God of the Game (Dreamstate) (44 page)

    Then the apparitions cooled and dissolved
, leaving the three of us alone again. But a victorious vibe is now in place. Jai-I smooches Trekz hard on the lips, tearing the suave suit off the Shape Shifter, revealing a lean and sinewy frame; both of them now naked, facing each other, hard
-ons
kissing at the tips.

    Ecstasy in eyes, staring yearningly
into the soul, they’re frotting each other off, four testicles cushioning by the skin of their sacs, as if bean bags pressed; cumming together, the white milky semen of Jai-I’s mixing to the black pearl caviar from Trekz’z genitals, turning the fused substance grey in tone.

    They’re drinking it back -
the Japs call this
gokkun
- fingering the blended cloudy coloured seeds and feeding each other off. Trekz tells Jai-I this will make him strong. Invincible. He needs all the power he can suck up to face Nimrod and horde.  

He
also needs help, assistance, friends who will fight with him side-by-side. I volunteered; so did Trekz, but Jai-I orders the Shape Shifter to stay behind. He rejects the young god’s authority, and the couple is embroiled in a domestic dispute, which escalates into an altercation, then a vicious fight. Boulders are chucked at each other, by hand and by brainpower, and I am running for cover.

Finally
, Jai-I’s supersonic scream stings clarion above the cacophony, exerting his influence. He enlightens. He cannot bear if he were to lose his love in the battlefield. Trekz is touched. Eyes puffy, they cry, they hug, and Trekz burns an enchanted tattoo on Jai-I’s palm with razor-sharp flaming fingernails, a seal that they belong to each other forever. It’s the shape of an olden rune, somewhat similar to the Chinese character for ‘person.’ It is an omen, and it will protect its bearer in war.

Simply, Jai-I rescued Trekz fr
om a bottle, from an evil genie; he is an androgynous temple nymph of the shadows of the flames of seduction; and in response, she is now forever indebted to Jahr’s son, forever shaped to Jai-I’s absurd and obtrusive cosplaying fancies. They are bonded, for Trekz’z sexless true-form necessitates a master’s sexploitation, thus allowing Jai-I the imaginative fun, so natural of his prodigious flare, to experiment with genitals,
and genera
, beyond the limitations and borders set by the gods of Creation.

Wherever Jai-I goes, Trekz follows; but if the Shape Shifter dies, Jai-I will lose part of his soul. And being familiar with Jai-I, I know he is one horrendous fucker when he is miserable. 
      

72

By divine revelation, the only way to overcome Nimrod is to stab a serum of bitterness into his heart. This would mean having to get up close to him, and perchance, taken prisoner to his realm. Nimrod’s a boy. Everything’s just fun to him, all play and no work; he does not comprehend the concept of suffering. Nimrod is pure. You can say he is absent of sin, he is innocent; all he does is intuitive and natural. It’s congenital of his species.

Adults cannot match the
spotlessness of a child. We carry too much burden, weights heaped on our backs as we journey through eternity. Loads we gather by unwanted experiences, crippled and retarded by the stresses of living. Encumbered. There is truth in the proverb about receiving the kingdom of god as a little one, as a
pampered
little one to be precise, one not thrown headfirst into the mire of adulthood; one eternally naive.

   “So what I’m trying to say is that Nimrod’s a green prick,” complains Jai-I, “thinks I’m one of his toys;
some touch-screen character he can box around.

   “But I won’t go down that easily,” he concludes, standing ground.

This is a classic case of the toy fighting back. Jai-I had to rewire, rethink, relearn. In order to defeat higher evoluti
on, albeit one who is preadolescent, Jai-I had to graze humility and accept the scheme of things. Why his father had allowed this disgrace is anyone’s guess. Trekz assumes pride, arrogance and rebellion at its nuclei; but surely, regardless the level of association Nimrod has with Leper and the Gunk, Jahr is allied to that neighbouring multiverse, thus he could have easily chastised Nimrod boy and end Jai-I’s dishonour. But he didn’t. Instead he allowed it to ensue, and he allowed Jai-I to suffer. And suffer terribly, at that; made vagabond, torn from his empire, death of most of his subjects, and the supplanting of the mind by a rabid disease which is nothing more than a game for a kid!? My educated opinion is that it’s all a ploy. It is part of Jahr’s way to make his son embrace destiny. How else can you explain Jai-I in JC’s ward? And the coincidence of
me
, his pal, present as well? “
Those conniving gods are up to no good
. That would be Vesper’s conclusion,” I said aloud.

Vesper, always the wiser, always the independent spirit, always believing in conspiracy theories; perhaps this boils down to bad childho
od. He and older brother Lucipher, the perpetual scapegoats for mischief caused, even if the tomfoolery is, at instances, executed by another of the heavenly family. Peculiar then that they adopted the symbol of the goat, or rather, the cloven-footed, horned beast with the goatee was purposefully slapped upon them. By whom? No one knows. Truths hidden under layers and layers of myths poured over centuries after centuries - similar to creation, the forming of the Earth’s crust plates, the genealogy of planets, a mystery - that only fables remain, and there no longer exist a history anyone can really claim.

A school of thought suggest
s we’re all one
big
, unhappy family. Every creature is related; but brothers don’t get along, sisters yell each other bitches, and parents are up to no good brainwashing offspring, not to mention rebellious teenage divinities. If this is so, then Vesper is an unfavoured son. The opposite end of Jai-I, a bastard indiscipline, unguided, one left to fend for his own survival, which he had done not too bad a job for himself.

Interesting that Jai-I and Vesper hang out. I sincerely hope there are no hidden agendas, that they are truly friends, beings at extreme ends of the spectrum chilling and lounging in bromance; for at this very moment, Vesper is standing on a seaweed coloured rock greeting Jai-I and I.

73

This is how the adventure starts:

We are at
Catacombs
, a sprawling underground city at the core of Jai-I’s perversions, recently hijacked by Nimrod’s army. Above, it’s an expanse of rock, and two enormous concrete bridges crisscross in the sky below the crystal heaven, a ‘firmament’, which gives off an expensive shimmer of jasper and other precious minerals - goldmines in the stratosphere. Upon those massive arches are buildings made of stone. It is an affluent aerial suburb built over the impressive metropolis, suspended like manufactured vine, like diamond teardrop pendants over the sanity of this multi-genus city.   

Our arrival coincides with the annual autumn festival of kites, and therefore,
immense zeppelins of an Oriental flavour are floating in the rigid airstream of this conurbation’s cavern. On ground, it’s a masquerade ball. Wigs, masks and ornate gowns are on parade. Red packets, lighted lanterns, firecrackers and lion dances blare, rattle and pop amidst children playing between cherry-blossoms which razzle-dazzle due an animated serpent-ride flying through the flourished trees with its happy-dragon-face and happier families riding in its intestines within a crusted stomach scaled with fluttering banners stroked with golden,
a-bling-bling
calligraphy. `Tis the time for haute couture, outfits not practical for regular life are given the chance to grace in an aura of madness. Monsters not allowed out, and fiends under supervision or curfew, both get free rein for the night.            

And what follows are some of the
bizarre and exaggerated monstrosities I was blessed to gaze, buffing over the grotesquery, a jacket on the shoulders of Jai-I’s implied insecurities:  

A caterpillar -
twenty-four-feet long - colossal, but attached to tiny butterfly wings. It never developed, in the pupa stage, to a colourful creature of flight. The miniscule appendages were just an unfortunate paralysis; and so, as nature’s compensation for this larva which never grows up: it doubles in size continuously, till it reaches the daunting dimension of a twenty-four-footer (
and possessing many more feet
); it is popular with the crowd, but only as a freak show, mainly the squirting flags of raw silk from its
udder
- which is a genetic mutation of the saliva glands - or when at the trainer’s shout of command, it rumbles and rolls upon its back and belly, garnering a host of whistles and claps spawned by spontaneous hilarity. For forever it strives to enter the cocoon phase and achieve a Lepidopteron destiny, but instead, it only provides entertainment for a shallow crowd. 

An image conscious, materialistic society is to ‘
die for
’ the silkworm’s product, wrapping themselves in the cool, smooth threads, and then, transmogrifying into symbiotic hybrids of flesh and fabric; chic clothes sprouting off limbs, torsos and abdomens.

How excitingly convenient!

However this fuels the caterpillar’s jealousy. Watching humans becoming beautiful butterflies is too much for it to bear. It’s as though the insect’s birthright was rudely snatched away and wildly abused - always the case living under the tyranny of those straddling atop the food chain. A natural lifecycle reduced to common fashion statements.   

But what is
it to do? Go the way of Godzilla in Tokyo city? The worm is but a slave. It has a domesticated mentality, strung to the genetic alphabets of servitude. As long as it lives, it spurns silky pleasures for the ego and demands of the supreme race.        

Next, supermodels strut
up and down the catwalk. It’s some designer’s extravaganza. The envied in-crowd on procession hibernates for a few suspenseful seconds, cocooned in the titanic bug - which doubles as a living, moving, brightly coloured stage backdrop - and then, as quick as lightning, unravels in a new line of wear. The metamorphosis from bathing suits to evening gowns beckoned amorous shrieks from the enchanted audience; and as if by magic, the silken threads are knitting, on the spot, new garments to grace the perfect sculpture of those beautiful ones.                       

Jai-I says we gotta blend in.
Nimrod’s spies are all over the place. You can’t tell from behind those fancy disguises who’s a figment of Jai-I’s imagination and who’s the enemy. And so, here we are, fresh from a bakery, garnished as cakes; painted-on attires which can be consumed. Perhaps it was the wrong choice, for drunken revellers were licking us off, eating royal icing off my head. A crack from Vesper’s whip put everyone in place. “Not too conspicuous,” Jai-I chastised the Evening Star. Not sure if he took it well...but,
shrugs
, now is not the time for trivialities.  

Regardless, we are no more sticking out of place. The destination is the city square, right below the point where the massive bridges X. A lazer of light sprays down from that interface, like a sky
-scraping fiery fountain, and heavy traffic is disappearing and reappearing to and from behind that shiny sheet.   

It’s a portal to Nimrod’s world, juxtaposing highways, a conduit to other cities. Everything he steals from Jai-I
go in there, everything he replaces with comes out from it. For example, the mushroom houses, the edible bungalows; Jai-I, caught dead, will not instigate such childish apparitions. As you know, son of Jahr is more of a cold unyielding persona. His creations are sex and anarchy; teenage rebellion staying put in adulthood.

So it’s quite easy after a
while differentiating the architecture, what’s an original Jai-I and what’s a fake Nimrod remodelling the blueprint. Even the people; if they are hairy bunnies, plush dragons, cute monsters, you can bet they are the god-boy’s. If they ooze sexual retardation, they also belong to the child deity. On the other hand, if the creation is horny and flirtatious, good chance Jai-I made them. Some are more confusing. Like innocent Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks soliciting you for sex. They were probably a red she-devil dominatrix and a golden-angel submissive before the symptoms of Nimrodititis started showing. Usually the disease eats the body before the mind, altering the manifestation from a genuine Jai-I to a Nimrod makeover. Occasionally it affects the lobes first. Then you’d have a cool Fonzie mouthing baby talk and soiling his jeans. Before long, he’ll be naked except for disposable napkins, sucking on a pacifier.

A hundred meters from the flaming dimensional door, Jai-I blurts out a disturbing truth, “I think I’m gonna refurbish ZOOL.A.ND.”

Vesper and I stopped short in our tracks, staring at each other, then penetrating concerned looks into Jai-I’s mind.

He continues, “Nimrod ain’t that bad. I can pick up tips from that young guy. My designs have b
een pretty much one-dimensional; too morbid in its hedonism, now that I ponder over. Need more dashes of colour. Need more childlikeness. Something more garish, more lollipop sucking, an amalgam,” he rotates his fingers, as if fashioning, “a cross between Nimrod and I.”