God of the Game

Best way out of such a conundrum of twisted feelings is to stare at space and wonder who the fuck you are. Alive on Earth, you figure Heaven or Nirvana wouldn't be that complicated; but mind you, take it from one who lives there, impediments are gorged on steroids, goes under the knife, cosmetically enhanced, and surgically beautified. Therefore the fuckedupness becomes palatable, even addictive. Will I trade my snags for bliss? Doubt it. I’m already engaging a blissful idiocy, honestly, an idyllic lunacy, and as far as I’d encountered, all gods are fucking crazy!

Sub-divine that I am, I shed my skin to blue flame and spun past solar systems. Technically, fire does not blaze in black void due to the lack of oxygen, but my burn is not powered by any substance of physics present in this universe, not even nuclear fusion. So I float there, in nowhere, absorbing the solitude, studying the unfinished creations of a deity; dead and dusty planets, wasted energy balls called suns aging to red giants and white dwarfs; it was as though the developers ran out of money, hit by a celestial recession, or perhaps, greedy partners fled the project with the venture capital stuffed in suitcases. Now, these abandoned constructions merely hang there, gathering dirt, inviting dilapidation, orbiting their set courses aimlessly, waiting for a new investor, one to pump in new life in the rise of the next economic cycle ordained by higher forces.

I am in the business of imagination; so I imagine this facelift, this corporate takeover; a new name, a new heaven, and a new earth. I guess the thing is that I can’t stand the loneliness. So much vacant land, but no one to culture it, nobody to abuse it. What good are breathless lumps of gigantic rocks? Tell me. What good is only lava and gas without life? Such a bloody waste of outer space, a blatant underuse and apathy for planetary and stellar coordinates; a true artisan would do more than just the barest minimum.

Almost liveable; what a sarcastic shame.

So, what’s my concept? When I’m done, the god (or gods) who made this half-baked cake of imperfect heavens won’t recognize the neighbourhood. Sure, they did a good job with Earth, this I can tell, and credit goes to where credit is due. But take a trip above the atmosphere, and it’s dull. Yes, initially the solace hits you. The emptiness is big, it’s damn huge, and yer struck with awe. But after a while it gets boring, the silence, the loud ringing silence, makes you want to come back down and kiss soil. A spiritual awakening that merely leads to hunger for sensational flesh.

On Earth, there’s green, nature’s colour; and man’s clean lines, geometrical buildings; symbiotic, harmonious, a twenty-first century human dream come true. Moon, in this modern makeover, is a desert landscape dotted by oases, a primitive Sahara opulence. Lush tents are spread beside blue lakes, and camels, with more humps than two, are tied and fed to fat. Rounder than those ungulates, obese Homo sapiens laze under canopies, smoking shisha, indulging leisure, talking business: mining pursuits the cold and dark side of this satellite.

Farther off, Mars, the Red Planet: still red, but in the shape of boutique accommodation. This crimson tone, this scarlet hue, blood palette dark and bright; I subbed out its development to a punk rocker, an anarchic designer employing the initials AD in a barbwire embellished logo, and her company comes up with the theme: the fashionable death of gods. Everywhere are shades of red contrasted on black for impact; makeup of anyone you meet on Mars’ streets is asymmetrical mimicry of bloodshot sclera and wounded cheeks. The colour of pain is not limited to the face; splashes of strawberry adorn bodies like luminous paint. In vogue zombies hang out. They go shopping, buying rubies, sipping wine, and driving burgundy Veyrons.

Closer to the sun, Mercury and Venus are spirit and flesh respectively. The first planet of the Solar System, hot with mercurial uprising, is firing up lazer from its atmosphere, flaring out as shooting stars, thundering incandescence into outer space; a fireworks display of varied trajectory aimed at all other globes. These lights are the spirits of life, birthed of the Sun, but incubated in the Mother Star’s small neighbour, Mercury; it is where angels are aplenty, where storks start off their long austere journeys, bearing beautiful bundles of magnificent starlet joy.

Venus however is the end and dark destiny of those beautiful bundles; when they’d grown up, and clouded in vain lounging. Venus is the erotic suicide of spirit. The realization of the tangible, the withering pallor of inner grace; age seventeen and materialistic, squandering the soul for the squalid shimmers of things that bling before we blink. Venus is a spa, a holiday destination to get a perfect tan, a discothèque free flowing for us to forget our origins, our core. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians states, the natural is before the spiritual; but here in Venus, we say, fuck the spiritual, fuck faith, what you see is what you get! A preternatural existence built upon the short-sighted covetousness of carnal cunts.

Now, the Asteroid Belt is a hunting ground. Assorted game awaits death fried by ray guns, pending the incisors, canines and molars of intergalactic hunters. Between Mars and Jupiter is richest in flora and fauna, it is the Amazon of this constellation, the eco-bin of our system. The Asteroid Belt must be preserved, minimum real estate developments; retained as a primordial paradise for colossal creatures, miniscule organisms, and single cell life capable of wiping out civilizations if genetically modified in the airstream. A rainbow of a jungle is this orbiting ring; fecund, forever on heat, unending in resources; so much so that the capital of worlds Jupiter is adjacent to.

Jupiter, o’ my Jupiter, capital of planets; yet you are only a tiny fraction of Syurga. The largest globular mass of the Solar System, thus naturally crowned major metropolis; took the title off Earth an aeon ago. Another city-world in the copy of Syurga, totally unoriginal. “Un-inspiringly dreary,” citizens complain yet frolic on its terraformed pavements perpetually. I admit, my lazy folly, lack of ideas derived from this demigod’s mind, a deistic brain drain. In this imagination, I just took a piece of Syurga and repopulated it. Cheating. Plagiarism. But everybody does so, too. No one bothers; in fact, everyone wants what Syurga has to offer, they just follow; and thus, the populace lives happily ever after in a copycat rapture.

But what I really want to illustrate is the next sphere, Saturn. Home to the Armoniacs, hallucinatory beings regurgitated by the planet’s gases, most vivid in Saturn’s rings. On the surface of the second most prominent orb, these creatures appear only in the dimension behind the natural. I guess you can call them supernatural, ghosts; but they weave a tapestry of worlds perpendicular to this smokescreen, and you can view their filamentous existence by merely crossing your eyes into a trance. The Armoniac realm is as slippery as wet noodles, the texture is oil silk, and you can run your hand through and beyond solid structures like walls. Molecules part at the touch, while doors are nonsense; one can penetrate and enter rooms by absorption. Glide past barriers to appear at the other side. The Armoniacs themselves are fusible, blending in and out of their environment. A favourite form is as jellyfishes; tendrils and recognizable human features float beneath voluptuous umbrellas. A face, rich with raw nerves, is connected at the temples to the inner side of the dome. In the rings, Armoniacs take on a less soluble apparition. They are space dolphins, dodging ice particles and debris; and when a craft flies by they swim alongside the ripples generated by the ship’s intrusion on Saturn’s magnetic zone.

Neptune is aqualand; named after its king. Mermaids, sirens and life-forms breathing by gills are subjects of his crown. Above, on the surface is a perfect storm with occasional calms; and radical Bodhisattvas, enlightened ones, surf the magnanimous yet malevolent waves, impersonal waters cruel and charming. These who have attained beyond Nirvana paddle their silver surfboards to catch massive crests and ride them in victory, conquering the elements symbolizing karma, dharma and the limitations of mortality.

Big junkyard Uranus: unfortunately designated. I mean...every house needs a toilet; every town, its sewer; and thus, Uranus is our pot of dung. But of much worth is found in things a galaxy throws away. If you know where to look. And Nidots do; Hobbit-sized tinkers that have one shared hole for mouth and anus. They eat garbage, process whatever nutrition in their digestive track, regurgitate the waste, and excrete items worth selling for a buck or two. Quantity matters; and entrepreneurial Nidots have amassed quite an empire on trinkets and knick-knacks.

Finally, Pluto: relegated from planet status to a satellite frontier in the Kuiper belt – a remote celestial frost-jungle at the outer rim of the System. But that’s alright, `cos this is where I’m at, meditating. The frozen surface mirrors my heart, and I can see my many reflections too in the ice astride a chillier core. This creates an illusion; images bouncing off each other, as if millions of dear old me are trapped behind cold transparent sepulchres. Each silent I is different, my many avatars suited for a million worlds. Latent, resting, taking a break. Retreat from the hustle and bustle. And sometimes, in the frost, she is there, too; Sanguine Lover, snow queen and pompous goddess of my icy territory; a bit of me has evolved into her, over time...over long epochs, and that’s confusing. Who am I? Am I actually you, Sanguine Lover? Jai-I and the Perverted Penguin said Sha-Rronne is me in disguise; so too is Sharon. Sharon who shot her father, who killed me in my own film; which Vesper likes but never commented or made the family association. Does that make you her actually? My Sanguine Lover is Sharon? Is Sha-Rronne?

I need drugs; I need therapy.