Openly Queer: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

Yesterday: The Trouble With Being Open.

He ran down a side-street, away from the police, afraid to explain to them why he was out roaming bare-foot after midnight. As he approached a car parked at the kerb the door on the passenger side swung open, he peered into its dark interior from which a hand beckoned him forward. A deep masculine voice intoned, “I saw the cops about to hassle you, get in, I’ll give you a lift home.” Nerves ruffled and somewhat intrigued by the self-assured though hard-faced thirty-year old, he accepted the ride home and then asked the guy if he wanted to come inside and have a cup of coffee. He was being polite, not particularly feeling any sexual attraction, perversely wanting to see where it would lead, too young to know that curiosity can kill the cat.

As they sipped their Nescafe in the kitchen the macho stranger raved wild-eyed about his athletic teenage beauty, causing him to intuit something amiss, for there was an edge of desperation, a barely repressed hysteria in the cajoling voice, and he held back any sign of enthusiasm. The guy pounced on him, smothering him with kisses and groping him furiously. He resigned himself to some hurried bump and grind whether he wanted to or not; in these 1960’s dark ages young gay men were conned into servicing whoever asked, used like sex-toys to relieve the tensions of the unloved. He decided to be charitable and resignedly gave the guy a wan smile of acquiescence.

The creep reached down and whisked open his fly. Out popped this horrific penis it had somehow been ‘degloved’, all the flesh stripped off so that there was only a mangled little stump of white-purple gristle left, as if he’d tried to fuck a juice-extractor or had a bomb go off in his groin in a war-zone. The boy recoiled in horror as the stub of gristle throbbed; the blond stranger was ready for such a response, he pounced like a starving predator and grappled the lad in a maniacal fury, one hand tight about his throat, the other firmly twisting his testicles in an explosion of pain.

“Where’s the bedroom cunt!” he roared, dragging the boy out of the kitchen while Procul Harem’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” played softly on the radio.

The boy was helpless in his grip, he pointed the way and the monster dragged him to the back-room. Face tortured and ugly as sin the brute snarled filthy insults, “You dirty little slut, I’m gonna fuck you till you scream for mercy!”

Pleading for his life he was pinned down to the manky bed, his trousers yanked to his knees and his buttocks roughly tugged apart. He felt like a piece of soul-less trash, his humanity denied, worth nothing, just more meat jammed in the machine.

Clenching his teeth he submitted to a few vicious thrusts from the pulped dick, the ugly blond snorting and growling upon his back in distorted orgasm that was thankfully over in seconds. He felt the terror of the helpless victim who at any moment could be stabbed in the back repeatedly by a crazed serial killer, for this guy seemed a practiced rapist who had probably scoured the gay underworld in his disfigured fury.

The sorry bastard quickly climbed off and scurried back to his car, the boy chasing him to the front door shouting tearful curses, which were wasted, for this was one desperado who was already cursed. And, as ever, there was no going to the Cops about it, they’d only snarl how he deserved what he got for being a dirty homo and probably lock him up for his deviance.

Nor did he tell anyone in his circle of friends of this ordeal as he considered himself a naive fool and now damaged goods. It was hard enough holding onto a loyal boyfriend without playing the whining victim. One of his wise old gay mates might even preach homilies such as “The trouble with being open is a vampire might get invited in and you could get more than you asked for.”

His anxiety of being the eternal outsider was confirmed, perhaps projecting his own gay self-hatred. His big dream was that one day Gay Liberation would come, he would have more say in how his body was used and his life lived. He would be a swashbuckling adventurer, a wall-breaking iconoclast and a ‘contrary Mary’, some doors might close but the open horizon would beckon.

Today: Honeymoon For The Dying.

I hoped they could die happily, fulfilled, if only the old-school Director Of Nursing would be open to new approaches in aged care therapy and alternative sexuality. I realised there was some deeper connection between the two old men when I found them holding hands in the day room. It was serendipitous that their recliners had been placed next to each other, nothing in their notes had hinted at them knowing each other previously, though they were of the same age, both were on war pensions, had suffered head-wounds and had lived lonely, miserable lives in boarding houses.

Bill, the bald one, had been semi-catatonic in his dementia until Tom, the white-bearded fellow, had been admitted to the Nursing Home singing ribald songs and joking mischievously with the nurses. Within days Bill had come to life, looking in Tom’s direction, his eyes sparkling more and more.

I tried to convince the DON that the two old men would be good for each others' emotional stability if they were put together more often, perhaps to share a room. But he frowned upon such radical Utopianism, saying this was a Christian Nursing Home, not a licentious motel for deviant honeymooners.

Still I ignored him, making sure the two old men often sat near each other in the common room and I was happy to see Bill come out of himself with the encouragement of Tom who seemed to be reviving an old friendship, such was the enthusiasm of his chatting. Their reciprocal inspiration was such that I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have them share a room so when I went on night duty I arranged it with the excuse that it was more efficient for their "nursing care plan."

Tom was not only more cognizant of their situation, he was also more able to take care of himself and it was touching to see the effort he put into helping his friend shower and dress, sometimes even cutting up his meals and spoon-feeding him. There was a mystery in the special nature of their friendship that had me wondering as I sat watching throughout the cold, dark nights.

Then came the night I found old Tom in Bill’s bed, holding him close, and I left them to it, for what little comfort there was to be had in this creaky no-god’s waiting room was worth fostering. I made sure they were up and dressed before the day shift came on as the DON still was not open to such progressive humanism.

But he eventually discovered the arrangement and was outraged, separating them and admonishing me for my salacious liberalism. The octogenarian buddies became cantankerous and took every chance to get together again. Then one morning, when the Home was overly-busy, they’d gotten dressed and sneaked out of the building, without anyone noticing them absconding.

The place went into an uproar, every nook was searched, the police called, local hospitals checked, known haunts interrogated, all to no avail, the two mates had completely disappeared. The DON was on my back for a solution as if I was a privileged partner in the conspiracy. I found a key in the drawer of Tom’s bedside table and remembered the small suitcase he had checked into private-property. I got it out knowing I’d find some clues therein as to where they might have sought sanctuary.

Inside was a tangle of war memorabilia and underneath it all a tatty diary. When I opened it a pile of photographs fell out and, glancing over it all, I got the outlines of his tragic history.

There was the photo of young Tom and Bill in sailor’s uniforms on a ship’s deck, lying in each others arms, their smiles radiant. And a newspaper clipping of the sinking of their ship with many lives lost. The diary told me that he had thought his mate lost at sea, they’d been rescued separately, in a wounded daze, delivered to different hospitals and in the confusion of war never reunited. Tom had grieved for sixty-five years, Bill being the love of his life.

So where had they run away to? I intuited a hunch and rushed to the War Memorial in Hyde Park and found them there by the Pool of Remembrance, under a tree, facing the monument, just two more of the city’s paupers huddled under a blanket. They had died together, finally at peace, a war medal held out on the open palms of their right hands for all the world to see.

Tomorrow: Bollywood 2100.

He rocketed into Bollywood CE 2100 to what was an uptight society as far as sexuality was concerned, to compete in the championships of the world’s number one entertainment, “The Psychos”, virtual-reality games. At the peak of his gaming prowess, he was determined to open up the sport and the social possibilities to his own tribe, homosexuals, who were still outlawed in that besieged nation.

What a sight the city of Mumbai presented, most of it reclaimed by the sea, stepped-towers, broken-pyramids, branched-spires poking out of the crashing waves like a cubist coral reef stretching to the horizon. And in between floated vast rafts of flotsam and jetsam, slums made of trash and populated by thousands, barely clinging to life, living off what they could dredge from the ocean or caught as it was thrown from the towers above.

He had to be physically present for the public broadcast of the competitors being strapped into gyrospheres that allowed for 360 degree somersaults. Gay liberation had reached most corners of the world, except for Russia who were banned from competing anyway for drug-enhancements, and he’d managed to conference with many of his fellows in virtual chat-rooms and they had all decided on a strategy to bring one of the last resisting nations into the enlightened global community.

The Virtual Reality arena was on a low truncated pyramid surrounded by towers gazing down upon it and, while the aristocracy cheered from their crowded balconies, the male and female psycho-gamers waved to them. As he was jacked into the collective cyber-space the elite put on their helmets, ready to fly through the obstacle course with him, hoping to second-guess the solutions to the many puzzles that would block his way. He knew many in the floating slums below would also put on their cheaper VR gear, jury-rigged from appropriated techno-junk, for they needed the thrill of romance and escape from contemporary terrors even more than the rich.

An exciting beat of synth-trance music thumped and lifted his avatar, enabling him to dance as he flew, like a parkour athlete, leaping jagged mountains, riding comets flaring across spinning black holes, evading personal demons by boogieing in and out of monstrous clenching jaws and clawed fists that crashed down upon him. He had to have perfect timing, strong concentration and sharp wits to read flashing symbols and solve riddles that would open paths to get him further along the cyber-labyrinth towards the final prize.

And every time he met up with a male competitor they would dance together erotically, expose their common gender and then morph through the evolutionary history of homo homo sapiens sapiens, from ape-men to Siberian shamans to the Band of Thebes lovers fighting Alexander and his male lover Hephastion. And the female athletes did likewise, Amazonian warrior queens transmogrifying into Greek poets then 20^th Century scientists.

Dancing on, they recreated, with their partners, mythic animals, transforming into swans conjoined with wings aflutter or dolphins swimming nose to tail as if in yang-yang, yin-yin whirling Taoist circles. Two red dragons writhed and breathed flames, two white unicorns reared up and clashed horns, and two black-widow spiders spun webs in mesmerizing patterns to ensnare each other.

Votes for the winner were spinning in a bottom-left display, tallied from a panel of judges combined with those of the watching global public. As he had hoped, Gay Lib’s time here had finally come for he was in the lead with an Indian man he’d been courting in virtual arenas for a year. Holding hands they flew up to a monolithic gate that seemed to touch the heavens, bound by a thick chain above which was carved a cryptic legend for them to ponder.

“REVEAL THE MOST WONDROUS FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE  AND BREAK THE CHAIN OF HISTORY”

He and his mate laughed, the solution was easy. They threw themselves into a clinch, kissing passionately as they cuddled upon a rainbow cloud. “I love you! I love you!” they shouted to each other. “Love overcomes all obstacles.”

Two women joined this chorus of love and, levitating upwards, they all reached out and tugged upon the huge chain, breaking it apart and the colossal gate split open, allowing white light to shine through, dissipating the darkness. Even in cyberspace it reached them, a vision of the judges with the winners’ trophy held up to be shared and a vast crowd cheering happily, for conscientious humanity loved the possibility of liberation, the poor especially open to it. 

(These three stories were entered into a Gay short story competition which, on reading out the winners and highly commended banalities,I realized it was for Gay Readers' Digest type stuff,nothing controversial, rocking the boat  or outside the usual mind-fluff of Gay sensibilities and I was, as always, told to exit through the toilet. This infuriated me, surely one of my stories was better than the boring shit I heard them read out. Oh for the cachet of being "the great writer"; I will never go near this gang of old tea and scone grannies again!)

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If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

Born Again, Dam It!

I decided to kill myself, finding this world unbearable; whatever came next, after death, it had to be better, even if it was the Big Nothing. I had been treated cruelly since childhood, beaten, humiliated, cheated, robbed, plagiarized, crushed, framed, tortured, ignored, betrayed, well and truly fucked over, and I was one of the lucky ones. Countless souls had endured worse, human history one long litany of exploitation, theft and murder, the planet itself and all its life-forms in danger of destruction. I could stand it no longer as things looked to be getting worse and worse as each day wore on.

I cut my wrists in desperate jagged fashion, for my Society had provided little in the way of humane, painless euthanasia, and as my blood seeped away into my bed I happily heard bawling humanity and the uproar of the modern world slowly fade away to a whisper, a sweet choral of angels singing me to a permanent sleep. They could have their unjust, cruel circus, I was out of here, back to the cosmic womb, into the cool warm Void of the Interstellar dust.

After what seemed a brief infinity floating in the blissful ocean of Limbo I felt myself inexorably sucked down into a dark tunnel, the beeping of machinery growing in tandem with an over-whelming white light, until my consciousness awakened again and I was swimming in a glass jar looking out into a white-tiled, anti-septic room. Hell and damnation, it looked as if I’d been born again, the theory of reincarnation ringing true. I only hoped I’d be given a better go at life this time, my previous bad karma getting balanced by good karma now.

It was crazy but I remembered much of my past life, all those years of study, meditation, thinking and contemplation perhaps paying off; my pain, my rebellion, my determination to break free, all strengthening my heartbeat. Where on Earth was I now? Not in the flesh-womb of a woman, that’s for sure. The background churning of machines grew more insistent with the overlay of something like an alarm-bell ringing. The viscous fluid in which I was immersed drained away, then I was whisked down a chute and caught by a pair of robotic arms, my umbilical tube unplugged, my writhing body swaddled in bubble-wrap, my breath catching and my voice howling in protest. Noooooo! I’d gone through agony to drop out, I didn’t want to drop back in, especially to a clinical techno-tyranny.

I was carried from the artificial womb to a clear plastic box, possibly an incubator where various needles, suction cups and jacks were inserted into my body and a rubber nipple forced into my mouth. I reached up and felt around my skull to discover the jacks had been slotted into ports already engineered into me; seemingly a lot of surgical enhancement had been done on me throughout the growth of my fetus. I gazed out of my incubator and saw humanoid machines wheeling about, articulated robotic arms swinging from the ceiling and rows of cages with different-sized bodies interred, various read-outs underneath, diodes flashing, numbers tumbling, pictographs indicating a wealth of information for each.

And gazing down upon the whole baby-factory from a glass observation deck were a trio of white lab-coated technicians who were tapping notes into small tablets, only half-human themselves as they also had tubes and wires extruding from their skulls. I shuddered, this sterile world of automaton didn’t auger well, especially for a fabricated being such as me, and I forgot about any good karma I might have accrued.

As the months flashed by I was inundated with imagery projected into my head, a non-stop virtual education or brainwash informing me as to what kind of creature I was and what duties were expected of me. I learned that I had been given a highly advanced gene therapy that accelerated my physical growth and intellectual understanding so that by the age of seven I could take my rightful place in the hierarchy. But my intransigence only grew for over the years I learned to withstand the pressure of THEIR virtual education, consolidate a central identity and reconfigure the neural wiring. I trespassed into THEIR data stores and got an overview of the history of this future civilization.

I was moved from the Lab to a crèche and then to a school where I was able to have limited interaction with other “super-babies”, it was like relating to programmed robots, they fully believed in the System and were dumb to my questioning. I was unable to elicit any emotional response or attachment to anything, even my attempts at seduction. We were chipped and our movements watched from a central surveillance chamber so any possible intimacy with each other could be nipped in the bud. We were never allowed to go outside, the “Compound” being a prison. There were grottoes and fountains, factories and mining-pits, plazas and temples, and giant idols of an unfathomable Goddess holding up the cavern roof, through all of which I wandered, ostensibly exercising the musculature of my perfect body, actually exploring the layout.

My “genetic engineering” gave me the enhancements of enormous strength and endurance, dexterity and athletic prowess, my immune system was powered up to resist any disease still lurking in the environment, and I could even withstand high levels of radio-activity that threatened ever to break-out from the surrounding machinery. My problem-solving abilities, common sense, and intelligence quotient were heightened till my brain felt as if it would explode with too much information. I had to sort it into relevant categories, link it all up and provide a thesis as to what the whole fucking conspiracy was about, where I fit and thus hold onto some form of sanity. And that was possibly the big mistake made by The Masters, for as much as THEY needed intelligent slaves to do their complicated dirty work, to amuse them and keep their pleasure gardens functioning, intelligence tended towards rebellion, taking control of one's life and directing its destiny.

THEY injected me with vitamins and minerals, fed me nutritious foods, encouraged me to exercise like an Olympian and fed me a regular drug regime to keep me docile, obedient, resigned and happy. By sleight of hand I managed to dump the drugs, thus while I kept up a robotic, complacent and dopey exterior, all the time on the inside I was alert, watching, waiting, learning THEIR ways, THEIR secrets, THEIR goals.

Some of the babies were grown into zombies purely for use as organ replacement, others as monster-thugs for security guards. The more clever ones were trained as technicians, mechanics, scientists, horticulturalists, doctors, but all of them were slaves, all to keep the artificial, self-sustaining underground civilization functioning at optimal efficiency. For that’s what this was, a machine-run fall-out shelter cut off from a poisoned, dangerous world outside.

And what was my function? I was bred and trained to be a sex slave to the Queen of this whole brutal enterprise, a bloated mining magnate named Madame Ironheart. She was morbidly fat, a gross monster kept alive for centuries by organ swaps, blood transfusions, elixirs of life, the best food, drugs and life enhancements money could buy. That’s what her billions had bought her, not just a luxurious lifestyle of palaces, slaves and silks but near immortality, as well as this underground city to feed and debauch herself along with her fellow billionaires while they waited out the radioactive storms and acid rains raging above. 

My construction had been extremely specific, to fit the exact requirements of Her sexual fetishes, muscular, blue-eyed, black haired, dark skinned, a large penis ever erect and tireless. I was one in a billion and thus highly prized. THEY had farmed some DNA from the early 21st Century, from a stolen Blood Bank, stem cells in particular THEIR breeding-stock, not realizing it also came with its RNA memory stores, from which I got my memories of a past life, not the fabulous fantasy of reincarnation I wanked over.

I waited on her hand and foot, massaged expensive oils into her blubber, sucked on her pendulous tits, bit at her penile clit and fucked her relentlessly whenever she demanded. I even told her interesting, salacious stories to keep her libido whetted for that was the greatest requirement of my engineered intelligence, to amuse her. I  gleaned 1001 wondrous tales of pre-history and the 21st Century's "Fall" from the data banks, always keeping each story's climax till our next liaison for She tired of Her lover's easily. Except for me, I was beautiful, ever attentive and endlessly inventive in my entertainments. Thus she asked often for my talents, trusting me and speaking freely with her cohorts in my presence. In this way I learned the horrid history of her warped civilization, a story that explained much about my existence and which gave me clues as to how I might escape her clutches.

It seems there had once been a Golden Age not so long ago where everybody had been equal and wealth more evenly distributed, but greedy beasts such as Queen Ironheart, through cronyism, monopoly, dirty industry and corrupt deals,  took much of the world’s property for her own use. There was one nasty deal that more than others proved particularly destructive for the world but highly profitable for Ironheart and her rich,powerful friends and of which they often talked and laughed. They had conned their various nations into purchasing nuclear submarines with the threat of mutually assured destruction as a supposed Mexican stand-off to keep the whole game in precarious balance, submarines which cost billions to build, the companies building them majority owned by Ironheart’s cabals.

They supplied all nations drawn into any and every conflict, the British, the Russians, the Americans, the Chinese, the Indians, the French, the Koreans, so much profit from so much nuclear proliferation. Some time somewhere something had to give, one idiot pushed the red-button and all hell was let loose, the civilized world was thrown into flames then starved by a nuclear winter.

But Ironheart and her fellow billionaire shareholders had built their fortresses and self-sustaining bunkers all over the world  to which they had escaped, with life-extension labs, slave-quarters, organic gardens and pleasure domes sealed and safe. For some decades an army of robots waited on the elite families hiding in their underground cities, building and maintaining their artificial world. They had articulated metal bodies and synthetic skin, their brains arrays of chips providing  intelligence-algorithms, but for all the clever artifice they were easily discernible as glorified dolls and thus displeasing to the flesh hungry Rulers who needed real humans with their squishy flesh and submissive pathos to boss around, rape and fuck over.  

The same went for 3D organ-printers and stem-cell petri-dishes, such organ products didn't provide the same frisson as the gladiatorial contests and torture chambers where flesh and blood humans were torn to shreds and chopped to pieces for the sadistic pleasure of their rulers. And so the bio-technology of brainwashed slaves from cloned DNA was perfected and installed, the old robot technology kept only for the basic functioning of the machinery running the underground environment. 

The cabal of ruthless, soul-less billionaires had a weekly ritual of intoning prayers to their munificent Goddess, thanking Her for a history that had turned out kind for them. One of her cronies would sing a woeful song to get the Queen started. "There were too many of the fuckers breeding, out of work, eating the surplus and ruining the planet. It was a good thing a few billions got vaporized overnight when the bombs went off, then our euthanasia factories put the further billions out of their misery, no more suffering from starvation and disease, how kind we were, it was a grand idea, the world was finally under control!"

Then she would screech, “The masses were always fodder for the more deserving rich, it’s been that way throughout history, thousands, millions bumped off, tortured, abused, in wars, famines, gladiator sports, economic depressions. It was a divided world, nobody cared about the next fellow dropping off if there was a chance for oneself to survive. It was every man for themselves, with no chance of collective effort in fighting for equality and justice, no Socialist revolution possible. And we had the armies and police to oppress them anyway... hahaha!”

As Ironheart cackled idiotically over her crass confessions I was pouring her a glass of wine and couldn’t help but snort derisively and whisper under my breath, “Monster!" It was time I let her know who I really was. My sexual duties were becoming more onerous as the number of skin grafts, tumor growths, organ transplants and amputations had turned her into a hideous freak, repulsive to the touch. I discovered that the production line of clones couldn't keep up with her cabal's needs, she needed constant surgeries, there was some flaw creeping into the system.

 The bitch heard me and demanded I repeat my insult to her drooling fellow banqueters. “All monsters get their comeuppance eventually! For all your life-extension programs you are slowly rotting from within for your lot are the essence of corruption.”

She hissed like an overblown snake. “How dare you speak to your queen and mistress with such false assertions, such impious insults to someone who is so far above you I can crush you like the insect you are! You who I grew in a bottle for my pleasure I can flush out with the sewerage!”

“Oh go fuck yourself, fatso!” I snarled.

She shrieked for the guards to come and take me away. She had other sex-slaves just as pretty and not as insolent to take my place, I would be better used in the air-vents scrubbing out the radio-active dust, and when that torture had broken my spirit I would be dismantled for my parts. I was happy to get out of her claustrophobic confines, the huge air-conditioning ducts led up into the outer-world and I grew quite excited at the prospect of exploring them and furthering my escape. My genetic reconstruction had provided me with incredible hardiness and that shield against radiation so I was confidant I could endure the harsh environment the above-ground world threatened. I worked for some weeks as a dust-scrubber, all the while working my way up corridors, reading my wrist-detector for radiation levels. But they always remained high no matter where I went.

I worked tirelessly for weeks, and from my knowledge of the layout I had gleaned from Their data banks I knew I was moving ever upwards, labyrinthine though the tunnels were. I had to sneak and sometimes fight my way past monstrous freaks that haunted these outlying caverns, escaped clones that had mutated into grotesque dehumanized animals that hunted each other for food. In one intense fight to the death with a horribly deformed beast I managed to lodge my tracking-chip, that I had previously cut out of my wrist, into a deep wound I'd inflicted upon the creature and it lumbered away into the labyrinth to stand in as my ever toiling slave-self. I eventually found an exit but my radiation counter still clicked furiously in the deadly range. I scrambled out into the open air where a storm was raging, I covered my face with an oxygen mask to deflect the torrents of sand whipping about what appeared to be a desert. Oh yeah, trust that bitch to build her hide-away under a desert where nobody would venture to discover her betrayal of humanity.

I wandered into the storm, rationing my water, taking rest under rocky outcrops every few kilometers, getting as far away as possible in case she sent out a search party for me, furious that any of her possessions should elude her grasp. The further I went the less radioactivity I detected and this puzzled me till I realized the solution. The technology of the hide-out shelter itself produced a highly radioactive background with its fission reactors, ubiquitous computers and micro-wave robotics, so that the Masters sequestered below would never venture forth from their hole thinking the world above was permanently radioactive and deadly. What a ghastly joke on them, their bad karma come home to roost, it was their world that imprisoned them and would some day kill them, for entropy always won out in the end.

I eventually fell asleep and when I awoke the storm had abated and I found myself near a natural water-hole surrounded by a few gum-trees. Sweet, it looked like I was still in Australia. While I was drinking the fresh water a group of black fellows approached and also drank, one of them saying, “Welcome to country, good to see someone else has survived, bit of a surprise, those white gubbas sure were bloody fools, fucking the world up, no pollution out here though. But you could be family with your koori features. We know how to live off this land, you can join us if you promise not to cause any trouble, we’ll be watching you anyway.”

Hmmm... a new life, born again, hopefully better than the last, that old DNA of mine probably stretching back in direct succession for thousands of years because I sure feel like I've come home. They’ve promised me no slavery, no stealing, everything shared... life here was harsh, brutal even, definitely not romantic... but I’m up for it... anything was better than that sterile, rotting world below... I loved the fresh air, the smells... 

I was once a city boy, now I'm forced to forget all that, I'll have to keep my mouth shut, don't want to bring on civilization again with any bright ideas... hunting and gathering, following the song-lines, that'll have to do... and oh, the singing and dancing by the camp-fire at night... and the endless stars overhead to get lost in as I fall asleep... yeah, oh well, never thought it would come to this... no more sci-fi DVDs.

www.amazon.com/author/tobyzoates

If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.