The Ascension Of Bottle Man

The day that I had feared for so long. Still, what is fear but a doorway to the unknown. I'm not sure, but the package that was forced through the slit at the top of my box, made something evil move around in my lower stomach. The colour of the envelope, the shape of the typeset, and the built in government stamp; all signalled that something was horribly amiss.

This was my birthday present. For this was my birthday. I was 33 for the record, and I knew that somehow these facts and the alignment of certain planets in my sign, were intertwined. Fate had finally become aware of my existence. I didn't like the feeling at all. Insignificance suited me.

I opened the package with trembling limbs. Nothing could have prepared me for the horror of the contents. I had thought about the possibility in the darkest recesses of my mind. I had convinced myself that I could cope. I knew that my historically long run of human vegetation might not always be fertilised. No matter how much you train for a situation, reality is a sharpened knife with an icy steel blade and a hairy brute at the end of it. I was rocked by volcanic shudders. The evil in my stomach wanted to get out. I felt the oppression of the earth's masses beamed through my being. I was taken aback.

DEAR SIR, (in scrawled handwriting added as an afterthought, fuck off)

It has come to our attention that you have been receiving unemployment benefits for some time now. Our records indicate 15 years continual government assistance. Firstly, may we congratulate you on achieving a regional record. Secondly, I am sure you are aware of the new policy as regards long term benefactors.

Enclosed, is a certificate of merit to honour 15 years of outstanding effort, and some material to aid you in your search for employment. The CES records indicate that you are interested in aerospace acoustics. We suggest your search should be wider, and have supplied you with 53 cards, detailing jobs in areas that we feel someone of fifteen years government support should be aiming at.

With the cards are blood sampling kits, these must be used at the time of interview by both you and your prospective employer. Three separate samples should be obtained; one to be sent to the CES, one to be sent to Social Security, and the third to be retained by yourself and produced upon demand, with a current passport and birth certificate, to our field officers.

Also contained herein: a device that looks much like a Coal-miner's helmet. Apart from making you look more presentable and emanating an aura of job experience, the "flashlight" contains a video camera that records an image visible on a screen at Social Security. This object must be worn at all times between the hours of 6am and 11pm. A current passport and birth certificate must be held in front of the "beam" on the hour. The helmet must also be worn on demand, if approached by a field officer in hours other than the above.

Card 41: Green Hills Abattoir, contact: Ron Higson. The time an interview could be arranged was 4am, again the helmet and blood tests are imperative.

Again congratulations, your benefit has been terminated as of this date.

D. Trevicio

Acting Controller

Lewisham DSS

For a period I blacked out. When I came to, I was weak and nauseous. The room whirled around me; cardboard, newspaper, black and white portable, half eaten Fray and Bentos, pile of leaves, Glad Wrap window and the bottles. Above me, the hole in my box, the epicentre of the wheel of torment; shone the harsh rays of the outside world. I was discovered.

After the initial seven hours of uncontrollable blubbering, (l had by this stage put on the helmet and let the seeing eye rove around my abode in a shaky motion, so as D. Trevicio could get the full impact of the hideous suffering wrought upon my being) I was seized by a great rage. It washed over me with a dreadful seismic force. The helmet sitting like an automated lighthouse upon my naked form, shaking as if under the impact of enormous waves. For some strange reason I felt my horn fill with angry blood and point defiantly sky-lightward. (the first for a good three years) I let the helmet slowly descend, and gaze quaking, upon the reasonably massive shaft. How could they do this to me?

Was I not trying to help these people? Was I not at the very point, where the jewel that I had been shaping and polishing all these years, was now ready for general consumption? Was I not at the apex of the mountain, after burrowing steadily upwards from the inside, while the ignorant hoards scratched and clambered and fell off on the outside? In ancient times the king didn't receive Social Security benefits, he went out and speared you if you didn't give it to him. (or he got someone else to do it) And did the King live in a Batlow Apple container? No, he lived in a massive palace and everyone was grateful to him for accepting it. And, did he not perform the same function as myself and a lot less besides? For I am a King.

As steam blurred my vision, boiling off me, I realised that there was no way they could know the extent of their crime. Their vision was dimmed by years of ingrained minionship and narrow thoughts. The earth was already filled to bursting point with tasks that didn't need doing. Eons of repetitive motion left room only for blind anger, directed at anyone who might not want to join in. Me, I realised m y rightful place in history from an early age. (when mum took me down to the DSS and changed the lock on her door) I acknowledged that the human race had progressed, (perhaps too strong a word) and that there were many more positions available to Kings than at any previous time. Do not feel guilty if you are a King, feel proud. Let the anger of the buying, selling, stamping, typing, photocopying, memo-writers be your fuel.

And at that very moment, the pride that I had kept at bay for so many Years, began to swell. The temple of my soul had become tuned to my spiritual venom, causing me to vibrate wildly. I had already known that a breakthrough was imminent, that at any day my great work would reach its culmination. Today was that day.

My anger, at the overlooking of my Royalty subsided, and in it's place an overwhelming feeling of zenith filled me. Love, for the people who had given me sustenance for so many years. Love, for those who had unwittingly given me the key with which to enter the door, that I had for so long been knocking upon. Love, that by my own heightened physical and spiritual nature, was at the same time sexual and psychic.

And of course, the physical aspect of love reaches its pinnacle in orgasm. My body had been a neglected vessel for so long now, that I was frightened by the feelings carousing me. T had spent so much time at the mists of my inner being that my casing was like that of an infant. (even though it looked like an apple that had remained in its box for 15 years) I was extremely sensitive. My fear was chemically changed to intense pleasure, and my spirit roamed its sanctum wildly, running from end to end grunting and spitting and slobbering.

And, of course, all the while the crown upon my head was copping an eye full.

The physical aspect of orgasm is ejaculation. (or the female equivalent, and here I draw a complete blank, sad but true) The jewel contained in the crown upon my head, (by now thoroughly steamed over but regularly wiped clean by a flailing limb) was given a blast by the cream cleanser. However, when the physical is infused by the psychological, the moment is transcended. There was so much power in this one animal exodus, that the barrier between skin and thought was altered; electronically, chemically, spiritually, atomically. My self-love was channelled through space and time, and became a love of everything that was not myself. (a common feeling that I have in the morning, magnified a thousand-fold) I embraced all.

And now it becomes difficult to render the printed word understandable. The I becomes we. (I will still use "I" for the sake of ease, and my own acknowledgment of my own achievement; since no one else is about to do it)

I feel I am outside the box, the body, the earth, the universe. I look upon them with a new vision that perceives the physical as only a small sector of the whole. One channel on a mighty television set. A light yellow patch on a heavenly spectrum that continues well past the infrared and the ultra-violet. The box incinerates into itself. The helmet goes rocketing off into the COSMOS.

My naked form is now full of many naked forms. Shapes and tones represent the myriad of personality aspects. I see my mother talking to Don Lane, commenting about the positive and negative points of his late night show. A mouth (mum) kisses a long slender penis (Don) and bites the testicles, covered by greying hair with a dramatic part to the left. Don's eyes are huge Wheels of Fortune that endlessly stop on BANKRUPT, to reveal a totally bald Bert Newton. Perhaps I watched a little too much television during my years in the wilderness.

The sexual aspect of my sign is returned to me from childhood. Indeed the sensual reality of the entire universe is revealed through my new eyes. And I'm enjoying myself immensely. A baby in a bath of warm mud.

The female half of sexuality; softness, wetness, emotion and reproduction, joins my long impotent hardness and loneliness. The sheer expanse and energy of the cosmos is within me. The two sexualities caress and repel each other. An endless cycle of power.

I am inside Julio lglesias's well-salivated form. I have his sexual knowledge. (I sing a few Latin phrases in a tremulous high pitched voice) I am Priscilla Presley, as Julio enters me with the honed caresses of a man who has made love four times a day, to thousands of different women, for forty five years. I am Elvis, as I open one eye a notch. Waking from a deep sleep that pulls towards the centre of the earth, and that vast quagmire of minerals and chemicals waiting to be abused. With Elvis's eyes I watch the couple writhing to a Caribbean rhythm. Waterfalls of jealousy wash over me. Julio's snaky tango is joined by a pounding backbeat, to create an unpleasant cacophony not unlike dub-reggae. Then, penetrating the eternal cycle of deception and truth; violins. The cellos of acceptance, as each acknowledges the other as a part of themselves, and a part of me; the kettledrums. Perhaps I read a few too many women's magazines during my time in the darkness.

Now time and the infinite are perceived with the ease of colour and shape. I see the short history of man as a thin shaft of dark-aquamarine. The light envelops itself and explodes into stars and planets of the most incredible variety. From these physical points I can stand and look into other dimensions, and other forms of other things. (that will not permit me to put them into the English language, represented by a very narrow slit of medium-lightish olive with a four dimensional queen's head in it)

The spectrum begins to brighten and break up at one end, and darken forming even newer hues at the other. The stars hurtle towards the centre.

And I am momentarily at a loss for words.

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