The Punk Rock groups led the parade downhill, through Chinatown, to the Ocean.
"Turn back, turn back!" screamed an effete intellectual snob. "The sea is NOT our home! Beware of the rising rivers of blood, beware of the Robot Animal Within. Turn back, turn back!"
But the Punkers marched, and everybody fell in step behind them. First came the Ludes and the Creepers, then the Dirks and the Blunt Instruments, then more and more: the Problem of Anxiety, the Daggers, the Funny Farm, the Noon's Repose, and the Troubled Midnight. And now it was not separate trickles, but one huge rushing stream: the Leapers, the Laughing Academy, the Foamix Culprits, the Mail Cover, Dr. Terror's House of 111 Repute, the Keyhole Peepers, the Wire Tappers, the Whoopee Casket Company. And over the shrieks and howls of their music, from deep inside the hidden recesses of Chinatown, the drums of Fu Manchu grew louder. And more and more were coming, stilclass="underline" Dashwood recognized the Muggers, the Synthesizers, Moses and Monotheism, Reefer Madness, Crazy Artie's Crisis Intervention Center, the Junior College of Cardinals, Totem and Taboo, the Things on the Doorstep, the Hoods, the Lanovacs, Six Flags over the Vatican, the Sleepers, the Beepers, the Roofers, the Cokers, the Thundering Hoofs, the Framis Stand, the Power to Cloud Men's Minds, and the Croakers.
Pickering's Moon circled the Earth, going backward. And still the Punks came: the Chocolate Mouse, the Tax Writeoff, the Welfare Bums, the Primal Scream, Baphomet's Witnesses, the Black Rabbit of Inle, the Vegetables, the Fruits, the Nuts, the First Church of Satan Scientist, the Tantric Presbyterians, the Huns, the Creatures from the Back Ward, the Special Children, the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Looters, the Shooters, the Scooters, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy Revisited, the Thousand Kim, the Seeds of Discord, the Benton Harbor Rat-Weasel, the Bloodshot Pyramid, the Wascal Wabbits, Crescendo, the Diabolic Variations, Skinnerball, the Committee for the Elimination of Death, the Weird Made Flesh, the Poor Golems, the Wretched Refuse, the Alluminum Bavariati, the Double Helix, the Goons, the Thugs, the Teeming Shore, the Unnatural Act, the Solitary Vice, the Morose Delectation, the Wrist Slashers, the Window Jumpers, the Kryptonite Kids, the Stay-Free Mini-Pads, the Elect Cohens, the Corpse-Eaters of Leng, the Miniature Sled, the Hash Brownies, the Boston Blackies, Kadath in the Cold Waste, the Neanderthal Tails, the Giant Slugs, the Sloths, the Disadvantaged Youth, the Albert de Salvo Fan Club, the Dead Kennedys, the Molotov Cocktails, and, loudest and most eldritch of all, Great Cthulhu's Starry Wisdom Band.
And overall there was a smell of fried onions.
???? Hierusalem, my happy home
???? When shall I come to thee?
???? When shall my sorrows have an end,
???? Thy joys when shall I see?
????
???? Thy walls are made of precious stones
???? They bulwarks diamonds square
???? Thy gates are of bright orient pearl
???? Exceeding rich and rare
????
???? There trees for evermore bear fruit
???? And evermore do spring;
???? There evermore the angels sit
???? And evermore do sing
????
???? Ah, my sweet home, Hierusalem
???? Would God I were in thee!
???? Would God my woes were at an end
???? Thy joys that I might see
It was dark in the room. His mother sang that song. She wore a perfume that smelled like lily-of-the-valley.
Dashwood cut through an alley where two ancient Egyptian priestesses were leading a captured UFOnaut in chains past a Dog-Headed God.
"Maybe Acid would help," somebody muttered.
SDATE YOUR BIZNIZ PLEEZ, the computer insisted. HOOKUP UZING IMPROVED EQUIPMEND TO AVOID FEEDBACK. SDAY TUNED.
A Dominican monk marched past carrying a sign that said:
JEWES WE KILLE
TO SERVE GOD'S WILLE
Strange messages were appearing on the computer console: SL LR MS ASK GREEN DREAMS TK X1826PCS M.Y.O.B. (MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS)
Simon Moon seized the microphone and began a long, unintelligible speech about the Drug Problem. In each of our major cities, he seemed to be saying, there are thousands of people who desperately need dope. For all practical purposes these people simply cannot live unless they get "high." He estimated the number of afflicted adults in the nation at well over 125,000,000, and said their habits included, but were not limited to, Valium, marijuana, Miltown, uppers, downers, acid, cigarettes, booze, aspirin, DMT, cocaine, peyote, and Coca-Cola. He called upon all concerned citizens to donate their surplus dope to a huge pile in the center of each city, to be called the Public Trough, from which the needy could take what was necessary to keep them functioning.
The window next door lit up suddenly, showing an ancient Hindu princess in Tantric rapture with a UFOnaut.
"Eternal Serpent Power," Simon was ranting. "If we all raise the Kundalini at once, maybe we can get through the Dark Night of the Soul and see the Golden Dawn. Three A.M. is the worst of it-that's the peak for UFO Contacts, murders, suicides, and Bad Trips."
A brutal group of Cro-Magnons came over the hill and began clubbing Ancient Astronauts to death. The Cro-Magnons were tall, blond, and Aryan; the Astronauts had the blue skin of Krishna and Quetzalcoatl.
A neon sign flashed:
HALL OF SELF-LOVE
THE AMERICAN DREAM ACHIEVED
DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE
LAW
In the first room George Washington was holding a movie camera on Linda Lovelace as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye. In the second room John Adams was holding a movie camera on Georgina Spelvin as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye. In the third room Thomas Jefferson was holding a movie camera on Annette Haven as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye. In the fourth room James Madison was holding a movie camera on Tina Russell as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye.
"What's the use of revolution without general masturbation?" sang a Punk Rock group called Dr. Climax's House of Dildos.
In the fifth room James Monroe was holding a movie camera on Marilyn Chambers as she masturbated and moaned, staring fixedly into the camera-eye, so it would register every expression in her eyes, every involuntary twitch of pleasure around her mouth.
A spastic handed Dashwood a leaflet headed "HELP EPILEPTICS LIVE AND WORK IN DIGNITY."
A girder fell on the one just man in San Francisco.
Anarchists ran through the streets screaming, "Aux armes, citoyens! The government is taking over our country!"
CLEAR FOR LAW-AND-ORDER DAY GREETING! blared the loudspeakers. FOLLOWING IS GREETING FOR LAW-AND-ORDER DAY.
Cotton Mather, Cotton Hawes, and Cotton DeAct paraded past with a sign saying:
YE POPE TO SHUNNE
A BATTLE WUNNE
A girder fell on an unjust man.
George Dorn realized that, amid all this nightmare imagery from the random circuits, he was coming back together again, a little bit at a time, coming out of the illusion that he was Frank Dashwood.
"Here it is," Cagliostro the Great said, handing George a book called The Answer.
George opened the volume eagerly. It had one page and said:
FLOSSING
"Here it is," Dr. Hugh Crane said, handing George a book called The Answer.
Frank opened the volume eagerly. It had one page and said:
Jan Zelenka was born in Bohemia in 1679, wrote in a style similar (and much admired by) Johann Sebastian Bach, died in 1745. Much of his sacred music is still admired, but perhaps his greatest composition was his Capriccio of 1723.