23:03 Six Heads

Six heads, five slender + one tiny body, frantically prepared to leave Box-APT n2, the one with a balcony. Without any decision or prior planning they ravaged --  in and out of rooms, a scramble of fashion, wax, chems and devices, lost, called for,  found, and lost again. This was the typical process of departure, an immediate decision regarded as the guiding principle, followed by more immediate decisions to face increasing obstacles, like dishes full of uneaten salad, towards the simple task: to exit through the front door. Leaving was only the first step of the “mission,” rather their sublimated imperative to attend the Vermillion, which was where? The directions and plans were shouted, muttered, whispered as nails and claws clicked away on bright biosilica screenware.

“It literally says ‘undisclosed location’...”


“What does that even mean?”


“What does that even mean?”


Heads were descending the staircase, in flow, looking at devices.


“Melkior said that Lukaš said undisclosed location.”


“Did you ask him where that is?”


“I asked him where The Event was and that’s what he said.”


“I already called a driver.”


“Wait, where’s my device?”


Below their rental apartment complex B.O.X. masked crust punk provoked neon flames by dropping cans of car paint into a burning container. Police helicopters camouflaged by the night sky darted the area with ice cold light, in the rhythm of the sirens. Frosty, rose colored lights, streets of special insignificance, wet fog smells of gas and rubber.

In between the parked cars someone jammed broken scooters. Biodynamic red shuttle appeared silently out of the smoke, leaving behind spiraling flakes of street ash that fell listlessly into its wake.

As the passenger side window slid down, Orsat could see the reflections of themselves and their companions slip from high-definition, flat representations into the smooth silicone boundary of what separated them from whoever would take them to their next location. Broken display inside the shuttle car incorrectly dated to 09:09; 09.09.09. Orsat glanced at it through the corner of their eyes. Vermillion, swollen.


“Where is Melkior?”


Only Lukrecia seemed to care, “Locking doors, putting out candles” she entered the backseat, rated 5.1 star within the shared ride app.


“ Are we all just taking selfies right now?”


“ No, the car is waiting.”

Ignoring the commotion Orsat packed leftover triangles of DPMT-Hito-n-228, the rare expressly more expensive chem of the stone family, into a carotid micro purse, shaped in the form of the representation of his most powerful organ, beating with cheerful, rhythmic positivity in the whirlwind of logistical errors surrounding him. The purse had a pearl handle that made it easy to find, a crystal metonymic heart in the middle of a velvet plush casing. He/She felt gas beginning to collect in his abdomen, with the specific feeling that it would not exit until at least tomorrow.


“ Abbiamo quindici secondi”

Drivers voice resonated,


“Hai trenta secondi!”


“We have to be there at 00:00...”


“How?”


“Look at the time!”


“I can’t find my device…”


A hairless laced head loomed, peering at a screenware illuminating the small, pointed nose of Lukre, whose fingers scratched at the itch of information, her voice descended gently.


“Is this our Driver? The hell is he saying?”


Orsat knew that everyone was dumbed down by recently ingested chem-supper, and indeed no one understood what the driver was saying.


“Yo, can We pay you in Mintcoins?”


“La carabinieri sta arrivando, sali in macchina!”


“ I have Coinyline too”


Orsat panned recorder over the outdoor heads waiting for another cab, edging for the spectacle they were creating in their silly little outfits.


“Melkior get the f* down!”


He screamed while simultaneously live streaming the selfie-cult circus in front of burning piles of trash.

Nuclear winter, nuclear summer. Vermillion swollen opium selling.

Dukat’s vocals shrieked from the bluetooth speaker Lukrecija dragged into the car on the 23rd second. Plastic partitions distorted the cityscape, smoke filled the shuttle car as windows automatically closed. Orsat got stuck halfway through the window trying to give a device back to Constantine who was, unbothered by tear gas, flexing G-string + AR filters.


“ Tre secondi! Due! Uno!”


“ Melllllllllllk!?X  Get TT F x  innn!”

Synth-mesh footwear, depleted isotope jewelry, material trappings of that expressed wealth in disdain of the need for purpose slid and clattered into action. The pre-War door of Box-APT n02 screamed itself open, shedding the smog dust that had collected on its outer surface. Twelve feet skeleton finally choreographed spider ballet down the spiraling rusted metal staircase, throwing themselves over Turkish shoes and leftover delivery packages from neighbors, curving by trippy plastic kid vehicles that blocked the pathway. As he exited the outer gate, a gust of hot air and embers blew by. In awe, he took his device out to catch an amazing footage of Constantine's G-string trio stance, but they sensed Orsat's meeping dissatisfaction and urgency. Obediently giving up gonzo journalism they proceed to install themselves in the car. Lukre whined beneath the wind.


“I’m itchy.”


“I think the cab has coolant systems.” Melkior tried opening the rooftop window but it was jammed.


“If it doesn’t have AC I don’t wanna go.”


“Really?”


“No.”


“ You are so American.”


“Destruction and anarchy.”

“Macchina per signora Lucrecia? Ehhhh! Prego! Eh... per favore rapido rapido…”


The driver serves a GTA techno Lento Violento look with a HyperFolk leather jacket. George Michael legacy freshly trimmed beard with cropped, triple-slit sideburns glisters in the city lights. Greased up and ready for the busiest night of the year. Lukre felt the driver's ego was in line with the occasion, “This Driver is incorruptible. “ she grins while he bows down slightly to open the doors for the lady, “Quindici secondi! Polizia arrivata rapido rapido! Ok...”.


Lukrecia was dressed to kill, Orsat hanged halfway through the car window exposing most of his lingerie. Lukrecija tried to drag him back in from the other side, wielding multiple devices at Constantine, who they were about to splinter with. Melikior entered the car deranged from excitement, police bombed the street and the driver pushed through the smoke barrier. Orsats hand reached through the window, “Baby! I hope you make it to the party…”

Long nails on Constantines hands met him softly, “ Oh, don’t worry sunny, we will!” nails clipping the shuttles window while it’s engine slowly cruised through the parking lot. Message beep came a second later.


“ G-squad is so chaotic. Like, beg my pardon but, Constantine is an idiot, she literally just DM’d me that she doesn’t even have the regulated payment system access validation for the shuttle app. ''

Lukrecija glanced into rearview “ I’d give them 20% chance to make it on time”


“ Don’t bother, I gave them the guest list.” Orsat meeped, squished in the middle.


“ Since when do you have so many GL’s?”


“ I have eternal GL”


“ Hm?”


“ Also we all know Voyček digs us, he is already there with his chiks.”


“ I can’t stand that dude.”


“ Me neither”


Lukrecija squinted at Orsat through the light of a police drone passing by.

“ Wow, Lukre, your make-up is so beautiful”

Orsat blushed at the sight of his friend's sparkling visage.

Long limb stabbed through the front seat, “Lukre you’ll have to sit on me, my legs don’t fit in the back” Melkior growled, stabbing Orsat in the cheek,


“ Why didn’t you just sit at the shotgun?”


“ It’s illegal now to be in the shotgun seat. “


As the shuttle door slid into place all noise from the outside suddenly ceased. The faint smell of Otherworld plastics and a pleasant cool air dressed the vivid difference between the service they had ordered and the world that they lived in. Brilliant, almost blindingly, a gold watch resting on an uncanningly clean driving glove slid past Melkior’s vision to rest on the passenger headrest.


The driver was now focused on navigation, raising his eyebrow to meet Melkior’s cramped viewpoint from behind and below Lukre’s compacted body…. They almost didn’t realize that the vehicle was accelerating forward while the driver was looking back at them, one eyebrow raised and a charismatic grin pulling on the thin gold chain beneath of his half-unbuttoned dress shirt, his Marlboro jacket glistening with, was it polished leather?


“Demoni del partito, eh? Facevo festa, proprio come te... allora…”


“Orsat do you speak Latin?”


“It’s Italian, nobody speaks Latin”


“Aren’t they the same?”, Lukre opened the shuttle doors



“ I thought Latin was Romanian” Melkior closed the shuttle doors


“ Bambini! c'è un blocco antincendio di fronte Dose!” Driver opened the rooftop window and pressed the shuttle's main inhalt dispenser, lifting the machine up.


“ Maybe he is  like Transilvanian “ Melkior was doubting in Lukrecia’s Incorruptible shuttle app service.


“ Voi vampiri sembrate davvero transilvani, io sono di Firenze” Driver said behind a plexi curtain.


Lukrecija, who had been fumbling inside Orsat’s purse since they entered the vehicle, had drawn six crooked lines on their device, connecting the edges and surrounded by little specks of carelessness. Orsat struggled to level the glowing rectangle onto her balloon-like stubs as Melkior began to mumble something about the driver not even looking at where they were going, before the kick drum of early-twenty-first century house music cut him off.


“You take the line and put half of it in a blue cap, and the other half in a red cap, and then you put one in each nostril and just... ” Lukre tried to make a sniffing sound but ended up squeaking.


“What? I can’t hear you over the”


“YOU TAKE HALF AND PUT IT IN THE BLUE CAP, and THE OTHER HALF IN A RED CAP…” Lukrecia cut the powder from her pendant in a few pieces and added it to the blue capsule. She shoved the content into Orsats nostril.


DHMOT the Behemoth of research chemicals. Once known as Delta variant of DMT,  it hit the streets half a year ago and changed the planet's consciousness to such extreme that even hundreds of years of sci fi conspiracies wouldn’t have predicted.


Heart shaped box made its way from Orsat back into Lukre’s claws as she rotated 180 degrees to assist her seat, Melkior, with dosage.


“Hold this”


Lukre displaced two glass tubes from her bag, shoved plastic wrap of capsules into Melkior’s left rib, and began alternating between calculating the milligrams, and tinkering with a designer syringe. She shoved something into Melkior’s skull hole.


“Safety first, just in case Vermillion has a ban on research chems…”

The diamond blinking heart disappeared into a gossamer fabric of visual kei couture blouse resting on a boney torso.


“Is this your nose or your ear hole? I always forget”


“Hhhh hhh MM mmm” Melkior growled,


“Nice, got it first try...one second…ok now just sniff this, like really really hard.”


If Melkior had normal eyelids, this would be the moment that he closed them for a second. What he had instead was an eyeliner framing two eggwhite membranes, each size of a halfmoon shaped plate. The objects clattered their way into his ether complex, bouncing off of bones on the way down. He remembered his first message from Behemoth:


“Make Sure That Tonight is The Night.”

At least their ride had air conditioning. Lukrecija got stung by jellyfish, a week ago, on the right arm, next to the vein covered in tattoos. It started itching as the pill slowly released. She tried to find a comfortable position on top of Melkior, but her friend’s discorporate collection of bones suspended in filaments of glowing gas that he called a “body” did little for cushioning. Lukre jerked her discomfort to the left, and one of Melkior’s bones fell to the left, by Orsat’s eggplant-shaped legs. She quickly looked into his white eye sockets, and there was no reaction. She had always wondered how many bones Melkior could do without, if his skull would float on its own...


“Do you guys feel that?”


Lukre turned to her left, where she thought the sound had come from, even though it wasn’t Orsat’s voice, but from the companion in the passenger seat. Orsat was blank-faced, eyes wide open, as if looking at a beautiful sunset.


“Feel what?”


“I didn’t say anything, he did.”


Lukre turned right and looked at the friend crammed beneath Melkior’s right limbs, but instead saw Melkior’s skull, superpositioned with Orsat’s zucchini-shaped arm.


“Orsat, your arm is on this side.”


The arm swayed in a gesture of confusion.


“No it’s not.”


In the distance, Lukre could see the cross-city transit tunnel approaching, or was it close? It was hard to see through the kaleidoscope of the luxury interior melting with the limbs of its passengers. The driver kept looking back at them to remark in smiles, but they could barely hear him over the sound of music, and even if they could, they knew that only he understood.

When Behemoth had begun distributing DPMT-Hito-n-228, first inside public access-points and later simply thrown in bags on the streets, there was little widespread knowledge of stone family compounds at all in the area. People had simply used it in various applications depending on their personality type, and the larger purpose of such a compound was assumed to be the same as anything that was sold or given away: profit, but Behemoth had never appeared to take credit for this action. In fact, there were rumors that such a being did not exist, and the messages people had received from him were actually a marketing campaign by telegram TesCorp competitors seeking to establish new laboratories and underground operations in the region.


Lukre was certain, however, of Behemoth’s existence. There was no way to fake the same message received by multiple people in isolation from one another. There was no explanation for why such large amounts of the compound were delivered to their living quarters, that they all felt the same necessary part in tonight, with purpose and condition that transcended the waste of living in a world that cared not for them, nor for the ones who continued to build the world. Behemoth had given them the time, place, and reason.


“What is Dharma?”


Driver asked Orsat


“The body of Budha.”


Lukaš’s audio answered over Orsats device, synced with the sound of shuttle's machinery, air passing the void like breath. Traditional rhythm of the never ending tunnel. The all-in-one body vibrating. The road they were on may as well lead to Hell, but it was at least a road that led somewhere.



“Mind, suchness, the void, god hands”

Lukaš’s voice softly turned into a techno track. It's normal to be chasing synthetic life in this day and age, no big words. Simply. Riders work for Behemoth. They will Deliver Behemoth. They have too.

“Damn I don’t even remember how I got this job in the first place.” Orsat complained out loud.

“We got it because we didn’t want to work, so we made a deal with God.” Lukrecija whispered

Driver turned around facing Orsat and sifted through many teeth:


“One who seeks the life of god should not wake up in the morning with the wrath of god”


Suspended in the middle, Orsat's crotch faced the upcoming tunnel, panites embroidered with the text,

Help me I’m cursed on visible display as the nuked and burnt grunge slip dress deteriorated on his body. He felt the drip happening,


“ To navigate this dimension you can’t get overwhelmed.”

The Driver's head was one of a big rat. Or was the rat just another traveller?


Orsat sniffed and tasted the panoramic view outside the front window, or was it the side window? They whipped past the security towers, and Orsat spied a couple standing below the entrance of NaturalBank.Corp, a short femoid with curly black hair next to a lego character, and a giraffe…?


“ I love the Deutch Architecture!!! “ He screamed out of the window.

The city seemed to speed by, but each frame was stuck in stasis as they collected like taffy into Orsats deteriorating sense of perceivability. Rose colored boxes of residential structures, networks of capillary streets and piles of electric scooter parts, stripped by Reavers and left in the garbage unit fires to incapacitate the automated criminal response drones. It was hard to see where the endless spray paintings ended and their subjects began; often the paintings were of places that had already been painted over by painters warring with other painters. Orsat wiped his nose, the sound of his rubbery lumps squeaking as balloons do.


Driver stopped and got out of the car to remove a wall of burning e-scooters that blocked the road.


“This is so futuristic”


> Spatial recognition failure.<


“When did life start looking like...?”

“...some Hollywood Nolan type of shit”


Orsat’s device gains outlines, cartoon filter vision in real time augmented reality. Influenced by HBOso3 retina switched into panoramic 2D. Melkior and Lukrecija commented in union, their bodies already started to fuse, as DHMOT increased temporary triads - fusions of the sacrificial body, mind and soul.

“Morphing distance between the eyes and staircase is in approximate optical infinity of the panoramic field expanded into arithmetic deutsche architektur ~~~~”


“To navigate DHMOT’s spiral you can’t get overwhelmed.”

The Driver's head was one of a big rat. Or was the rat just another traveller?


Three heads are fueled with the cocktail of 3g HBOso3, 2/4 HHH10, and other no-name sniffables.

Orsat glances at the device with Lukašes voice message, press play, voice sets him into a memory spiral.

Hairtrails Friday 8 months in future

Burned shirt has holes in it. Lukaš is sitting like an angel, wings ripped apart in tiny pieces, pillow balcony with pink underlining fullful of feathers, wet from rain, his head is so full of tattoos blasted with other tattoos, Jesus, inked every inch of the body sigils sutras charms cursed patches of just black paint.

Once I saw him smiling the mile of 7 seas full of teeth , frontal face expanding as he was just born fresh out of the womb, a few months earlier in the background of another white and red pink painting, he looked like a machine faerie.


Xclexic.

53


I look outside the car, through the plastic. Just before another tunnel.

Strange couple is standing outside the mirrored skyscraper 1:11, she's short and black with curly hair, he looks like a lego, and the giraffe is in the middle.

Tunnel hits like a dick, neverending push lubed tube of intermittent golden lights. Triad smiled, as a picture of an unknown girl spreading her legs on the train rail appeared on one of the devices.


“Everything can be a dildo if you’re brave enough.”

They read the caption out loud, exploding in laughter.


“Basile once told me his friend talks to Angels while she trips on kwtamine”

“ Don’t you think that a tunnel is more like a pussy.”

“Our pussy smashing into a wormhole pussy.”
“Pussy penetrating pussy.”

“It’s just a Tunnel.”

“Why does it still somehow feel like a dick, energy, vortex, entering a long dick landmark.”


Orsat felt the high, he got wet from tingles almost wishing that this rat hallucination would lick his crotch.

He wasn’t sure if his arms were his anymore.

“Who was talking?”

Song blasted on the car speakers.


KNEEL ATROPHEYESED

WARTAL DISENGAGE

OPULENT NEOBLISTERS

CONDENSE THY CAPSULE

CARCINONYM PROSTRATUTE

REVEALS ITCH

PURULENT EXSCREAMENT

RUB IN DEEP

MY STILLBORN INFANT TOTEM

PILLS FOR GIFTED DAUHGTERS

THROUGH SIN ERASE THEM, INCINERATE ME

SQWORMS SQWORMS SQWORMS

BURN SMILE CREPUSCULOUS

ARID WHORE'S BRITTLE FIBERS

FUR TILE SPEWTERUS

BARREN FOR JUST A LITTLE VILE

KNEEL ATROPHEYESED

WARTAL DISENGAGE

OPULENT NEOBLISTERS

CONDENSE THY CAPSULE

CARCINONYM PROSTITUTE

REVEALS ITCH

PURULENT EXCREMENT

RUB IN DEEP

MY STILLBORN INFANT TOTEM

PILLS FOR GIFTED DAUGHTERS

THROUGH SIN ERASE THEM, INCINERATE ME

SQWORMS SQWORMS SQWORMS

VERMILLION SWOLLEN OPIATE SEELING


VERMIN ION DOPE ATE FEELINGS

CRYSTALLINE SHIVERS EXPLODING DISJOINTED

FIST MY SPINE SLITHERER CORRODING DESTROY IT

MY STILLBORN INFANT TOTEM

PILLS FOR GIFTED DAUGHTERS

THROUGH SIN ERASE THEM, INCINERATE ME

SQWORMS SQWORMS SQWORMS

As the shuttle penetrated the tunnel, there appeared to be a brand new person sitting on the illegal shotgun seat. Person who did not exist prior to departure.

It turned around facing Orsat and sifted through many teeth:


“One who seeks the life of god should not wake up in the morning with the wrath of god and lie in the evening with the anger of god”


“ To navigate this dimension you can’t get overwhelmed”

Behemoth's advice echoed.

The Driver's head was one of a big rat. Or was the rat just another traveller?


“Lukaš sent so many messages.”


Rat learned,  “ History is a delusion, all you do is constantly with you. “

breathing in the little bubbly face of Orsat, half merged into one of All Of Them In The Car.


“ Are you Behemoth?”


“ No, I’m just a rat.”


Beatific vision opened the eyes of the Triad. Their fusion now had a crystal clear sacral function.

Rat continues:


“ You have long ago subscribed to the Module.”

“ The Module?”

“ Yes, the one of perpetual continuously changing Apocalypse”

“ For how long does this last? “

“ It is of indefinite duration.”

“ So what is your mission?”

“ I am your MANAGER, representative.”

“ What? “

“ I will leave you at the gate of Vermillion, you will get a tip from Lukaš and Voyček. Follow their lead.”

“ To deliver the Behemoth?”

“ No. To find one true rider. “

In union; “ Wait what?” “ We are confused.”

“ No, You are just the fallen Angel.”

“ Not the Rider?”

“ No.”

In union; “ This operation is a bit all over the place, wouldn't you say so, Lukre?” “ Yeah I don’t get the logistics of this project.” “  So you are saying, '' We are fallen Angels?”

“ Only when You are We.”


“ Omg, stop, this is such a cringe cult, cringe vibe, can we just go to the party and forget about all this cosplay-heavenly bullshit?”

Rat started fading out slowly as they stopped believing in his nonsense.

“ We never thought about this as something serious, now I'm a bit scared. Melkior? No response. Mmmm I’ll concentrate on the music and the lyrics. It’s only a matter of time till the tunnel ends. We can survive like this I like it together more than

BETTER OFF ALONE

More than being just lonely. Melkior filled Orsat's lack of ribs, Orsat filled Lukrecijas lack of curvature, and it turned all of them into a perfect machine.


“Imagine giving birth on this drug.”

1000000 seconds in now


Who would remember the memory if the memory was a remembrance of now...who, when…? Orsat turned and Melkior did the turning. Melkior knew Lukrecia was sitting...at least close? Where was Lukre? When was Orsat? Who was Mel--


Agglomeration looked at a limb holding a device. The numbers shifted side to side, then fragmented and reformed in a sluggish, but graceful motion. It felt heavy in Melkior’s hand, but Lukre squinted and tried to make out the numbers one at a time.


“FUCK!”


“Don’t yell, my ears are spread throughout the car.”


“Ok, FUCK!”


“...why”


“What? Fuck What? You can’t just exclaim and not--”


“We’re running out of time!”


“No we’re not, we’re on time, look.”


The shuttle screeched to a stop, simultaneously as the Driver once again placed his hand on the passenger seat, now empty, turned his perfect smile, and in articulate, slightly British, clinical English spoke.


“We’re here ladies, now have a nice evening and get the fuck out of my car.”


Flashed by the red lights, the triad vomits itself out of the shuttle car with multiple limbs. While picking itself up from the sidewalk it divaricated back into Melkior, Lukrecija and Orsat.


“Driver wasn’t even Italian?”


“ He was Turkish and he gave us a w t f look.”

“ Did he look a bit different at some point? “

“ Yeah…”

“ Sexy”


Orsat somehow, had zipped himself up in a thick rubbery bodysuit with bubble ears. He led them through the dark industrial parking lot of the fitness center, through two small red lit tunnels with broken light strobing a flock of insects, to the big gray vault.

1000000 seconds in nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww


There weren’t enough seconds. They had no time to waste. The ground was muddy, trampled by the attendees as they had waited patiently in line to be turned away, then shuffled back into line, possibly turned away again, leaving small puddles of ash water and small pieces of bioplastic, reflecting the moon and steel barriers arranged in right angle spirals.


There was no line anymore. They were certainly going to be late.

Using their arms as reaching, exploratory tendrils into a writhing mass in the dark, flashes of light only illuminating their shoulders and elbows as they looked for a large, tattooed, bald headed man. A feathered, glowing suit of brittle glass armor, laser eyes through the helm appeared from the ceiling and kneeled next to them, its aura illuminating the fog enough that only Melkior noticed that there weren’t bodies, but some kind of meat machine…


“Oh hey guys, you’re late.”


“Lukaš? What the fu--”


“Yeah this form is great! When I take a piss it’s like New Years’ in the toilet, sparkle sparkle clink clink”


“Lukaš! We’re not late! We have five minutes to end the world!”


“Huh?”

Lukaš squeezed them in before the vault shut, floor was bleeding red light, then a blinding wall of red light, noise wall of sound art.


“I told you guys it’s at like 3am, and you missed my set.”


“Noooo… what? Where is everyone? This was supposed to be like armageddon, or, I don’t know, Behemoth talks like he’s writing a Bible or something”


“Wouldn’t Behemoth write like... an anti-Bible?”


“Lukaš! Where is everyone?”


A fluorescent glass arm gestured to the meat machine ocean, breathing as its rope-like arteries coiled into small rings of metal, irregular masses here and there twisting and pulsing.


“Oh, they’re all here, see? I dropped a LOT of that DPMT stuff, into people’s noses...man, it’s kind of fucked up, you should go find Voyček, he’s probably still at least 50% recognizable.”


Lukaš pulled the increasingly dyslexic mass to a set of stairs that spiraled downwards, through the concrete and into endless woods, forested floors glowing with biofluorescent walls. A maze, underneath the dancefloor, where dancers continued to wander, looking for no exit. Here, the music was still audible...


Voyček was in fact, 100% recognizable, but if stood amongst his peers, he’d be invisible. A perfectly fitted white t-shirt, a small trendy logo on its sleeve, designer khaki shorts, the latest conceptual sneaker, a flat brimmed cap with yet another trendy logo, and his jeweled hand raised to his chin, stroking it as he loomed in the corner over a pretty girl, who seemed to be smelling his cologne more than listening to whatever he was talking about. He jumped with a shoulder pop when the triple headed mass reached out to him.


“Jesus! You guys look DhMT’ed out...how many of you are in that thing?”


“At least 3”

“Oh hey Melkior, I can barely see you underneath Orsat...you guys here to deliver something?”


“Yeah… We were sent to deliver. By Behemoth.”


“Look, I found the perfect piece to the puzzle. We got everyone here, gooey together and shit...I saw this girl, Kim, man if you saw her...Huge tits, Huge ass, like you took four spheres and just drew a stick between them, she’s the one you know, perfect rider, you need 4 horsemen, that’s what the big boss says anyway, and man, lemme tell you, in this world? You don’t see someone like Kim man…Here’s what I think, you, me, her, her, him, let’s all fuck in the corner by that grass wall over there.”


“Voyček what the fuck are you talking about”


“Kim! Her name is Kim! You have like 2 minutes until midnight...you have to find her! She’s what plastic surgery wishes it looked like you can’t miss her.”


“Can you just give us a little more information?”


“ You are many, Kim is the One. Her face should be static embalmed. The contract is unblessed. Capeesh?”


“ Suuuree…”


“ Now let’s fuck by that grass fence.”


“ Why?


“ Because! It’s like Dharma, BODY of Budha!”



Voyček shoved the six legged balloon-skeleton-still-somehow-dressed-to-kill entity back into the crowd-meat and rotated back towards the corner, quickly adjusting every aspect of his outfit in one smooth motion. The pretty girl was gone. The three groped their way through a gathering mist of strobing sweat, condensing on each overhanging branch and thick, pulsing leaf that caressed their heads. It was getting hot, and Melkior’s femur tattoo had begun to itch with the sense of receiving another signal:


she who will ride first

she who will have no joy

delivers

lonesome up at the front

bearer of the end

The threads holding the crew together began to stretch, as Orsat tried to maneuver out of their symbiosis to find a better vantage point to scour the crowd for a legendary Kim. As he pulled himself into the fields, a breeze began to leak between the ingrown branches of the maze, where the ceiling met the earth outside. He could feel his stomach beginning to turn again, but the time was so close...


Lukre tugged on Orsat’s hand.


“This music is trash. I’m going to see if I can go plug in”


“We have only one minute left.”


“Well it could be a minute spent listening to decent music”


Lukrecija shadow walked up to the DJ cage, intimidating some No-body-flexer dressed in slugwear, hovering over the booth, peering into its lights. She plugged herself wireless, infusing the crowd with her twisted soundscape. She crawled into them, like a fantasy, her ego stretching through many ears.


“This is how music should be heard!”


Beat changed, Lukaš appeared, banging his head in the front row.

His head, an exoskeleton.

His brain, a lung.

You could see his thoughts breathing.

Voyček followed.


To breathe with Behemoth is to think with Behemoth


Rave pit began to merge and weld to the bass. Orsats eyes grew bigger, blank as void. He swam through the venue, a goldfish with bunny ears, seeking for Melkior instead of Kim. Neural-link between the two got separated. Uncomfortable feeling. Separation. After unity. Lukrecija sent him a text superimposed over a picture of an anime girl.


“Unity was peaceful.

Individuality is a trick.

It’s pleasant to be one's rib.”


At this point Orsat's abdomen was unforgiving, sending warning flashes and crushing itself under the weight of its own uterine walls. As he sat on the toilet, trying to make sense of this group, denying it’s metaphysical importance. Golden stream mixed with blood clots leaked out of Orsat as a waterfall. He heard the thump of someone’s body knocking the bathroom door closed, followed by a noticeable click. Lock below the handle turned 90 degrees. After checking his fish-like stare in the mirror, he realized he can’t open the door any more. He was locked in. Despair hit him as he punched and kicked the doors with his gigantic boots.


Orsat is about to spend the end of the world locked in the shitter. Desperately clicking through his phone, not a single message went through, he called, sent voice notes and videos. Finally he just scrolled through the preloaded ads, news, weird no-place worldwide gonzo journalism, horoscope, more ads suggesting therapy.


“It’s not chaos! It is potential flowing around”  - mystical social media handle wizard from the forest exclaimed, blessing the viewers via screen, “Handle yourself with care”.


The bathroom was thick concrete. Orsat didn’t know if signals could reach, and there was only one small window that probably served as a gunport in the last war. Where had the music gone? How could it be so quiet? As Orsat washed his hands and planned an escape, the orange-red glow from outside began to fade...the midnight sunset was arriving, he was too late.

He tried using Neural-link telepathic thinking by envisioning Lukrecija, he tried calling for Melkior out loud. Nothing worked. No help. Orsat was cursed. Loneliness overflowed. As a final option he decided to crawl through the terranean window, squeezing his butcheeks tight through the hole, successfully birthing himself as a bubble form in front of the bathroom.

“ Wow, I'm way more fluid than I thought.” He commented towards something that seemed like a lifeform.


One observing the scene from afar could not discern the weight to which it was felt, a small balloon creature, bouncing towards the ecstatic monument, synth waves arpeggiating from the interior, a sunset illuminating the ash flakes as they flaked like flower petals towards a puddled, muddy earth.


Through the dancefloor, Orsat caught a glimpse of Melkior’s bones, waving in either enjoyment or signalling for help, he could not tell, as bones sank into the pulsing creature that now overflowed from the edges of the interior, bulging out of its orifices. It smelled sweet, like fermented roses.

For the last time Orsat made eye contact with Melchior, he fell back, sinking into the ocean of pulsating hearts.



A siren, the sound heard by prophets and the revelatory non-believers over and over again through the centuries, crawled and faded from the sky. From this angle Orsat could see the smokescreen seas that blanketed the rural areas beyond the city, a place he had always wanted to visit with Lukre.


A crack, the sound heard by followers and the blindly faithful over and over again through the centuries, snapped through the ground as bolts of blue lightning struck across its rim, silent and graceful as falling lines of silk. The distinct cold, stinging air of Behemoth blew around Orsat, and the small runic tattoos in various places on his body began to feel....chilled? It was as if small droplets of water had fallen and stuck.


In the language of God there are always two Outcomes.


The voice of Behemoth was terrifyingly loud, emitting from the inside of Orsat’s skull.


If only you had fulfilled this glimpse of all creatures in union as one into a true vision.


Orsat felt a little bad, not really.


If the war with God is won, then humanity is God, the Singularity.


Orsat didn’t really feel bad at all.

Instead, you and your kin welcome more millenia of individuation, lost inside your disconnected meat vessels.


In the distance, the club began to crumble as the last rays of sun breached the earth. Figures could be seen crawling out of a disintegrating mass inside.


If there is something worth pitying more than the Ascended, it is the mortal, imprisoned in your own bodies.


Orsat sat down, his rounded figure flattening slightly against the wet soil, and let loose a small fart. She squeaked something in response, a whole paragraph, perhaps, but there was nobody around to understand.


Landscape ached, horizon dawning.

The Vermillion, Inscrutable, Opiate, Swollen.

Sun.

---

---

“Vermillion”

Written by:

Tea / Teo Strazicic
Nicholas Zhu

Poem “Vermillion Swallen Opiate Seeling” by:
Dražen Dukat
︎

Calligraphy by:
@JB_23

Audio book narrator: 
Cylan Barker

With support from Trauma Bar und Kino, in Berlin, 2021.