awwwk!”
Madame diFalooza paused to look more closely at my palms even with the revolver barrel still pressed into my belly. “Saaay, you've got some mighty strange looking grippers there, fella. Upside down, inside out? No wonder you're such a loser! How do you even pick your nose with paws like that? KEEP 'EM UP THERE!!!”
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
Madame di Falooza tucked her .44 Magnum into the sash of her robe, while she first patted down my shirt pockets and then shuffled through the identification and credit cards that had fallen out of my wallet.
“Well, well, well,” she said out loud as she inspected my drivers license by candlelight. “Some space alien you are! So it's Mr. Hugo Nash, is it? Nash rhymes with cash, but it looks like you have nothing except credit and debit cards, and I have a hunch your bank cards ain't worth their weight in turkey shit. What do you think, Robespierre?” Madame diFalooza asked her parrot.
“Turkey shit! Off with his head! Awwwk!” said Robespierre, the psychic's one-eyed parrot.
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“You know, Mr. Nash. Your name, Hugo Nash...
… Hugo Nash…
... Hugo Nash…
Hugo Nash! You know, your name is starting to sound familiar to me. That face. Those hands... haven't I seen or heard about you somewhere before... ?”
“HUGO NASH! HUGO NASH! HUGO NASH!” screamed Robespierre.
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“Off with his head! Off with his head!” screamed Robespierre the parrot.
She studied my face. “Were you ever on Rod Sterling's 'The Twilight Zone?' Or maybe the 'X Files?'”
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“No! I've got it now! 'The Outer Limits'?... With a body and face like yours, I know that I didn't see you on 'Baywatch?'"
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“Why do you keep gobbling like a turkey? C'mon, speak up... and KEEP YOUR HANDS HIGH WHERE I CAN SEE 'EM!”
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
Madame diFalooza's black cat came back into the room still wearing his miniature fez with stars and crescent moons. He was carrying in his mouth a digital tablet, which is quite a mouthful for a cat, after all.
“What have you got there, Merlin?” asked Mrs. diFalooza stroking her black cat's fur just behind his little star-spangled fez.
Merlin laid the tablet on the table and swiped the screen with his paw. Then he touched his nose on the 'local news' app. The day's top headline opened up and the cat first tapped his paw on the story and then pointed a claw straight at me. “Meoeowwooww,” said Merlin the black cat with an accusatory look in his green eyes. “Awwwk!” cried Madame Fabula diFalooza's parrot. “Make my day! Make my day! Awwwk!”
“Let me see that,” said Madame diFalooza as she read the front page story. Robespierre, the one-eyed parrot, flew down to the table and read the story, too.
“Airplane at LAX airport...mmm mmm jumped mid-flight... uhh, hmmm, mmm mmm... Trevor and Gale McPfeffor, the airport hijacker and accomplice ... mmm mmm mmm ... notorious Chinese, Palestinian and Russian terrorist... jail break… larceny… contributing to delinquency of minor… Hugo Nash... former teacher and divorced husband of tell-all author... mmm mmm inside out hands...
“… HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS REWARD!!”
Robespierre the parrot screeched:
“HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS! HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!”
Madame diFalooza grinned at me. “HUGO NASH! Of course, you're the biggest terrorist of them all! Who'd a thunk it! The world's most terrible terrorist, mother-stabber, father-rapist and Islamo-child pornographer has come to Madame diFalooza's salon and walked right in masquerading as a Jewish-Swedish space alien to have his palms read! And a reward of a hundred million smackers! They want you..... dead...... or alive, my friend!”
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“Stop that gobbling Mr. Nash!” yelled Madame di Falooza and pointed the revolver at me again. Merlin hissed menacingly. Robespierre, the parrot, beat his wings while screeching,
“Dead or alive! Off with his head! Dead or alive!”
Madame diFalooza leaned back in her chair. She laid her revolver on her lap. She lit a cigarette in a long ivory holder using a vintage Queen Anne style table top silver plated lighter. Merlin, her black cat, sat down cross-legged in her lap also smoking a small cigarette in a tiny holder. The parrot flew down, perched on the desk and began smoking a miniature hookah. Together, they scrutinized me through the haze of blue smoke. Robespierre the parrot puffed tiny twin smoke circles through its nostrils that formed expanding figure 8s as they floated toward the ceiling.
“You know,” Madame diFalooza said to me at last, “you don't seem all that terrifying, Mr. Nash.”
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!”
“In fact, you seem more terrified than terrifying.”
“Oiyoyoyei!”
Madame diFalooza pushed up her fez with the barrel of her revolver and leaned further back in her chair. She looked up at the ceiling, blowing smoke rings.
“When I was young... of course, that was a very long time ago, Mr. Nash. We were all very radical. I was a Lit major, minor in Art History... everybody who studied literature or art history or sociology was a flaming radical in those days, did you know that Mr. Nash? Really, truly! I mean, what else could we do with majors like that except start a revolution? We burned down quite a few ROTC buildings, occupied a lot of deans' offices, drove two presidents right out of the White House, yes we did!”
“Purrrrr,” said Merlin the black cat.
“Awwwk,” said Robespierre, the one-eyed African gray parrot.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
Madame diFalooza leaned forward and stroked her cat's back. “Yes, Merlin, yes, Robespierre, decades and decades and decades ago we were going to change the world, end capitalism, free the oppressed of the world... Hippies and Yippies, we were going to free Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, end imperialism and liberate colonized peoples everywhere, weren't we, my dears?”
“Purrrrr,” said Merlin the black cat.
“Awwwk,” said the African gray parrot.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
“Well, you know what happened, don't you, Mr. Nash? When the Vietnamese won the war and the draft came to an end, suddenly we had nothing to focus on, nothing to unify us, nothing to keep us on edge. We got bamboozled into entering the Okefenokee Swamp of identity politics and micro-causes and bickering splinter movements with big bucks NGO funding and trivial two-party electoral politics all of them competing with one another and dissipating our money, our time and our energy.
"That wasn't an accident, you know. No, Mr. Nash, it was the old rule of divide and conquer, 'Divide et Impere,' as the Romans said as their legions conquered and colonized the world. And they divided and conquered us all internally as well as externally.
"And besides, Mr. Nash, nearly half the so-called activists were actually government informants, infiltrators and provocateurs. At the top and at the bottom of every organization and movement, you didn't know who was real and who was not.
"After Vietnam, it was party time - time to get stoned, time to make a buck, time for trivial pursuits! Time to smoke hash and time to make your stash. But the endless exploitation of resources and people, the limitless returns on investment hit their limits. The profit margins started to shrink. The climate changed. The good times were coming to an end, but we were still rockin' and rollin' like they weren't. And then, while we were still hung-over, the Soviet Union toppled with a big push from Uncle Sugar, mamma mia! Suddenly, as Margaret Thatcher said, 'there was no alternative!'”
Madame diFalooza turned toward me. “Do you know what it means when there are no alternatives, Mr. Nash? It's like having 57 varieties of ice cream, but you can't buy anything except vanilla. So plain vanilla was all there was.
"First, the musicians sold out and went mainstream. Then all the lawyers went to Wall Street. Then the writers and the artists, the scientists and engineers and the computer techies - everybody caved in and went to work for the ruling class who owned just about everything including the government. Do you know what they call that Mr. Nash when the private sector and the state are one and same? That's called fascism!
“Purrrrr,” said Merlin the Cat.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
“Awwwk,” said the African gray parrot.
Madame diFalooza shook her revolver back and forth for emphasis. “That's right, fascism Mr. Nash! It's like satirist George Carlin once said: World War II ended - Germany lost, but fascism won. That's what happened! It's like we slid into a parallel universe with a slightly different twist on history.”
“That is entirely possible,” I murmured.
“What did you say?? Did you say something, Mr. Nash?? Keep those hands up!!!” She rested the handle of the gun on the table, the barrel still pointed at me.
“Oiyoyoyei!”
Madame diFalooza's black cat Merlin took the .44 Magnum. He held it up in his two front paws and aimed it at me with one green cat-eye closed, a single claw on the trigger. “Dead or alive!” screamed Robespierre, the African gray parrot. “Off with his head! Make my day!”
Madame diFalooza leaned back in her chair again studying me. A minute passed while Merlin rotated the revolver cylinder with his claws. One click. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
"Feeling Lucky? Feeling Lucky? Awwk! Make my day! Feeling lucky? Awwk!" screeched Robespierre the parrot.
Madame Fabula diFalooza tilted her chair forward, took the revolver from her black cat and pointed it at me again: “So then you know what happened, Mr. Nash? The Cold War ended and capitalism won and all the rest of us lost.
"Why were we so happy, Mr. Nash? Why, I ask you? Why? I'll tell you why - we got bought off with a little chump change! They gave us rigged stock market casinos and real estate bubbles. People could make some dough, have some fun, stash money in illusory 401(k) retirement accounts that they could never actually use; become hot snot consumers with endless consumer debt, buy lots of useless bling on credit, buy an overpriced home with a mortgage that amounted to a lifetime rental that enslaved us for the balance of our lives. We did a deal with El Diablo, Mr. Nash! We pawned our future and the future of generations to come for a few rental years of the good life, Mr. Nash.”
She leaned forward. “And worse, Mr. Nash! The majority of us just went along, got along and were grateful for a stinking job, a paycheck, stability, peace, bread, circuses and silly political slogans - just like so many Adolf Eichmanns with our noses to the grindstones and our heads up our asses.”
“Purrrrr,” said Merlin the black cat.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
“Awwwk,” said Robespierre the parrot.
“We were such fools, Mr. Nash!” Madame diFalooza continued. “There was no future for someone like me with a degree in English Lit and Art History. I tried my best to resist, Mr. Nash, but a girl's got to eat, doesn't she?”
She started to slowly twirl the revolver on her finger like in the movies, and it is quite remarkable to twirl a Model 29 .44 Magnum like that.
“So, Mr. Nash, just like it was meant to be, I eventually broke down. Yes, I utterly and completely broke down. Sold out. Yes, that's what I did, Mr. Nash. I sold real estate for a while. Waited tables at restaurants. Taught transcendental meditation. Wrote poetry for fun, but no profit. Did some telemarketing. Got married, got divorced. Did some social work. And then I got into this gig: Tarot cards, palm reading, Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic! Sheesh! what a way to make a living! Quite a come down from Tolstoy, Hemingway, Matisse, Franz Marc, Kandinsky, Marx and Engels. It's a pretty dismal story, isn't it Mr. Nash?”
“Purrrr,” said Merlin the Cat.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
“Awwwk,” said Robespierre.
Madame diFalooza stubbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray. “You know, Mr. Nash, all those revolutionaries from back then were darn good-looking, too. That Che Guevara, with his dark Latin looks framed in curly black hair and beard, those sensuous eyes and his red beret - oh, I had such a crush on him! And Malcolm X with his big confident smile and sonorous voice! Fidel, Jerry Garcia, Seamus Costello, Muhammed Ali, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Renato Curcio, Ulrike Meinhof, Zbignew Zhing. All those talented, courageous women and gorgeous men!” She squinted at me judiciously. “Of course, you're not nearly as good-looking or talented as any of them, Mr. Nash.”
“Oiyoyoyei!”
“And you do seem to have a little flatulence problem, don't you?”
“Oiyoyoyei!”
“Well, it's all gone now.” She wheeled around in her chair. “It's really a shame, isn't it Merlin? Isn't it Robespierre? We thought that by ending the draft we would end war; but we only got twice as many wars, and instead of pacifist middle-class college-educated draftees being sent out to maim and kill, now we have presidential signature strikes and mercenaries and robot drones and proxy wars to maim and kill.
"We thought we would destroy the 'system,' but the 'system' destroyed us, body and soul. We wanted to destroy the middle-class institutions and, instead, we ended up reinforcing them and defending those same middle-class institutions. We wanted to distribute the wealth of nations, but the wealth of nations ended up being redistributed to the folks who already owned most of the wealth of nations. Instead of a class-less society, we got an even more class-based society; instead of democracy, we got plutocracy masquerading as democracy; instead of equality we got greater inequality.
"They gave us a 'shared economy' where we own nothing and have to rent from those who own everything. And then, Mr. Nash, we cheered our own degradation. Yes, that's what it means when you live in a world where there are no ice cream flavors except vanilla!”
“Purrrr,” said Merlin the black cat.
“Awwwk,” said Robespierre the parrot.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
Madame diFalooza leaned forward on her elbows. “We tried, Mr. Nash, we really tried but let's admit it, we were historical and political idiots. We blathered our little phrases and mouthed the words without insight. We were fed bullshit slogans and we parroted them back just like we were indoctrinated to do.”
“Purrrrr,” said Merlin the black cat.
“Oiyoyoyei,” said I.
“Awwwk???” questioned Robespierre, the parrot.
“No,” she continued, “we have to admit it - we were stupid, stupid, stoooo-pid! We were stupid and naive and propagandized and led by the nose and... we failed. We didn't change the police state; it just evolved into something stronger and more violent and more intrusive than ever! We never managed to free Mumia or Leonard Peltier or Julian Assange or close the Guantanamo prison camp or end imperialism. And we never really ended slavery or colonialism - we just rebranded it under a different guise as global capital and let it migrate from South America to Africa and to Eastern Europe.
"Everytown, USA became colonized and exploited by the exploiters! We ourselves became Third World peasants! We never really liberated any oppressed peoples or ended a single war, we just neo-liberalized them and fooled ourselves with a fuzzy future fantasy that, like the proverbial carrot on the stick, makes the donkey keep plodding along. Can you believe it, Mr. Nash? We were self-deluded suckers. Nut-cases! All we accomplished was legal marijuana and charter schools and spy phones and gigantic pro sports stadiums with luxury box seats for the über-wealthy and on-line pimping services for temporary gigs and and social networking that the owners could make a profit on (and use to keep a close eye on us) and that would keep us all dumbed down and docile.
"I mean, the Internet was supposed to make information free and to set us free, Mr. Nash. Now, all the information, the books, the scientific journals, all the knowledge is locked up behind pay-walls, and they spy on, track, sell and file away every click, every web search, where you drive, every purchase, every message, your texts, your posts, what you watch, the music you listen to, what you buy, every photo you take and every call you make, everything you read on the Web, they keep and file it all. We're in a fool's paradise, we're living in glass houses and we've been brainwashed to love it.”
Madame diFalooza lit another cigarette in her ivory cigarette holder. “Oh yes, and that's not all, Mr. Nash! The System proved stronger than all of us. In the end, we were all corrupted; all of us were assimilated into it. We knew nothing and had learned nothing. Our collective sell-out proved that we could be as myopic and intolerant and as culturally chauvinistic as everyone else.
"We proved, Mr. Nash, that all men and women, black and brown and white and red, young and old, rich and poor, straight and gay - we all could be co-opted into the Establishment that we never even came close to eradicating, proving only that within every demographic of race, nationality, ethnicity, age, sex and religion, there is the same percentage of lying, psychopathic, mean, egotistical, corrupt, self-centered, venal, hegemonic SOBs, just like the rich old white gas bags we railed against.”
“Purrrr,” said Merlin the black cat.
“Awwwk,” said the parrot, Robespierre.
Gas Bags??? “Oiyoyoyei!” said I.
She tapped the cigarette ashes onto the floor. “And now, Mr. Nash, they want me to sell you down the river for one hundred million dollars! They want me to trade all this psychic gimcrack for the life of a point one-percenter! Now that seems like a whole lot of money, doesn't it Mr. Nash?”
Madame Fabula diFalooza, Psychic, slowly thumped the table with her fist.
“Yessir, I could kick back and not have to read another dirty, sweaty palm for the rest my life if I claim that reward! That's a lot of Friskies, corn flakes and catnip, Mr. Nash!”
“MEEEOOWSERWOWSER!!!” exclaimed Merlin the cat.
“Corn Flakes!!! Hundred Million Dollars!!! Awwwk!!!!” exclaimed Robespierre, the one-eyed parrot.
“Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei! Oiyoyoyei!” said I.
Madame diFalooza leaned forward in her chair resting her chin on her hands that cradled the gun. Merlin, her black cat, also leaned forward and rested his chin on his folded front paws. Robespierre scratched his head. Five eyes - two dark brown, one yellow and two green - studied me. “Hmmmm, hmmmmm, hmmmmmm,” all of them mused in unison, blowing smoke rings.
After a few moments, Madame di Falooza said: “Well, here's what I think. A hundred million is hardly worth anything in today's dollars! I mean, due to inflation, that's chicken-feed, these days!”
“Meeoow??” queried Merlin the Cat.
“Awwwwk?” asked Robespierre, the parrot.
Madame diFalooza got up and started to pace the room. “In this world, only the psychopaths and the parasites live well and the innocent host gets slaughtered. Life is parasitic, Mr. Nash. Parasites feeding on parasites. You're the host or the leech and sometimes both. That's how their so-called 'rule of law' works, too. There is no justice. There is no fairness. It's all a charade, a farce. A cirque du parasitisme. The lions lie down with the lambs to eat them. The scum floats to the top. They get the spoils of this life and you get... the after-life! What a racket, ho ho ho! No, it's not just a racket, it's a conspiracy carried out in plain sight!”
She paused, then continued more loudly than before. “It all has to crash and burn! All of it! And besides, Mr. Nash, they don't really want to actually arrest heinous terrorists like you! No sir, you're the rationale for a much bigger agenda that cannot be spoken, a tool for achieving other ends! And, what's more, they're making a ton of money just going through the pretense of tracking you down! You serve a real purpose, a unifying purpose. You are a perfectly grotesque villain with your flatulence and misshapen hands, the quintessential enemy of the people, a lightening rod for peoples' fears and insecurities around which they can rally the unwitting serfs while the parasites suck out more blood and profit. Mr. Nash, truth be told, they could have nabbed you overnight, if they really wanted to do so, because we're living in a global panopticon where everyone lives under surveillance.
"Truth be told, Mr. Nash, if you didn't exist, the parasites would have to invent you. If I really were to turn you in, they'd probably shoot me first and blame it on you to cover their tracks... (and save the stinking reward money!)... and then they'd let you 'escape' just so the Hugo-Nash-Terrorist gravy train could keep right on rolling along.”
Madame diFalooza put the revolver back inside the desk drawer. “Oh, you can put your hands down now, Mister. I envy you in a way. You're obviously an idealist, an artist, a political zealot true to your principles, a real reformer, a rebel prince, a Commandante Zapata Nash, banner carrier of the new revolution... even though you are a certified whack job with quite a few buttons missing who's guaranteed to go down in a blaze of glory - you have a very short life line in your right hand, Mr. Nash, you do know that?” She paused for a moment and stroked her chin.
“Yes, Mr. Nash, you can go now.” Madame diFalooza pointed to the door. “You can go. Be gone, Hugo Nash! Vaya con Dios! Non vaya con Pollo! Hasta la Victoria siempre!”
She started to sing the Internationale in French as Merlin the cat hummed through a kazoo and Robespierre the parrot squawked in accompaniment... “Debout, les damnés de la terre; Debout, les forçats de la faim...”
I put on my kitchen gloves and slinked down the stairs. As I descended, I noticed that Madame Fabula di Falooza had suddenly stopped singing and her eyes had quickly narrowed.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her reach for the phone. I heard her tap the touch-tones
… 9 … 1 ... !!!
.... 4-003-7099 ....
“Hello, Sheila?” I heard her speak. “Sheila, you know my old old VW bus that's in your garage? Let's fix it up and travel around for awhile, for old time's sake...”
That is the last I heard Madame Fabula diFalooza say as Robespierre the parrot screeched at me “Turkey shit! Off with his head! Awwwk!”
Merlin, with a hiss and a kick from his hind paw, slammed the door behind me.
Szofia was waiting for me when I got downstairs.
“Hey, dude, where have you been? Look at these works of art,” she said proudly showing me the multi-colored psychedelic eggplants she had had tattooed into her forearms.
She looked me over. “You know, Kimosabe, you look even more pale face than usual. Are you alright?”
I was not sure I was alright. I was not sure of anything anymore.

Well….you certainly got a lot off of your chest in this chapter! I enjoyed every word of it. It made me think of things and concepts I haven’t visited in decades. Back then, the ‘70’s, I thought we were all doomed. Fifty years later, I think that, again.