What Happens In Zaygus…

We knew it was going to be almost impossible to explain, but on our quest to find God we discovered, quite by accident really, that not a single soul had ever been saved through prayer or atonement,  simply because no one was ever really there to listen. Not one of us could say with any kind of certainty that God had ever come through for us, and so after spending several days significantly fucked up somewhere in time and space, we realized that we had lost our faith. We spent hours at the nudie bar in The Parallax Hotel on the dark side of Zaygus, hoping to catch sight of some proof of God’s existence or a glimpse of Honey Divine, when Osmosis Jones said that he saw God in a bottle of absinthe. None of us were really surprised, I mean we often thought we had seen him there, but before we could say a word, Osmosis Jones disappeared. We tried to get him back, but between Honey Divine’s tits and the volcano that was hungrily waiting for the sacrifice of some local virgin, we just couldn’t seem to find him. There were never really any guarantees that we’d find anything we had seen before, but that was the beauty of those kind of trips. It didn’t matter though, I mean it really wasn’t about us. We assumed that someone would have wanted Osmosis back, but we really had no way of knowing for sure, although we thought that he would be missed at The Merriman Sanatorium and Country Club, I mean he was the golf pro there, and he was out of his fucking mind. We could spend hours listening to him talk about absolutely nothing over pitchers of the lukewarm beer they served at The Parallax Hotel. Right there though, we agreed that we would do whatever it took to bring him back, but that was before Honey Divine showed us her stuff in the middle of the stage at the nudie bar in The Parallax Hotel.

Every one of us would have given up everything to be alone with her for a night, I mean we had started to believe that if we were to ever find our faith, it would be right there, between her thighs. And even though we didn’t really think that God was listening, we found ourselves praying to him anyway,  just for a chance to take her in the way we imagined she always wanted to be taken. We were already teetering on the edge of reality, and another round of some hallucinogen that someone scored from the night clerk at the hotel desk sent us spiraling through our minds again until we heard the night clerk say that he had heard that someone matching Jones’ description had been a witness to a house falling from the sky, and leaving some woman not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead. None of us could explain how Jones had got himself over the rainbow, but it seemed that our friend had in fact become the Munchkinland coroner, even though he wasn’t even aware of it. Not that it was important really, I mean most of us had no fucking idea of what we were doing or where we were going, either. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get him back, I mean we had little faith that the great and powerful Oz or the handful of trinkets he had for us were likely to be of any real use to us, anyway. I suppose we should have considered that Jones didn’t really want to be found, I mean its almost impossible to find somebody who has no desire to be found. Honey Divine said that it was obvious to her that we should be putting our energy into trying to get him to come and find us. She was certain that all we really needed was the right bait, and she assured us that nothing would serve our needs any better than Honey Divine herself. She said that she was prepared to surrender herself and everything she had to offer to Osmosis Jones. Just like that. No dinner, no dancing, no small talk. No one was sure if the plan would work or not, but we all agreed that Osmosis Jones was one lucky bastard.

Word of the plan to bring Osmosis Jones back spread and he quickly became a legend, I mean songs were being sung about him, and stories were being told around camp fires at jamborees across the planet. Swarms of people showed up to watch her get naked, stand on her head and spin like a top. It brought gasps and cheers from the crowd, but we really weren’t impressed, I mean shit like that happened all of the time at the Sanatorium. We were enamored with Honey Divine though, I mean there were very few people who weren’t. Presidents and pirates alike had all fallen victim to her charms, and many had forgotten everything when they saw her naked. Honey spun like never before, focusing only on getting Osmosis Jones to take the bait. And later that night when everyone else had gone home, Osmosis Jones claimed to have found his faith exactly where we were all sure it was waiting, and Honey Divine found hers tucked inside the Levis worn by Osmosis Jones.

Aristotle Does Amsterdam

new collection of Fielding Goodfellow’s stories that take you through time and space in some kind of drug induced, psychedelic masterpiece. Available on Amazon now….https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08W7SNKG4

Loving The Freudian

I wasted a lot of time sitting in poorly decorated and dimly lit rooms, bombarded with all kinds of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with anything that really mattered, but I supposed a lot of us did. At some point you just start to believe that we really are just pawns in an elaborate game of chance orchestrated by some greater power, and wind up trying to get the help everyone is sure you need, until someone refers you to a Freudian. Yet despite all of my misgivings, I agreed that I would at least give it a try, I mean it was pretty obvious that things couldn’t be much worse than it had been until then. There was no way that I could have adequately prepared for Dr. Rebecca Sheldon, I mean she was a prominent psychiatrist who was highly regarded by the medical establishment, and several members of The Allman Brothers Band, with a reputation that was founded on having written several books, teaching at a large and prestigious university, and attending Woodstock. I was pretty sure this was one of the best decisions I would ever make. Dr. Rebecca Sheldon looked exactly like Emma Peel, and I was fairly certain that I’d be showing up to every one of my couch surfing sessions for as long as it took her to figure out what we all wanted to know. For as long as I could remember someone had been telling me I was a gifted underachiever, and while I was never really sure what they were referring to, I knew what they meant. They believed that I possessed enough  talent and skill to excel at anything I put his mind to, but to tell the truth, I never really applied himself, I mean I just didn’t seem to care enough about anything. Sometimes I wished I had the answer, I mean at least then I wouldn’t have to continue pretending that I actually gave a damn about any of it. There were other times though, when I really didn’t want to know why anything was the way it was. I found it hard to believe that anybody really did. And as I was about to embark on a journey from which I was pretty sure that there could be no return, I found himself sitting across from a woman who had me so turned on that I couldn’t be sure if it was me or my dick that needed help. It didn’t really matter though, I mean I had a feeling that it was going to be both.

From the first time I saw her, I began wondering what Dr. Rebecca Sheldon looked like without her clothes on. I couldn’t help it really, I mean every time I walked into her office all I could focus on was the way she sat on her chair, with her legs crossed and her skirt riding up high enough to expose her thigh, but not quite enough to reveal what I really wanted to see. I couldn’t help staring at those legs, I mean they just seemed to go on forever, but I knew I had to be careful in order not to get caught trying to steal glimpses of what was hidden between those thighs while she asked me questions that I had no idea how I should answer. I was in a psychiatrist’s office though, so I figured that it was okay if I sounded all messed up.

“So” Dr. Sheldon asked, “Let’s talk about your sleep.”

“My sleep?” I asked.

“Yes.” she said, “How have you been sleeping?”

“Alone, mostly.”

” I mean are you sleeping through the night, or is your sleep interrupted?”  I never really knew what I should say to her, I mean sometimes I wasn’t even sure I understood the question. I had been woken up many times, usually after some torrid dream that left me hot and bothered, with a raging hard on and no one to share it with, but I wasn’t sure that was the kind of information she was looking for, and even if it was, I had no idea how to explain it to her. All I really knew was that I desperately wanted to take her right there, on her desk, I mean it was never easy keeping my id under control, and no matter how hard I tried to rein it in, it was always running around out there, like a rabid dog in heat. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one though, I mean most of us seemed to have had the same problem, and I was certain that the good doctor wasn’t going to be making it any better. It seemed crazy to believe that the battle between the id and the super-ego that had been waging in my psyche for years would find lasting peace between those legs and thighs that I just couldn’t help but stare at. In the battle, at that particular point in time, I was certain that the moralizing ass of a super-ego just didn’t stand a chance. It all came out in one boisterous accounting of my pre-occupation with sex that I was sure fascinated the doctor as she sat behind my touching herself as I answered her. I didn’t really see anything, but I knew I’d heard that kind of rustling sound before. I knew what it was, but it was hard to believe, I mean Dr. Rebecca Sheldon was way out of my league.

 “So” she said, “Tell me about your relationship with your parents.”

“I have no solid evidence that they’re my parents.” I said. “I mean, they say they are, but I’m not so sure that I believe them.”

“Are you suggesting that you were adopted?”

“No” I said. “I’m suggesting that they were abducted. Or maybe I was abducted. Either way though, I’m pretty sure that I’ve been raised by something alien to me.” The truth was, everybody I knew had felt like that at one time or another. It had been going on for a very long time, and it was entirely possible that none of us were really from around here, but I suppose nobody else thought it mattered, either. There was a lot of stuff I really wasn’t comfortable talking about, but she insisted that it was necessary to release all of my repressed emotions and experiences in order to be rid of the unconscious thoughts that were hindering my happiness. Even then I thought it was all somewhat shortsighted, but I would have agreed to anything just on the off chance that we would be getting naked one day. I mean I liked The Allman Brothers, and I had probably taken enough trips across the stars to make up for not being in upstate New York that summer weekend in 1969.

“Do you enjoy regular sex?” she asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t turn it down” I said, “but I’d prefer if it was wild and unique.” 

“You do realize that your sarcasm and attempts at humor are really nothing more than defense mechanisms designed to keep your unconscious mind from revealing the truth.” she said. “Now, what do you mean by wild and unique sex?”

And as one thing led to another, it was only a short time later that I had her on the desk, and the couch and everywhere else that she was willing to christen. She suggested that I should probably attend twice a week, and I suspected that was just as much for her as it was for my benefit. I discovered that Freudians were sexually repressed, but if you can manage to open the door to their subconscious, they can provide some of the best sex you’ll ever have the chance to participate in. It was true with Dr. Rebecca Sheldon, anyway. I continued to see her twice each week in the hopes of bringing the thoughts I didn’t know I had into my conscious mind, so that they could be negated through some kind of psychoanalytic exorcism that I never really thought I could ever believe in, I mean as far as I was concerned I was having the time of my life banging Emma Peel twice a week, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. What more could I have ever hoped to get out of therapy. I hung on to my sarcasm and feeble attempts at humor, and wore them proudly, like a badge of honor that still serves as a reminder of those few years, long, long ago, when I was loving the Freudian. You just really never forget something like that.

The Last Space Cowboy

I don’t know for sure if any of it is true, but this is what they said happened to Evan Baumgartner.  Nobody can remember what he had taken, but when he came face to face with the demons often found in the bottom of a bottle of absinthe or a handful of magic mushrooms, he fell face first into a series of hallucinations so intense that he became Neon Flux, the last space cowboy. As he sat out there on the grass with the poets and philosophers who had come from all parts of time and space to witness some kind of spiritual suicide, he saw the world was stripped of its creativity and original thought, and all of the other space cowboys being banished to the barren asteroid belt that stretched out to the far reaches of Cosmos Redshift 7. His friends tried to help him find his other self , but Neon Flux had already taken him to another planet that looked a hell of lot like the pictures of 1930s Paris he had seen at some gallery. No one had any idea how got there,  but he heard someone say that they had all met years ago in the Galactic Underground, even though he had no memory of ever having been there. None if it really mattered anyway, I mean Neon Flux quickly discovered that an existential outlook was quite freeing really, and he took to it like a God without believers. As he floated through the galaxies, he could clearly see that survival depended on creative thought, and not on what he had always put his faith in. He understood that if they really gave a damn, they would have stopped the bleeding that been caused by lawmakers and religious leaders who claimed that God needed some kind of a cash donation in order to grant absolution. He was sure that somewhere in the transition he had become an idealist and he understood that there really wasn’t any point in worrying about it. Whatever he set out to do, he was doing for himself. I mean, he was well aware that no one would ever really care about how he felt. It simply wouldn’t ever mean that much to anybody else. And while there were others far better equipped to take the charlatans to task, Neon Flux knew that as the last space cowboy, the battle was his to fight.

Neither the poets or the philosopher could agree on which of them had more insight into the plight of mankind. It had never been easy for anyone to distinguish poets from philosophers, I mean how could anyone have ever thought that there was really much of a difference. Even he could figure out that without that spiritual sacrifice, neither the poets or philosophers would have anything to talk about. It didn’t really matter much though, I mean either way he needed their ideas to help him salvage whatever was left of humanity. As the battle between the poets and philosophers waged in his head, Neon Flux drifted farther and farther away from where he had left Evan Baumgartner.  He could hear John Phillip Sousa playing somewhere in his mind, as a team of military majorettes stood on the sidelines, bored by the battle and the time signature. They all wished it would end, but he knew that it would have to run its course, I mean it always did. Just beneath the sound of the marches, he could hear the drone of a familiar voice that had been inside his head once before and was now drifting through his veins like a slow acting poison reminding him that it wasn’t going to be easy. To be fair, Baumgartner never understood why it couldn’t come to him easily, I mean he was sure it would have tasted just as sweet if it didn’t have to be so difficult all of the time. Flux knew differently though, I mean he had seen the future and he knew exactly what it was going to take to save the universe.

The night before he was to began his adventure, he found himself in an adobe hut in Taos, New Mexico, surrounded by what he thought were angels, who were trying to lead him into the colors that had exploded into the night sky like fireworks. He wasn’t sure if he knew any of them, but there was something soothing about their presence, and he was struck by an eerie calm that he wished could have gone on forever. He knew that the world of a space cowboy didn’t always work out the way one wanted it to, but he was completely at peace with himself. In the distance he could hear the sound of drums beating softly and slowly at first, bleeding into Lou Reed’s ‘Oh, Jim’, and mixing with the most wonderful horn section that seemed to reach out and swallow him whole. Neon Flux was sure that even the poets and the philosophers had stopped to listen, I mean how could they not have. “Tickets, please.”  He heard someone say. “Tickets. You must have a ticket to ride.”  He was pretty sure he that didn’t have a ticket, even though he had no idea what the hell he needed the ticket for.

“Don’t worry about it.” someone said. “You don’t really need a ticket, I mean they never check. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

“We are we going.” he asked.

“Where ever you want to be.” I suppose it kind of ended there, I mean Neon Flux believed that he was going to where he wanted to be, and Evan Baumgartner was probably already where he wanted to be, and so I guess, that was the end of that.

When they finally managed to bring Baumgartner back through the use of psychotropic medication and the occasional mechanical restraint, he was no worse for wear despite having no real idea of what had really happened to him. It was all in bits and pieces really, broken abstracts from his memory that made no sense. “I hear you had some issues in your room last night.” a voice said to him.

“That’s what they’ve been telling me.” he said.

“Can you tell me anything about it?”

“Have you ever heard of the last space cowboy?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.” the voice said. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

“I don’t think so.” he said. “There’s really no point.” Baumgartner had no desire to share anything, I mean he had no idea if any of it was even real. He supposed it could have been a dream, or hallucination, or maybe he really was out of his room last night. All he knew was that it felt like he had been floating out there for days, believing that he was destined to save mankind. For the first time in his life Evan Baumgartner felt as if he was somebody. He felt like he mattered and that he made a difference. He believed that he was Neon Flux, the last space cowboy. He only wished he could remember if he had been able to complete his mission. He understood that he may never  really know the truth, and he was okay with that. He knew it could have been a lot worse, I mean he could have been the gangster of love.

Axial Tilt & The Aardvark Astrologers

There was something going on with Axial Tilt, and even his therapist was having difficulty identifying exactly what it was. He worried about everything, and he couldn’t seem to find a quiet corner of his mind where he could just not think about anything. “How long does it take to forget?” he asked

“About what” the therapist responded.

“Everything.”

“Not very long.” the therapist said. “Usually right after you stop thinking about it.”

“About what?” he asked.

“Everything.” And that was the way it had been for as long as he could remember. He always felt like everything was always going around in circles, I mean no matter how far he went, he just never seemed to move any further than where he began. It had impacted his work as well, I mean there was a time when Axial Tilt had been one of the top sci-fi private eyes alongside the infamous Aragon Nixx. He just couldn’t seem to stop the years from crashing in like the tide and flooding all of his thoughts. So he was in his fifth year of therapy, not that it was helping or anything, but he’d been holding on to a minute speck of hope that it was all going to get better for so long, that he just didn’t think it made any sense to give up now.

It was Nixx who suggested that he get some help, just about the same time that Tilt began going out to the nudie bar with the aardvark astrologers who had recently moved into his garden shed. He said that they provided him with the map to happiness, but the truth was they weren’t really there, I mean the whole thing was just in his head. Nixx had seen this before, although it was usually at some party on Earth where flying monkeys and iguanas performed show tunes from The Music Man, while a couple of penguins were out looking for the seventy-six trombones that had gone missing after the two dragons in the kitchen passed around a baggie filled with peyote buttons. Nixx knew that there was almost always some kind of hallucinogen involved, but he also knew that life on Earth was like that a lot of the time. It always seemed difficult to get along without them, I mean it had been a long time since the reality down there was even palpable.

“And when the aardvarks moved in” Tilt said, “it was almost impossible to solve anything, except of course what I should wear, I mean after all they are astrologers.”

“The aardvarks?” the therapist asked.

“Ya, for the past couple of months they’ve living in my shed.” It was a lot longer than that, but I suppose it didn’t really make much difference, I mean even Tilt knew that he should have asked them to leave. It wasn’t that he never thought about it, I mean it had played out in his head in a million different ways, and not one of them ended well. No matter what he said, or how he said it, it always ended up with someone being hurt. Sometimes it was him, and sometimes it was the aardvarks, but it was enough to make someone suggest that Axial Tilt probably needed some other kind of  help. Nixx could only think of one thing to do, so he took Tilt  back to 1976 and landing somewhere between Thin Lizzy and the Electric Light Orchestra, he found Farberman and his friends exactly where he left them, at a bar on the campus of York University.

“Are you serious.” Tate asked.

“One hundred percent.” Nixx said. “We know they’re not real, but he says they help him live a more fulfilling life.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“I just told you, they’re not real.” Nixx said. “Its all in his head.”

“I don’t see how that matters.” Tate said. “Its wonderful that he feels more fulfilled. Does fulfillment really need to be born out of some pre-fabricated reality?” Nixx had never been able to understand the shit that regularly fell out of Tate’s mouth, I mean he knew it was just the drugs playing around with the buttons and levers in his brain, but it was almost like dealing with one of the East Side Kids. It didn’t really matter though, I mean Farberman said that he was sure he could come up with a plan to rid Axial Tilt of the aardvarks, even though there weren’t really any aardvarks at all.

“Does any of this sound plausible to you?” the therapist asked.

“Not really” Tilt said, “but what do I know. I’m the guy who everyone thinks has an aardvark problem.”

“You do.” the therapist said.

“Do what?”

“Have an aardvark problem.”

“I don’t know, I mean the more I think about it, the more I’m not so sure that I’m the one with the problem.” Tilt said. And there it was really, I mean whose damn problem is it, anyway? I suppose its human nature though, I mean we have this innate need to have everything behave the way we think it should, and not the way it does. And that, in a nutshell is what’s really crazy. As he thought through the problem, Farberman too understood that the problem was likely not with Axial Tilt, but rather with those around him. He was used to it, I mean most of the people he knew were kind of messed up, starting with Tate, and Asher Wilde and Maddie Grant, and all the way to Strange Jane and Arlo Cool, they all saw things that weren’t really there, but they were far from crazy. They just imagined that things could be better for everyone, even though they were all told that imagination was child’s play. He wasn’t sure if anyone else out there would get it, but he was pretty sure he could get Nixx to understand, and Axial Tilt to give up the weekly therapy sessions, I mean its not like they were helping with anything, anyway.

No one could say for sure exactly what happened that afternoon, but the story that’s still being told is that Axial Tilt stopped imagining, just for a moment and the cosmos simply turned off and on again, like the blink of an eye. In the ensuing complete and total emptiness that swallowed everything he knew, he saw himself standing among the constellations watching flying monkeys and iguanas perform show tunes from The Music Man, while a couple of penguins were still trying to find the seventy-six trombones that had gone missing after the two dragons in the kitchen passed around a baggie filled with peyote buttons. Nothing seemed matter much. It really didn’t have to, I mean there was nothing left to forget.