Peter - Chapter 9
The eyes of Eagles are a wonder of nature. Eagle eyesight, along with that of many other diurnal raptors, is estimated to be between four to eight times stronger that that of humans. There are three types of colour receptor in the human eye to the Eagles four. Equipped with three eyelids and the capacity to adjust the curve of the eyeball in constant movement responding and adjusting to conditions of air pressure. In Eagles the retinas fovea contain around a million cells per millimetre compared to the human 200,000 per millimetre. A further two fovea and magnetic sensitivity provide vision beyond human imagination. They quite literally see a world that we are blind to. What can be worked out for certain is the eagle can pick out prey; rabbits, squirrels, even whilst hidden in grass or leaves, from two miles away. Their vision stretches into the ultra violet spectrum and they are able to see thermals, columns of rising air in the lower atmosphere, that they can hitch rides on to effortlessly ascend high above the ground. Eagles travel many thousands of miles, migrating to warmer climbs as winter darkens the North, negotiating their route by means we can but guess at, and return, with similar exactitude, to their place of birth. The two species of eagle native to the British Isles, the Golden Eagle, restricted now to remote parts of Scotland, occasionally seen in Cumbria. And the White Tailed or Sea Eagle, once extinct from these islands but now returned to Northernmost Scotland and its islands. Keep as wide a margin from humans as is possible. Both were more common in the lifetime of Titus Brock. Their species decimation, extinction and secretive return, the plight of their few survivors driven to this islands most remote and wild extremities, safe only in places inhospitable to modern man; their vision, beyond that of those who hunted them down, mirrored the plight of the Druids. The shamanic understanding is that birds of prey, Eagles most symbolically, are able to fly between dimensions. To travel between our world and others, far beyond human sensory perception. Our patchy scientific knowledge seems in agreement of sorts. Only framed in conceptual traditions of differing paradigms.
The three Eagles high above the land soared together, riding thermal columns in effortless grace, circling a diameter of some sixty metres. To the north, the white chalk mound of Silbury Hill, southward, the stones of Avebury, undulating land of field and forest. Below the circle of sky they occupied lay a clearing in a pocket of woodland from which a thin column rose, ultra violet heat, dissolving turbulence of woodsmoke, falling in tiny carbon particles. A bright orange star, the source of the column, a blaze of burning branches around which lay three human forms, their eyes looking back at the mighty birds who knew they were the bodies from which they had arisen and to which they would return.
But with serious purpose, the larger two Eagles took direction, instructing the youngest of the trio, with subtle wing flicks and magnetic sensory suggestions to free it's mind from distractions below. All creatures of land are determined by the perspective of the earths surface, able to only look up to the vast inaccessible space above. Titus, though far from the unit of self he had been but two hours before, was now a young eagle, little more than a fledgling, following two older birds, caught in their protective slip stream. Space was no longer out of reach through gravities law but all around him. He had become free of the earth. Space and time are one, now the young eagle saw behind him, how his land had become. His people, generations being born, breeding and dying, seasons changing, their bodies buried, breaking down into nutrients, feeding trees, the cyclic rhythms and harmonious inter connectivity of every living creature, rolling in with each other in sustainable unity. Druidic history, tradition and knowledge was passed down by word of mouth. A full twenty years of apprenticeship in the craft was standard before a Druid was considered qualified. Yet far deeper than the verbally expressable knowledge, the names and habitats of the flora and fauna that provided the life enhancing, life supporting and life saving ingredients the Druid must be familiar with to serve his communities medicinal and spiritual needs, was the tacit knowledge. The bodily knowledge, learned through experience that becomes so ingrained a Druid would act without thought, instinctually respond as bird in flight to the complex turbulence of wind and air pressure, flicking wing and shaping feather to remain in flow, so too the Druid interacted with his space. The ebb and flow of spiritual turbulence, the shifting weather, the seasonal drift and astral movement. All animals are reflections, expressions of the environment they occur in. Titus Brock was of the last generation of men to be aspects of their natural context.
Brought up in the tradition Brock could not conceive of man as seperate, yet as he followed the shaman Eagles, the future of his land was revealed. Before him lay a change so immense he was wounded with pity, stabbed by a sword of guilt for the path his species would take. From their height the Eagles witnessed what was to become of Albion. The monotheist craze Titus scoffed at in the young was no brief trend. Always having been one with the interplay of the ecosystem he had not grasped what Christianity would come to mean. A superstitious delusion would grow. Man would come to believe that he was the chosen animal. Only man could feel. Only man would have soul. All else was material. The environment theirs to use as they saw fit. Animals theirs to farm and eat, to torture and kill. As the belief in the heavenly afterlife, mans unique gift, grew, life would become a trial. A phase to endure en route to a higher destiny. Love of the host would die. As mans self importance developed all other life would be seen as beasts without emotion, thought or consciousness. All predators would be killed ensuring mans number would increase unchecked. Hunted for sport with disdain, not apology. Others kept as slaves. Grossly mutated in the inevitable human hell. Smaller life's would become extinct as had the dragons his father spoke of. Swept away to form a green dessert of crops. Future man would not care, save the odd observant individual who, instead of the shared pride and respect Brocks people felt, would see the odd rarity as a moment of transient beauty. These feelings a lost ancestral memory.
As the Roman religion took hold, any holding other views would be killed. All sacred sites would be destroyed. Most pagan sites would be recognised for their power yet temples to the singular deity would be built on the native derelict ruins. The seasonal ceremony's that marked the crucial points of the cycle, solstice, Equinox, would be retained. Stripped of their relevance and renamed after events in christs life. The people of the islands would ultimately fall in to line, their holidays demystified shadows, spirituality replaced with over consumption and celebration of greed. This horrific inversion of all Brock heald dear struck wounds so deep he would never smile again. He saw flashing events play out. Healing women, still in tune with the earth would be shunned by their communities. Burned alive. The pattern was clear. Brocks skills and knowledge, every aspect of his druidry was a singular perception. The concepts were hard to take on board. All his life he had known theoretically of individuation, the seperation from planet. Yet such a ridiculous postulate he had seen it as a benign delusion. How could a human, any animal exist without the air, Gravity, land, plant and animal foods, herbal medicines, natural entheogens? All were part of something greater. Seperation misunderstood such basics. A fish can not live on dry land. Yet through the transcendental soul, the mind independent on anything, future man would forget the obvious. This new singular god that was becoming the spiritual belief of an increasing number of his people. Looking forward into time Brock could see how Christianity would become the dominant mindset. There would be a small number of outsiders, free thinkers able to trust their intuition over indoctrination. He saw the cultural thread leading forth. Persecuted by the Orthodox Church the pagan belief system would go into hiding. A secret subculture. These visions the sacrament of the shamans had delivered Titus, this glimpse into the future of the land, became his epiphany. He knew that this gift of knowledge from the planet, delivered through entheogenic plants she grew, transported to him by the shamans, all agents of the whole, was of deep importance. The earth was connecting her matter into a pattern to ensure her survival. The collective became one. The bannisteria caapi had grown in her rain forest, so too the psychotria viridis, the shamans of Peruvian heritage, steeped in understanding of the multitude of dimensions and beings, both demonic and benign, had travelled overseas, knowing not why their journey had been entrusted to them, nor its reason, only that they must go, destiny or chance, Mother Earth, had caused them to meet Titus Brock, their collective duty to steer the stout Druid in their shared, ritual journey into the ayuashkan dimensions. This loop of connectivity, a complex pattern with a singular collective purpose. A strategy to ensure the possibility of the planets restabalisation. This seemingly random series of accidents was of a mind, it was only Brock who understood. The goddess, Gaia, earth had entrusted him with great responsibility. But she was not stupid. Brock was an aspect of her. A unit of volition, a free mind, yet with the gnosis of gaias sacramental plants, his revelation, his vision of Albions future, there was only one result. Being of the earth, one with the bio system, Brock had a job, a path, a purpose that lay beyond choice or duty. An animal. Subject to instinct. Every atom of his being was aligned in singular drive. This project the Romans had bought to these shores would spread like a plague. The greater consciousness of the people would coalesce in a hubristic project. Christianity would entitle man to be the chosen species. Druidic respect for all aspects of life, love for all its wonder, meant a pagan would kill with thanks and respect, honouring their pray. To destroy any living thing caused an emotional pain, never take more than was of need, for the pagan was but an aspect of the greater whole. To hurt other life was to hurt the self. Yet this new religion had shown man was above all animals. Christians were gods children. Only they had souls. Only they were loved by the father. Christ had shown them that though animals died, were eaten or rotted. Man could survive death. The soul of man wasn't material, not a property of the brain. Life was to be endured. God saw his children needed to be tested. He would show no evidence of his existence. And if his children could keep faith, love him and only him, through war and suffering and death, if they could witness this horror and still believe, then his body would die. The human mind would escape its material earthly prison, become free of a world they thought ugly and unimportant, from there the spirit would ascend into heaven. Here an eternity of utter happiness and beauty, together, sat at gods side. Those who failed, who foolishly mistook gods apparent absence as suggestive of him not being, those who were weak, those who saw war, murder, rape and found this removed faith in his total superior power. Those who pompously thought their reason, their reading of the reality before them, gifts God gave them not to use, another test. These people would also transcend physical death, but theirs was not a good transcendence. After death God would send these people to hell. Here he ensured they would burn in molten rock. Yet unlike an unfortunate man who fell in a volcano and burn in agony till death after a few minutes, those who failed gods test would see no end to the pain. The suffering would continue for eternity.
Having an eternity ahead of them after death, Christians realised life was short. A phase to endure. Being, so brief compared to eternity, life wasn't so significant. Having divine importance man was free to use animals as he saw fit. Beasts could not suffer like man. As primarily spirit beings in a temporary flesh vehicle, the environment was not their mother, the environment was not an interactive ecosystem of mutual dependence for all life, it was to be used. Theirs to do with as they saw fit. Brock could see the cycles of life his ancestors been part of was invisible to the Christian mind. Now free from beasts, they began their journey. A linear pilgrimage, out of the animal ignorance, away from the interactivity with plant and animal, the Christian March away from nature, toward salvation. Christian man was below their God, an all powerful creator they had to love, but they were above the soulless beasts. Somewhere between the two.
Brocks wing beats had grown familiar during this flight. Observing the shamans effortless command of flight he saw the subtle movements, the prehension of rising thermals and turbulence ahead found him able to read the conditions, doctoring his body to use the wind, to ride it, not to fight it as his initial eagle moments had been. He felt angered but composed. His personal tastes were of no import with future he could see.
The Eagles dropped lower over the land, positioning themselves a closer view of humanities developement. Reassuring though marginal was the thread of consciousness that appeared to continue ahead, splitting into divergent paths that reammassed periodically, before splitting again as rope fibres. As the country moved beyond Roman invasion the pagan mindset dwindled but far too powerful an instinctual pull to be driven out. This parallel subculture stretched to infinity, after all, to kill the animal connectivity to the earth that was Druidic truth, the earth would have to be destroyed. The Druid was not religious. It wasn't a belief in something unseen. It's truth simply was. Man had evolved alongside such complexity of bacteria, plant, animal, insect. His nutritional needs had grown in parallel to other life, requisite nutrients for seasonal health specifics came to fruition at the exact time. His waste eaten by boar, his flesh carrion for buzzard, fox and crow. If buried, decomposition saw particles of his being transferred onto other life forms. A constant rearrangement of molecular patterns within a singular field. The craft could never be destroyed. Though, looking forward Titus could see the new beliefs would try their best to drive out mans natural connection to the earth. The shamans powerful brew had not simply provided this journey through time in eagle form, but Brocks mind was able to conceptualise these alien perspectives. Druids had no concept of faith. They saw the true reality before them and learned its peculiarities. Titus now could see. The Christian was literally blind to the spiritual dimension. There were Gnostics who experienced the divine but they were as persecuted as the pagan. With church direction the entire culture was to change. This entire dimension that Titus had studied was denied. Any truck with spiritual thoughts, beings was deemed the work of an oppositional super being. Rather than the Druidic spiritual multi dimensions and their multitude of beings of all persuasions, complex individuals but seldom all bad. Even the darkest demons Titus had met had some code. Their moralities may differ from his own, but they weren't mindless. Given the diversity it was obvious that every pagan had a differing spiritual mindset, developed through the individuals personality and its interaction with what ever spirits it met. Sure, some had bad luck. Just as children could be born disabled so too, on rare occasions a child could be born during some rival demon war. Any poor lad who's first mushroom season was concurrent, their mind could be ripped asunder as the demonic rivalry for possession could find the boys mind a battle field. Brock had known kids who were sound, become knobheads, predatory paedophiles, even Roman fuckers, after psychic initiation through Liberty caps at thirteen. This orthodox Christianity, though saw nothing of these spirits, demons, elves, sprites or other beings from the spiritual dimensions. Instead, the church formed a priesthood. These men had total monopoly on anything beyond matter. Only through them could a person get a message through to God. The lay folk accepted that their God was all powerful. So powerful, in fact, their puny eyes could not see him. He was totally right on all matters. He was good. All people had to love him. They were allowed to love close family too but not too much. Any love wasted on anything else other than his greatness made him jealous. This jealousy got him a bit weird in some ways. Whilst hidden he watched to see who was praying and worshipping him and who wasn't. People couldn't see him but he was all seeing. And those who didn't pray enough, missed church or he caught wanking, he sent them to a never ending suffering.
The preisthoods were most pious. Through their closeness to god they were able to tell who was good and bad. Sworn to celibacy as God invented sex but made it another test. Only between man and wife and never to be enjoyed. Being close to God, the preisthoods would see when the big guy was out seeing who wasn't praying, catching masturbaters and other sins, then, whilst he wasn't looking buggers the young quire boys. This tradition was at the heart of the Catholic Church. If they were caught, God would accept their prayers for forgiveness due to their status.
As the population grew the church would join up with whoever was king. This granted the king to murder, torture, rape, do anything he liked knowing his actions were approved by God. There were competitions within the church over the years, one king starting a new one to get gods support in a new relationship. This pattern continued. Only one God. Only accessible through the Orthodox Church. Only through church approval could spiritual experience be validated. If a persons spiritual repression broke out and they saw anything beyond material, due to being unauthorised, the person experiencing the mystical would normally be brutally executed following torture to drive out the bogus divinity. Sometimes, if a mystic was crafty they could plead insanity and get off scot free, just dungeon life till death. Then hell, of course. If a person offended anyone among gods chosen ruling class it meant they were in league with a being the complete opposite of the pure, unadulterated good of God. Satan, an angel that found gods brilliance arrogant got uppity, said fuck you! He set about spreading evil on earth. God was all powerful but hugely busy, so didn't have time soughting him out. All confusion evapourated for a while. Clearly, God being all powerful and pure good, the epitome of love, would never allow disease, child blindness, dog dirt, ungodly stuff to exist. It was the devil. God could easily stop him. God was so powerful you could not believe it. But he'd got a bit suspicious, wanking was rife. He left the devil to cause carnage, war and suffering as a test, smoke out any remaining masturbaters. Gays too. He didn't like them much. Or women, to be frank. Modern loose churches permitted them souls but proper Christians knew women could not transcend death. This sexism poisoned western society and may never be overcome, such was the influence of the Christian mindset.
This got pretty bad. A class system that was to forever curse Albion was implemented as the wealthy, governing classes, aristocracy with church certification that fortune was God given. It wasn't a choice being gods chosen ones. No man can question divine wisdom. Often peasants who were insensitive to pain as was clear by their sleeping rough, choosing to wear no shoes in the cold etc. Through the suppression of spirituality humanities sensory perception atrophied. What had been clear as day to Brocks day had grown invisible. When its presence was felt, individuals would assume their mind was playing tricks on them. Within 1500 years spiritual thoughts were deemed superstitious, if a mystic refused to accept he was going mad, the rack, the noose, and other technologies were used to support persuasion through debate.
Ahead Brock saw shifting attitudes. A wry grin attempted to rise, a squark from his open beak made do. Through glass technologies, these enlightenment men had managed to brave the churches wisdom, to see the stars, to know the infantile idiocy of gods Christian garden that was at centre, lesser bodies orbiting us, was wrong. Brocks mind flashed to a mental note. Jack would be somewhere near Stonehenge. A structure so obvious of purpose, it's reading ignored, the universes vast size, forgotten as these God men walked his flat earth in gods image. "Fuckwit created in fuckwit image," thought Brock. Still, this deviance, the scientific method looked hopeful. For certain its early exponents were murdered by the church. Titus watched the priests showing the young man with his telescope their own inventions. Galileo got the message. He accepted his stupid mistake and thanked the church for placing him in a dungeon for his remaining days. This story of the young astronomer compounded Brocks Christian dislike though it took further sights, more future, for him to lose his excitement at witnessing the emergence of reason and the scientific method. Something he could have seen in the priests comparrison of their technologies of persuasion and Galileos telescope.
Brock saw the few rich families accruing increasing wealth. There was no biological difference between peasant and Lord yet, through a further developement in the concept of faith, even the lower classes had grown to accept societal position was God given. A Lord may be weak, fat, lazy, unintelligent, unskilled, inferior in every measure able way to a peasant, yet through faith, belief without evidence, despite contradictory evidence, they were justly awarded superiority. A state built on hereditory land ownership ensured the rich would stay rich, the poor stay poor. If depression set in at the apparent unfairness, the preisthood was always on hand. A child may have seen his father killed for disrespecting a Lord, her mother raped, their house burned, left to starve on the street. The preist could comfort. God has mysterious ways. We can not hope to know why he chose some for abundance, security and heaven, or why he has chosen you to starve. But pray in humility. For god knows what he's doing. And, with good luck you may join the rich in heaven. That camel needle thing was a joke, by the way. In fact, the bible should be read as a metaphor. Jesus may have spoken for the meek and poor. But he died for doing so. That is the lesson.
Still, Brock flew with increasing zeal. Spiritual dimensions had become invisible to most, but the scientific method should dismiss these invisible qualities held so dear. The better ness of the upper class, a God of absence, surely empirical truth could save a man in a court of law.
Titus beak dropped in shock. The copernican universe had not tempered human hubris. The drift from animal towards God was continue ing. So the universe is big, we must be beings of majestic intelligence to figure that out.
God, the invisible validation of inequality, was beginning to crumble. Entitlement in the mind of the upper classes had forged new techniques to preserve disproportionate wealth. Schools took the finest pupils, regardless of intellect, open minded on that front, so long as the heavy fees were paid. It would be a couple more centuries before the oiks were granted rudimentary education. Mixing in sealed societal pockets, the wealthy bonded. Through foppish haircuts, exclusion from the lower caste, accents of nasal pomp, complex dress codes, subtle mannerisms and institutional buggery, public schoolboys ensured outsiders couldn't sneak in.
As the empire expanded through the subjugation of other cultures, murder, plundering of minerals and slavery, Britains elite blossomed. Primitive folk in Wales, Northern and Scottish towns, all with differing dialects, we're honoured to supply the countries needs with their labour. Lives lived down pits fuelled the country's prosperity. Miners, ship builders may have had painful lives, but it was over quickly.
So ingrained into cultural consciousness was the Christian mindset it continued as atheism set in. Science found no need for God. Man was clever himself. The linear narrative continued unperturbed. There may no longer be salvation but man felt the universes secrets were revealing themselves to our vast intelligence. Forward still to full understanding. In fact, as Christianity had freed man from animal laws, our unique gift of gods love and transcendent souls, allowing us to use the world for human betterment, kill troublesome animals and enslave those of use. Humanists, proud in their scientific genius, scoffed at God, an infantile projection. The warnings written into Christianity, original sin, a brake on hubris, genesis, the warning of the ambivalence of technology. Finally able to cast off these superstitions, grow in number, increase living standards. In an urban context, with imported goods, products of Eastern origin, it was clear we could live anywhere. Environment was for Attenboroughs animals.
Brock recoiled. He could barely breathe. He began hovering, the two shamanic Eagles waiting. They had to show him. Only by knowing the ultimate conclusion to the project of western civilisation could Brock be stripped of choice. Western man had taken this Promethean journey, abandoned gods, trusted in their intelligence. Where had this noble crusade of human reason Led? Primitive tribes remained. Rare and isolated. Shamanism still steered rain forest tribes people. But below him Brock could see. Black smoke, burnt carbon, vast floating islands of plastic debris, population at bursting point, an Internet system allowing Africans, Chinese, poor people the world over, to see the gross over consumption in Western European Britain , America. These emergent nations saw the cars and lights, the hair and teeth of bejewelled celebrity's, new pagan gods, science fiction Utopias, and who could rightly say they can't have it too. Brock saw the once vast rain forest, the lungs of the earth, it's vast diversity, the mineral source of most medicine, torn down, acre after acre, to plant green deserts to feed the growing numbers. This can't continue, Brock thought.
In melancholic resignation, the eagle at the tip of the triangle, forgot his true situation. Lost in species shame, a guilt for which he had no personal reason. Only that as a human animal, even a Druid, of earth and animal equality, he understood. The traits common to all humans, kept in check through self reflection, survival urges, competitive instincts, free of responsibility to other life forms. Merely knowing that this was to be western mans destiny, that his genes, his nature, though corrupted and severed from his spiritual calling, his species had done this.
Shifting air patterns caught Titus off guard. His rumination had delivered him to natures trap. No eagle would have forgotten the moment it was in. We drift in our minds, grieving the past, imagining futures, forever elsewhere. Our moments of being in the present, being, not thinking about being. Consciousness has allowed us to dream, yet released us forever from the sheer joys of animal pleasure. Our finest moments, and rare for all, come when we return to our animal self, rock climbing where slipping out of the present means death, downhill skiing where total focus is needed, in craft disciplines where maintaining body control is all, sometimes when lost in dance, free of self reflection. We take pride in our speciality, the cheetah can run, the shark can swim, the eagle can fly, and we cab self reflect. Sadly, or so it seems, despite our illusions, we rarely consider then act. In truth we do as our heart tells us, like all animals. Only later, we reflect, rationalise why we acted. The story of consciousness shares the same flaws. Each technology is chanced upon, created because we can, the product of blind experiment. Some technologies find good uses. Anaesthetic has made dentistry far better. But technologies have no moral quality. A hammer drives a nail home or crushes a skull. Atomic physics promised endless power, but a possibility of existential danger. Once opened, pandora a box stays so. We can not forget. The green politics of modern liberals omits the factor of human nature. He have made a mess.
As eagle plummeted a rapid fire of different moments flashed through Titus mind. As population grew, forest was levelled for farm land. Once the mass extinction began it was clear little could be done. The damage to the climate from industrial beginnings, Britains Revolution, was played out in country after next, industry arose, living standards grew, costs saw buyers move onto the next place. Globalisation saw a domino fall, each nations industrial hiatus another blow to the destabilising Eco system.
As the ice caps melted there pivotal effect dawned on mankind. These temperature stabilisers freed vast waters. Sea levels rose, low land countries washed under. The mass migration from the Syrian war was trebled by homeless people's. Britain abandoned Europe to its fate. Each years winter was warmer and wetter. Despite euro exit the channel was under an attack of illegal boats, too many to repell. In these warm damp conditions, mud was everywhere. No frosts to give an annual bacterial cleansing, infections and viruses mutated at speeds never known before. The integration of people from a number of countries brought disease the carriers were immune to. Anti biotics, a technology that had we used sparingly could have lasted centuries. But like all resources, we glutted ourselves. Practically useless by 2030.
Americas war of the mid twenties had seemed a simple exercise. Something they should have done years back. How the Americans had scoffed at North Koreans tin pot dictator. But his people had a steel rock and roll, Hollywood and coke had stolen from American youth. Despite draught campaigns and vast imprisonments few were prepared to die for the threat of a comedy country. Koreas nuclear programme had found soviet investment. Once the nukes began hitting, the Americans Manhattan project came home. Taking out Washington, New York and Las Vegas in one night. A horror previously unimagined. Amassing a response in the chaos was rushed. Famous for their hardware force and poor skill was a comedic jab as the odd European soldier was accidentally shot in Iraq. But the nuke on South Korea drew global opprobrium. Suicide foot soldier attacks on the American mainland were beyond the tactical scope of a defence force designed for overseas resource theft. Pockets of Korean fighters roamed, losing themselves and regrouping to massacre outlining civilian populations. Nuclear response was inevitable and North Korea was rendered a radio active tumour on the South. It's own radioactive no go area America gave them with the misplaced bomb. People the world over shared a toleration of Americas culture vacuum, their outlook flat, unable to self reflect, unaware of how others saw it. Widespread gun ownership is a common feature of anarchic, primitive cultures. The death penalty, something shared with Saudi Arabia, an idea European minds were a century beyond. Despite the simplicity and refusal to accept evolution, Americans had enjoyed a warm respect for its child like enthusiasm. It's money helped along many friendships but the recurrent resource wars, the arrogant incapacity to understand difference. So convinced of being right they felt duty bound to bomb resistant nations into liberal democracy. But as China's wealth overtook Americas, the years of global interference saw the rest of the world tell them to fuck off. After the Russian showdown, they were short of cash. North Korea saw their opportunity and engaged in a war only a mad dictator, isolated from anyone able to disagree with, could hope to beat even a depleted US. Victory left America broke, isolated for war crimes, bereft of trade partners it reverted to Wild West. The lawless spirit of moving on to redskin land, shooting them. Then protecting your patch with guns, returned. The ethnic cleansing of all Afro Americans followed. The Mexican border became irrelevant. Now, a number of isolated countries. California largest amongst them. The few remaining States of civilisation formed unconnected self governed States. Hi tech Silicon Valley supports walled pockets of extreme wealth, seperated by vast desert wastelands inhabited by outlaws. Private armies. Biker colonies. Drug empires. In frequent competition, minor tribal wars that are seldom reported.
When disease hit Europe in the hardest, brutal blow of reality man had felt since he went it alone. But even God could not fix this. Immigrants from flooded countries, refugees from war zones, these people knew death, knew desperation. Most had fought, often killed to get to Europe. Germany had ascended to become the central government in all but word. Years of high living whilst enforcing austerity on weaker European States had delivered no shared identity, no common love. As Greece, Ireland, Spain had starved, Germany, in hereditary guilt over their forefathers genocide, had welcomed in several million migrants. This generosity forced overspill on its neighbours. The countries Germany had set strict rules of compliance to, like frivolous children, scolded for eating too much cake, swallowed their pride to retain an economy. But the free entry of such vast numbers rendered the European Union a dis functional family. Ancient hatreds re emerged, as gangs of Islamic puritans with no conceptual understanding of freedoms North Western Europe held dear, women systematically raped, neo fascist growth, inter border skirmishes as European buried vendettas, centuries old, resurfaced as nations steered the refugees from country to country like cattle. The mud of trodden feet, a quagmire of warm bacteriological growth. It matters not whether the germ strain originated in Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia. But historically, when new settlers arrive, it is germs that decimate the natives. All of the Americas saw more die from Spanish disease than guns, Northern States too. So it was with Europe. The moist conditions and multiplicity of germs, assembled as the immigrant reservations grew, bacteriological heaven.
A virus that mutated in a single generation was aided by a flesh eating microbe. The speed the plagues spread was beyond anything before. It has since been postulated that the entire European population was infected before the first victim showed symptoms. This slow delivery system, a random feature, meant all bar those of rare natural immunity, were sentenced to death before the first cough. Close proximity of people's, many of no common language, all of differing cultures and moral code. Religious battles, race squabbles, national grudges, old unsettled scores, meant Europe was a blender of multi cultural incompatibility. As plague spread, superstitions grew, blame of strangers, tightening of national groupings. Titus slipped his mind into the head of an eighteen year old boy who carried the corpse of a child. The boy had lost reason. Images of Syria, bombings, the brutal deaths of both parents returned, his mind would drift, confused images of him and the sister he still carried, smuggling over borders, Escaping the Middle East crumbling as America and Russia finally had a square go. Isis and Assad a front to outsiders disguising the old political opposition. Russia was ultimately crushed but America so thoroughly depleted that the North Korean joke of a country. Destroyed all but it's few small remaining habitable zones.
The boy, a progressive liberal in Syria, bravely opposed to ISIL. A moderate Muslim, sympathetic to what he imagined a secular west, a place of open opportunity and religious freedom. On arrival, semi clad women taunted his manhood, openly exposed skin, driving cars, free to go as they pleased by there alcoholic husbands. His car cleaning job had crushed his pride. Women telling him what to do. Dressed as whores. He found no way of connecting such freedoms to any moral decency. After three rapes he was caught. He had no choice. He was behaving as his parents would. At trial he was amongst so many like himself. A phenomena that grew from formerly proud men, surviving war situations through a vocabulary of violence, defensive yet firm. Now. After heroic nobility, adulation as heroic men, forced away from factional changes as foreign investment saw numerous shifts. Told Germany welcomed strong men like him. Once here, children spat on him. Apostates openly insulted Allah. Women of gender equality but no personal respect, not to his cultural understanding. Only job, washing rich wives cars. Painted whores, drenched in jewels, ordering him like a slave.
The plague was so fast. An attempt to continue, to knuckle down was promoted. On arrival at court the lie of stability slipped. Dead bodies. Dying was swift but the urban centre was a cacophony of moaning from languages beyond count. He grabbed his sister. He'd brought her to court in hope of pity and fled. Crouching behind a burnt out car shell he saw the change in his sister. Two days back a small red mole. Now, black and deep red holes opened to rib and organ. Her death went unnoticed, or unwanted. Brock felt his determination. He would get North. Sweden was supposedly not too bad. The flesh doll slowed his movements but fired his purpose.
The Eagles dragged him away, ushering him toward a rising thermal. Across the channel was ahead. The chaos in Germany as plague cut its cleansing scythe through the human animal. Gaia is self levelling. Any animal reaching over population will find its number reduced. Global warming had created the incubator, mass migration the microbial mix. From 1965 to 2015 the earths human population doubled. From 2020 to 2040 earth returned to four billion.
Drifting ahead a century Titus looked upon the changes. Still that warmth. That damp. Human numbers were below 100000 and slowly still falling as virus fine tuning removed all but the very fortunate. Theory was, between the isolated groupings, a steady level, between half and a quarter million was the likely outcome. North Scotland had a settlement. Satelite communities in the Orkneys. A random selection but hardy folk. Crofters largely. Supplemented by a youthful team taking trips South, looting the dead lands.
Wales had a northern tribe. Eco savages. Aware of their good fortune. Self sufficient from crop and fishing. Clun had faces somehow familiar. And then he felt it. A spasm of warmth. Love of ones own kind. Trying to swoop closer, his anger rose as his shamanic tour guides sternly made him move on. It was a mixture of sensations he felt in their intervention. Something they didn't want him to see. Protecting him from emotional pain. But also a fatherly corrective. This was no holiday or personal journey of indulgent familial discovery. Their mission was of species importance. And time was now short.
"Onward Titus, your people, eh? Your folk survived."
This improved his mood. Their tactic, in avoiding Roman persecution was to retreat to Britains corners, remain unconnected, so if tortured they could not grass anyway.
Brock caught a glimpse of camp fire flame. A window back to his time. But the ayuashkan rose up, dismissive of the impudence of the base dimension in its arrogant attempt to return its favoured Druid. Ayuashka is stronger. Our reality field is of consistence, a marathon plodder, of a clouded, misty quality. Real but unconvincing. Ayuashkan reality is many marks closer to the true reality field. It's clarity and strength render normality an airport waiting room. No mans land. Nothing of true qualities. So overplayed by opinion, so thoroughly used, like a worn out jacket, lost of its old shape. The shamanic sacrament invariably shames it back into shape for a while. The afterglow shines for months.
But the Eagles knew it was holding up, imploring them to work. Yet it held strong and the Eagles flicked on, two century's. The Scandinavian settlements were the busiest human centres now. With a global population back to a steady half billion, the earth had re stabilised. America was deserted. A forgotten empire. It's myth growing, it's fate a moral tale children learned at school. The pockets of humanity were small, private, few travelled as cultures had shown an exponential growth spurt as fresh values developed to reflect the new human condition.
These northern countries had seen their warmer seas abundant with fish. Species from equatorial waters had moved to cooler climes. Fishing was approached in reverence. The ancestral memories, a sea hunter philosophy that had grown perverse as 21st century Norway had argued traditional identity in justification of torpedo technology. These memories had taken on moral mythology. The Norse gods, natural forces beyond mans control had returned as man began to name major storms, hurricanes. There was no superstitious attempts at appeasement. The plagues and floods that put an end to the great overpopulation were beyond appeasement. Their patience in watching western mans Promethean project play out is commented on. But most know, in odins timescale, that 2000 years, from Christ to the planets self stabilisation was a blip in cosmic time. The extinction of species would forever be carried by man. How, in delusion of grandeur, man forgot he was an animal. Though clever in so many ways, earth is of strength beyond human conception. Natural laws, the growth, the death, forces we could never hope to beat. The new scandis still hunt whale. But one lasts a year for a large village. It's soul is graced, it's family thanked, each molecule used. Hunting techniques saw devolution as people accepted life must be risked if life is to be taken. To die in hunt is not unusual. An honour to the family who's child gave all for the common good.
Further south, Denmark downwards is uninhabitable. The scandis keep North, never go, refuse visitors from Europe. Human life has gone but a viral soup of fast evolution, begun by the plague has developed. The moist warmth has seen fungi become the dominant life from. The varieties are huge in number, ever changing, most site specific. Isolated to a single region. From the human compost swift growth buried most ruins. Fugoid growths have hit an evolutionary super speed. No science has been written but reports from rare expeditions in to fungi Europe report tree size forms, glistening in moisture. Many animal feeding. Sticky secretions trap mammals that survived the plague years. These mycelium forests are known of. Certain cultures have aircraft able to cross the European spore cloud. Photographs show the human decay and forestry collapse formed mineral sludge pockets, nutrient rich that support this fungi continent. Neither truly plant nor animal, fungi has become earths dominant life form. Consciousness through the subsurface network linking the fruit body has been detected. This is not new. Perhaps millennia in origin but overlooked by man prior to the plague. Furthermore, indigenous tribes people that survived the plague in small preservation a in Brazil, Peru have developed a communicative system. A language of ayuashkan divergence, specific recipes developed with fungoid interaction in mind.
South sea people's continued unaffected, largely uncaring of the extinction of homo rapien. Many cultures exist, rarely meeting up, living cyclic lives of hunter gatherer simplicity. They knew what would happen. They found westerners unintelligent. The individuation of self was anathema to their view of the tribe as the unit. A person alone is nothing. The elevation of the individual singular consciousness over the group had grown to epidemic proportions by the twentieth century. Combined to an unconscious belief in life after death, man had grown to narcisstic insanity. His belief he could live without others, led to his demise. New people's, the groups that formed, had a humility. A respect. A realisation they were not seperate. They needed a healthy planet. They were the same. Hurt the earth you hurt yourself.
As flashes of campfire flame crackled in to view, the Eagles spoke in telepathic imagery. "Titus, we must go. Ayuashka his been generous. She gathered sustenance from your psylocibin. But now she tires. We must return." The three Eagles dipped, their triangle cut a parabolic dive, sweeping beneath the dimensional veil. Truly, ayuashks had excelled. This tendril in time, her tubular tunnel shaped and plunged deep into the future. The shamans, veterans of dimensional exploration, both concurred. In deep reverence they thanked her.
"Never so far. You are chosen, Titus. Many times she has offered us a tunnel forward. But never have we seen the surviving people's settled. Generations born after the plague. We have seen what may come but we are joyous to know the horror that is beginning in Albion in your time, that the earth mother shakes off the deviant populace."
Titus was curious. With a gradual acceptance he was back in his time. The fire still flickered. The shamans watched the flames dance.
"Is that the on,y future?"
Smiling at Titus simplicity the shamans spoke, "of course we don't know the future, it has not happened yet. But twelve journeys we have taken. All show possible developments. Two diverged in seperate branches of possible tomorrow's. The other ten have details that vary. But all ten showed a great plague. All ten show this western project of man ending the same. Man can not kill the earth. She is strong. But he can cause the deaths of many animals. The damage will happen. These peoples that survive, most are of the earth, cultures of plant wisdom. It is only those who commune with the plants. The vine, the mushroom. Only those who journey to the spirit worlds. We are earths destiny. The forgiven few. We show you this so you know. You must take your shamanic knowledge. Find sanctuary. Away from the growing death that the others are summoning up upon themselves. Titus, you must escape the occupation of your homeland. Seek those like yourself. Take them to your places. Hide. Be careful. Speak to no stranger of your knowledge. Ensure your craft is passed down, from old man to boy, many life cycles. Be patient. Wait out this darkness. It will pass. Many now see only their lives. Death, they go. But always you are here. In soil, in plant. Your line. Your people. They are you two. Son of son, son of son. Twenty times, fifty times, who knows. You must see beyond your life. Become the life's of son of son of son, stretching in to time, stretching on till this badness has worked its way through. It can not see how it will end. Only by allowing the mistaken journey away from the mother, only by the cycles completion can its exponents see the wrong they chose. We will ensure this happens in our home. And you must in Albion. One day. When all is past. When man is again animal, then we will meet. Us Three Eagles. Again, when plague has cleansed the earth. Then we will fly together again."
The shamanic men shook hands. Titus knew they were the same. Brothers. They would meet again. But first his job was clear. He must find Jack. Tell him what he had learned. Then they must get beyond the occupation. They must survive. Mot for themselves, for their people. For Druids. For shamans. For all of their kind, in all places, of different words, different psychedelics. Their shared connection through the entheogen plants, to the earth host, the mother of them all. And for each other. Each country has its natural psychedelic. Each it's different shamanic witch. Names and language varied, but all were the same. A small number of all peoples, in all cultures, throughout all times, through sacred plants conversed with the life force, the earth.
Clay Hill was a decent days walk from Avebury. Titus gave a large bag of his finest dried Liberty Caps for his fellow spiritual voyagers to enjoy. "As a boy I loved the taste of fresh mushrooms. Somehow, people tend to grow out of it. Through drying, many of the sub entheogens, trace elements said, specifically those connected to the category of Demons we call Trypes. They perverse and tricky to exorcize. They suckle body fluids, latching on to u careful mushroom trippers, slipping through the opened dimension as the victim succumbs to overwhelming mandalas of light. If they're not removed early, they burrow deeper. Eating away a space in the human belly and using them as a zombie vehicle. Very troublesome, Lothian Green Trypes, A cousin of our local Trype are on the run in this very area. This bunch, a family of dirty fuckers took possession of some Scottish wool traders three years back. These have a sharper spine, tubular symphony fangs. But their elixir differs, a normal Trype may scoff anal juices to boost their hold on our dimension. These Scottish fuckers saw the traders scoffing a bowl of shrooms, sustenance for the walk. As reality loosened, they felt the weakening barrier holding them. As the trip grew in strength, the veil parted, but the scots, in delirium, were transfixed by starlight. The scots say they felt a filthy tickle, like a cat passing your legs. The green Trypes, saw their pray in astral awe. The four scots felt a sensual caress as their bare legs and exposed genitals felt gentle stroking, two admitted the demons Todger skills had their pillars pointing to the stars also. But this seduction hid the demonic parasitic hold forming. Beneath their kilts, each demon slid their head spine deep up the anus, from here the Trypes head is positioned and lances the scots testicles. A grown Trype can slide his spine four to six inches up a mans arse barely noticed, greased by demonic lubricants. Once arse spined, the tripper seldom escapes. The screams rang out as the demons drove the spunk drainer fangs deep into bollocks, the four scots eight testicles, lanced simultaneously. The perverted fucks had the boys. All anally skewered, any move the demon don't like, in acid ejaculate spurts from the spine up the anus. Trypes have a hypnotic they can inject into the anus through the same spine. In a trance of possession, the scots became the demons vehicles. Trojan horses into our area. Feeding of the scots, steadily draining all they could through their tubular fangs. We took the lads as poppy milkers, that or simpletons as they approached. Till the stench, the putrefaction of meat that gives away most demons. Small field demons, anyway. Larger beasts, different matter, obviously. The greedy cackling of spunk drunk parasites brought me to my feet. Stop! I warned the lads, zombies now, genitals eaten. Standing in line, not a spark of awareness enlivened their eyes. Sending the girls away, I lifted the scots kilts. Four of these Scottish flesh eating demons hung down below their legs, the lads were fucked, so I kept them stood. The greedy cackling, the fevered scoffing was all I heard. Those around me, unfamiliar with lesser demons, were speechless. Each demon had eaten past the cock and balls, opening a deep red hole were they once were, and buried some eight or so inches into the eaten out hollows, the demons heads continued to feed. From the smith a grabbed four red hot irons, trying to work quickly, so as to skewer them. Looking to young Ben, my Druid apprentice I nodded. If I rammed the first iron up the demons anus its screams would alert his brothers. I whispered to the lad to be brave and not deviate from what I say. Position ourselves between the zombie scots, get all irons close to demon anuses 1 to 4, I'll give the nod, with red hot poker in each hand, we both skewer a pair of demons each. Drive it deep, nine inches up a field demons arse should unlock their hold. So wee ready ourselves, I mouth one, two then before I can say three he's skewered one demon who's thrashing about, screaming, as his flesh burns and a plume of arse smoke clouds Bens hand. Course the other three fucks are aware something's wrong. Like a bag of puppy's the scots bellys are animated as Trypes Tate and spit, cursing foul spells. The skewered cunt is rything as the red hot poker fused to melted interior flesh, knows he's done for. But he's spitting venom, spunk, spine spurting fluids. It takes us both to sack the fucker and drown it in the horse trough. But the other cunts heads are free, streaming in blood, the acidic saliver that rots their host meat, putrefying liquid flesh they've not had time to drink. The crowd back off as the Trype seeks a hoste, demonic putrefaction through perverted defilement being the life drive of the cunts. Now the spine hypnotic is no longer pumping through the spine of the scots they begin to come round. Kilts all up. At first they think it's usual drunken shame again. Scots in England, show the southerners some northern cock. Then shock and pain arrive together. Meat and two veg long gone, the openings a gored hole, six inches diameter, finally the depth dawns, a opening that could hold four haggis, many into the lower stomach. And Trype saliver, the putrefaction caused, well, it's not going to stop rotting. These boys knew they were done. These fuckers move quick. The cackling hell spawn were away, under a barn door, who knew from there.
Well, all I could offer was truth. "Look lads. These fuckers defile live cells. Their saliva causes live tissue to petrify to liquid in seconds. The perverts greedily drink this fetid elixir. You were lucky. Once the elixir kicks in Trype meat tunnelling increases ten fold. The rotting chemical excites the demonic mind into a sexual drive. In fuck, feed frenzy its minutes before they've burrowed up body. Through the neck column the Trype enjoys a breather, his head protruding from the hosts mouth, the final stages find the hypnotic wearing off as the demon begins to scoff the brain. Consciousness remains through systematic removal of least important brain organs, the hosts self, is deconstructed in greedily scoffed mouthfuls, as memories slip away, thoughts, beliefs, loves, emotions that define ones identity are stripped one by one, the vigorous scoffing noise inside the slowly emptying skull can be heard as piece by piece, a person is eaten alive. So, all things considered, we best get this over with. Leave these wounds to fester and you could have anything from two days agony, to a week as the putrefaction the saliver has begun, reduces the rest of you putrefaction. Be brave boys. Don't put your mums through that. I'll make it quick but say now as I want to catch your Scottish travel companions before any of our boys gets a cock chomping. And down South, lads, it's not you boys that bare the brunt. Trousers see. Trype protection. Girls mind. You've brought this on our young lasses. So I need to get away before a single skirt sways past, a floating temptation for a field demon sniffing out vulnerable fanny. These fuckers eat easy meat. Brave lad! You first! Show your mates the noble man you've become."
Still tripping and in deep shock, the jocks were struggling to accept reality, and none was volunteering. Nodding to young Ben to bring me the lump hammer, I took the larger scots arm, reassuring the lad. "One swifty and you'll be upstairs with your gran. They say you feel nothing. Here one moment then nothing. Mind, they only say that when it goes wrong. They wake up with an evil headache, but when describing the earlier hammer blow, they say they feel nowt. The lad was simpering, as I lay his head on a large rock. Can you believe it? Fucking demon smuggler! Brings a whole family over the border and he's trying to slow me down, his green mates getting further away by the second. Bens a good lad. Slaps the scot into some dignity. "Pull yourself together boy, where's your dignity."
Bang! One swift strike and all his dreams, loves, aspirations spurt out in a grey pulp. The dogs are lapping it up as Ben brings over scot 2.
This ones no trouble, head down, eyes closed, starts mumbling some Christian nonsense that I cut short. The rest of the prayer no doubt amongst the grey globs the dogs are enjoying. Number three looks me in the eye. "Are you a Druid" he asks, "do we, you know, go on?"
Well lad, I says, you're finding out before me. But, from all I've seen, nothing steers me to think so. Bang! And he's no longer worried about a thing.
Finally, the boy who's demon got away steps up. "Kill the fucker for me, slow as you can, do that for me mate." I reassure him the job is good as done as the hammer blow struck open his meat mind. Wiping offal from my keks, I order some young lad to clear up the mess. Send what's left of the scots up to Jerry, the pig Man, pointing to a wheel barrow for the lads use.
Appreciating the advice, their minds drifting to the lederhosen a German lad gave them. "Titus, we will do as you say. We too have a gift." And from the backpacks each took their flasks. A hide flask, u decorated like their own was filled by both, four pints from each was a significant amount. A cup was a decent dose for a normal man. But Brock was thinking. He'd not meet these men again, not till a distant future, and then only molecules of each, genes or descendants. Perhaps they were right, but he could not be certain.
"This may sound cheeky following your generosity. Nevertheless, the shame I may incur should you refuse is out balanced by what I feel I may need to ensure my missions success. Jack Black is my boyhood friend. We learned our druidry together. Our sacramental visionary work, particularly the darkest journeys, to dimensions of demonic empires. Here, through a telepathy we developed from boyhood, we are able to achieve things that alone would be inpoisible. When the arch demon Lactor drew us in to his fetid lair, his farm of stolen babies were layed out. His ritual was prepared. Stepping through his ceremonial preparations, only our linked mind could have succeeded. His demonic phalus was readied, dripping in the thick black spunk of his. Timing our move could only work by having the same thought simultaneously. And nano second of insyncronous mental activity, and we both would be dead. The babies...well, you can guess. Had Lactors plan worked I doubt neither of us would be talking now. I pushed another thousand Liberty Caps their way. "Please". Looking at each other they nodded. Four further pints made twelve.
"I shall remember your kindness. The journey we shared will ensure the human earth connection continues. It is safe in our hands."
The men said their goodbyes. They had all grown fond, shared important moments. He stood watching as the shamans figures grew smaller as they walked into the distance, Silbury Hill, their next port of call.
Titus felt the pride of the earth flowing through his feet, filling his body with purpose. An inner strength. Packing his simple belongings into his bag. Taking care all sacred roots, leaves, fungi were secure. His ritual tools were slotted in to there leather case. Pulling his cape together, hooding his head to avoid the detection of Roman collaborators. So many now, his people once loyal to a man had succumbed to Roman coin.
A subtle vibration tremoured beneath his feet. His senses kept to attention. That smell. Garlic, olive oil. He felt Roman thought close by. Clumsy and vinegrated. Linear patterns of reasoning. The mindless submission of soldier thought, so incongruous to native minds. It's direction not entirely clear, a swift sniff offered a line that seemed emptiest of human mental activity so strode that way. Purposefully. Hoping in silhouette the Italian mind would take him for a travelling merchant, heading west, to Frome, to Bath. Nervously his mind built alibis, narratives he could spin in jovial chatter.
"Brock! We hear you believe your powers mightier than God. Such blasphemy offends the divine. As servants of the good Lord we have no choice but to put your arrogant boasts to test."
Soldiers moved closer. "Tie his hands," the highest of rank told his men.
Shite! How the fuck will I get to Jack? Brock knew this was bad. Seriously bad. Few Druids walked from such an arrest.
"Your good Lord need not fear me. I know a trick or two. A few herbs to soothe a cold. But whoever told you I was a Druid flatters me beyond the absurd. The few I knew have long gone. France I hear. The tree lovers have all moved across the water."
The metal grip of a short sword struck his forehead. Once the dizziness faded into a steady head ache he was tied up. His sack still on his back, his hands tied in thongs of leather, feet linked by a foot length of twine. Short steps.
"Where are you Taking me." Brock asked the soldier in charge.
"To that architectural masterpiece that illustrates your people's advancement. Stonehenge. We've a Roman party to attend. With an exhibition piece of your standing, my centurion will be impressed. What better test of religious truth. Let's see how the mighty Titus Brock with his pagan spirits can stand up to the power of the one true God."
Titus Brock in shackles began the walk to Stonehenge. Public humiliation, torture. Exhibitions to drive Druidic beliefs from local minds. Still, if today was to be his last, at leat he would see the stones a last time. Good luck, Jack, Brock thought. It was up to his friend now. Barring some miracle anyway.
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