The Libyad

The Libyad

David Seals

The Libyad

copyright 1999 David Seals

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotations used pertinent articles and reviews.

Author's Note
Once again, Libya has emerged on the world stage as an inexplicable lead player in the georeligious dynamics of human affairs, out of nowhere it seems. For those whove never been to Tripoli or the Great Sahara of North Africa, on the exquisite coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, it is bewildering that yet another Barbary Pirate named al-Qathafi is bothering the stability of Arab oil markets and the march of democratic revolutions already begun in 2011, almost peacefully, in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt. For those of us who have lived and loved in Tripoli, it is far more than an uncivilized desert on the backwaters of history. Libya is, to put not too fine a point on it, a sacred place. It fascinated the Pharaohs, Greeks, Cleopatra and Caesar, the poets Homer and Virgil and Kit Marlowe, mythic adventurers Jason and the Argonauts, and other world conquerors from Mahomet of Mecca to Mussolini and Rommels Afrika Korps. The ancient prophets recorded that it is the birthplace of the original gods and goddesses Osiris and Isis, Athene, Demeter, and Dionysos; and for that precise reason Libya is not featured in the derivative fictions of Biblical and Quranic folklores, which are derived from the prehistoric indigenous Imazighen Berbers (the root word of barbarian), when all of Africa was called Libya. When I wrote my first very bad novel back in college in the glorious 60s, it was about my 3 years in Tripoli in high school, titled And Tarablus (the Roman name). In it a U.S. F-104 crashes in downtown Tripoli killing all the main Libyan and American characters in the book. 30 years later, blessedly, I began this Libyad with a little more finesse under my belt, and many other trips and friendships back home to The Meds wine-dark shores, home of The Lotus-Eaters, where the Pirate had replaced the corrupt old Caliph, and magic djinnis with petroleum. But it was still full of a lot of the same old 1,001 Berber Nights I loved in the date palm oases, which still inspire Libyans like Bourzed Dordah who wanted to talk to me about the chapter Libyans of Zuni in Barry Fells America B.C.. Never mind he was al-Qathafis wealthy Ambassador to the U.N., in a black skyscraper on New Yorks ritzy east side, and I was a penniless writer working for the lost cause of all-American Lost Causes - American Indians. No, we were fellow Libyan mystics for a few hours, talking about prehistoric cultures forgotten and scorned by the rest of the civilized world, impossible idealists, considered to be at least half-crazy, half-assed, by all humanity. (After that, al-Qathafi sent me his autobiography Escape to Hell to review) But thats Libya, goddamnit. Ive never seen more beautiful beaches, masterpieces of Phoenician ruins of Theatres of Dionysos, sweeter, more childlike people, or a land more apt for epic literature, anti-heroic gods, furiously raging goddesses, and a bewitching stranglehold over human vulnerability. David Seals Flagstaff, AZ April 2011

Book 1
Sing, God, of the journey home of a god beloved of the angels, hated by the mortals, Muhammad, heir to the Prophet, Sharif of Libya. Caught since his youth in the hateful lands across the seas of his enemies, in America, a happy man impoverished among the treasures of the enemy, the riches of the evil beast ever unable to break the heart or soul of immeasurable Muhammad, beloved of God. In Mecca his ancestors often assembled to feast in their golden and silver palaces, the royal lords and ladies godlike in their love and devotion to Al lah, al-Rahman ir-Rahim. There, of an evening glowing with the beauty of a sunset upon the holy lands, like heaven shining upon the most humble of those men in prayer bowing on their knees in thanks to God, and gratit ude, the sacred heirs of the noble houses of their immortal tribes feasted and held council upon the waywardness of their lost brother. "Dear friends and kinsmen," spake the Caliph Ali of Mecca, "as much as mortal man may be like a child of God, so our brother Muhammad is like unto a god. It lies grievously upon my heart, and troubled spirit, to know of his long lost wanderings overseas in the heathen realms, among the ma chine peoples, and we do nothing to help him. Nothing have we done, as like unto gods and goddesses ourselves, to help him escape the torments of modern American life and its awful pain; we sit here eating and drink ing and surely God must be greatly displeased with us, gluttons, envious and careless, quarrelsome Arabs who think of nothing but our own pleas ure." The golden feasting hall of the great caliph rang eerily with the angry out cry of its Lord, and his guests stayed silent in their shock; not a man or wo man dared utter a sound in opposition to their godlike King who sat in sor row and glum reproach at the end of his days, a man broken by a lifetime of limitless wealth, and power, and now, old age; his great white beard as long and sadly perfumed as his soft heart pampered by servants and women, and as empty as a heart abandoned by God. He was a man des pairing of his Faith. His Queen took pity upon her old husband and kissed

THE LIBYAD
his wet cheek. She was Fatima of another royal line of the old tribes, the most beautiful woman in all Arabia when she was young, in shimmering white silk. Even as a matronly grandmother kind Fatima was the essence of all that was virtuous in Mecca. "Dear husband," she sighed in a voice like music, "Why now do you lament upon old wounds? Prince Muhammad of Libya is long gone and he is thought dead by his own family. It is a ghost that must haunt you, or a black Djinn." The caliph shook his head. "None of that my dear wife. It is your old superstition faithless as that of the heathen unbelievers who think God would need have a Son. No, my sorrow is not my Faith, it is my loss of Faith! 0 God Almighty please forgive me! I no longer believe in ghosts or resurrection!" With that he collapsed to his knees, falling from his Throne at the silver feasting table and bronze goblets, cauldrons, of wine flew crashing to the floor, breaking the priceless dinnerware of his table and throwing glass against the wall. "A man cannot rise in bodily glory upon his death! So who are we?!" he wailed, "why are we here, as gods or men? I don't know anymore!" Women screamed and ran off in terror. Brave warriors felt ice freeze in their veins. "Only the Prince of Libya can say what I am, or what we ever were, and soothe my burning mind!" A wise old doctor whose name was Sheikh Mobruk, who was the King's oldest friend from childhood, gave the tormented man the medical powders perfected in Oman, made from the sultani root, that presently eased his nerves and put him to sleep. The ser vants carried the King lovingly to bed in the eastern chambers of the palace, where winds from tall date palm groves blew sweetly across the oasis like the breath of eternity and it was called Annu, the not-light of great Nu. Queen Fatima and Sheikh Mobruk sat alone to talk in the dark and now

THE LIBYAD
lonely empty Hall, Barren of laughter and feasting and joy; and they felt like the Kingdom had come under a curse, so quiet and barren seemed Annu. No stars came out to grace the lonely desert, and no music was heard upon the city so suddenly shocked: accused by the King of dishonor to a noble brother, Holy Mecca sang the sorrowful chants of the muezzin who comes in times of corruption and decay; and no one in the city could tell if it was an evil Djinn singing from the minaret or their own unhappy guilt and greed. "It is an evil time in Arabia," Sheikh Mobruk said, his voice cracked and broken by age and worry. "It is a time of testing our faith," replied the Queen. Do we believe in Goddess anymore, or is it that God may have al ways been our ancient idols, the deities of the Ka'Ba of ancient holy Mecca? These are questions at the heart and soul of our Songs. Perhaps They have always been made of the many gods and blasphemous god desses, and the Djinni of the Prophet. Old Mobruk stared in horror at the Queen like her words were the visible breath of heresy, an invocation of the most timeless evil power summoned by their ancestors far beyond memory; and the words floated in the air like visible smoke from a fire in the heart of divine Fatima glowing red like another dawn's early light, pink as young Pomegranates ripening in the dew, and then scarlet, and maroon, and purple as blood. "No," cried the old man, "say not such things, virtuous Queen, daughter of the angels and apostles, lest Gabriel and Michael themselves cast us, and you, and the holy city into eternal perdition and fire. No, do not utter such pagan oaths and curses. Instead let us call upon the Archangels for help in this most dire hour of our faith, and Islam: let us ask them what almighty Allah has chosen for the fate of wonderful Libya, Muhammad, which is nobility and courage personified; for truly, I remember that he

THE LIBYAD
was once a great general in Lebanon at the Bekaa Valley where the Temples of Baalbek honor God. I know that he was last seen there as an heroic warrior a third of a cen tury ago leading our armies like the glorious Trojans against the infidels of Danaus and the tribes of Dan, in Israel, and long-suffering Palestine. He had gone off in 1967 to volunteer for war against evil. He was never seen again, I think. We must ask the muezzin to cry for help from Gabriel her self, Allah's left hand, whose trumpet is the clarion call of truth, She will know what to do. She will know the fate of the ancient Trojan Prince (who was also Aeneas, the founder of Rome?), for Gabriel is truly the messenger of heaven whom the Disease Greeks called Hermes [and he winked be hind Fatima's back] or Mercury. Oh yes, I know your pagan angels. I note your look of awe, I know the classic songs of the Trojan Homer in sacred Turkey and all of Phoenicia called Canaan in the Egyptian and Greek Bible. Those are not holy songs unknown to the Prophet or any of the apostles since Ishmael and Moses. Look not upon me with wonder in your eyes: every Muslim of Shiite Africa and Sinai is learned in the ways of the books of wisdom, of God, if he is a true son of the angels and the apostles. I know you are sorrowful as woman, bearer of children, the instrument of God's Love, so bear with me as we summon the Angel Gabriel in our prayers in all mortal humility; and if her mother is Hera or sister Athena, Tanit originally west of Egypt in Cyrenaica, Isis Herself, Goddess Eve, Ish, Hwt, Ewa, and chooses also to hear our prayers, so be it, the will of Al lah." And so said old Mobruk, and Fatima looked upon him with wonder in her wonderful eyes shimmering like silk. "You old Goat, pandemonic trickster, old uncle, I do not question your wis dom nor your intentions, nor your knowledge of the saints," she replied. "I

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THE LIBYAD
too have marveled at the sacred scriptures of Annu and Ra-Moses and Vir gil, and John Mark the Divine. But is it not a greater heresy than mine to say you can call upon the archangel at will? I am amazed we are not both struck down by the thunderbolts of Olympian Allah!" They laughed together in friendship in the Night, an uncle and his niece in the silvery silver palace. "It is only in honor of God that we are spared," wrinkled Mobruk smiled, his eyes kinder than before, "to speak as honored scholars of Zeus, who is Set: the murderous brother-father of Osiris, who is Dionysus: who is the son of A'tem-Ra - the clay of Prometheus. They are God. They do not frown upon their relatives, I do not think. An-Heliopolis after all, is the City of the Not-Sun: They love a good turn of wit and irony or They would not have created so many jackasses in the world, and spitting camels!" Fatima embraced the giggling old fellow and cried "Or so many Goats like you! So much laughter!" With a smile in their hearts the two old friends agreed to commence the honorable War and went outside in Mecca. Indeed, upon the dawn's light the earliest day was not yet young, or born, and glorious night lit the caliph's holy Palace like a dream that was lit only by the Night, Black Egypt, blackest of all red friends. Blackness within blackness lit their path through the Old City asleep, where only shadows moved among the Khu and Sekhem phantoms and the shade under ever green palms. Moving celestially like the Moon in her darkest deepest or bits they circled the Ka'Ba muezzin and prayed for Gabriel to help them and their King and the great Archangel of great Allah heard them.

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Book 2
On the wings of a dove the prayers of the godlike Mobruk, sheikh of holy unhappy Mecca, rose like the dawn's darkest light into heaven along with the cries of the queen, Fatima, goddess of the Red Sea beautiful as the white silk, and there the words of their prayers were songs as beautiful to the Angels as the music of birds. "Mobruk is the Kher-Heb priest of the rain," sang the melody in the wings of the black dove shimmering like sat in in the wind cold as Night. "He is the Sud-Ani medicine doctor, RainMaker of the book of sacrificial songs.'' The song flew up from the Black Ka'Ba to the Seven Heavens across the Sea of Reeds to SEKHET AARU, the mansions of Aaron and Moses and celestial Gabriel heard them at the left hand of God. All of the seven mansions and halls of the Immortals had to be passed through before the deceased sheikh and queen could be heard by God. (The first of 99 Names was TEM, later A'Tem, or Adam.) Gabriel was singing, "Great TEM, Atmu, existed when Not was sky, Not was earth, Not were men, Not were born the gods, Not was death." God smiled and They were pleased and All was well. God spoke, and his voice was of the same silence as the gravity of the universe, as heard by Mahomet the blessed Prophet and Messenger of the seven heavens: and it was a vibra tion like magnetism in the bones of the world - the black stones of the stars. "I AM well pleased with your praises, as always Jibra'il, Hero of God, my incandescent voice. You are the transparency of Egypt, the alabaster of the Black Land. You are made of my mind. But tell me, from what sweet source arises this fragrance upon me that I smell from below? I have not sensed a sadder or sweeter smoke from somewhere in many a praise worthy moon. From within what profound darkness, I ask of you, in the freezing chill of eternity black Angel - where does this offering arise, ori ginal, eloquent smoke from the wing of a bird? Is it a song of some invis ible breath below? I know it is a perfume like rain, and rock." Gabriel replied, "There are so many prayers, Lord, sweet music from a bil lion faithful souls all over the world, that I cannot say which one it is you

THE LIBYAD
sense as, the Only One of creation. If you wish, I will fly below as swift as air and investigate." "Good," said A'Tem, the only One. "Go. It is my pleasure. I am delighted." Gabriel bowed in honor of her position, backing away in awe and terror of The All'A whose face was covered with twenty thousand black veils and 99 Names - for it would have been annihilation to look upon its glory, and obliteration of light. She remembered when Mahomet the Messenger came into the great invisible Hall of Heaven traversing quicker than thought the immensity, passing through the two regions, the Two Lands of dazzling light and The Only One of All-Darkness. The Messenger sat very still in his ecstasy at that very moment at the foot of God and smiled radiantly at his friend the Archangel. They clasped arms in the very Not-sight of their beloved Lord, his hall fragrant of rain and flowers in the clouds like a spring thunderstorm. Gabriel and Mahomet had done great deeds for God and were rewarded with great pleasure in Paradise. Mahomet thought they were once imper fect mortals sprung from the body and mind of his Father Abd-Allah, the self-created, self-existent, who was Not. "Sweet Angel," the Messenger sighed peacefully (for Gabriel was the most beautiful goddess in all Cre ation to him, the Ka of his beloved wife Khadija, first convert to Islam, like shimmering satin), "The Compassionate, the Merciful, has heard the pray ers of our kinsmen below, in Mecca, unhappy Makka, and they are songs to God like rain to God. Let us both send our double ghosts, the Kas of im mortal breath given to every mortal by God, the compassionate, the merci ful, to see what it is unhappy Arabia most desires." Gabriel loved the messenger like a handsome man made godlike in the eyes of the woman who loves him. He was still a great bearded man of youth and wisdom, his Ka a divine gift of God; for all creation knew that God loved the gifted. To Gabriel Mahomet was the Word of God and to

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Mahomet Gabriel was the Hand of God; together, they had done great deeds for mankind and written the word of god by the hand of god (but her hair was pitch-black and her skin the oil of Libya). They knew that only the prayers of the Deceased could be heard by The One, even as woman and man - the queen and the sheikh were Mortals alive in their Ba, and Ka. The mortal bodies of men were like the stars, mere pinpoints of light, of suns and galaxies, in an Ocean of black space. God did not always distinguish one pinprick of mere life from another, like Mobruk's songs from another's, and Fatima's. It was left to the angels and apostles to see to these affairs of men beget in the body of God - Evangels. Swift as the air the Archangels flew to earth and disguised themselves in Mecca as an old man and his wife, pilgrims of the Hajj. They saw the queen and the honored sheikh in submission before the altar, the black body of ancient Sabaea, kneeling in the darkness. The toothless old wife of the pilgrim, feigning a Syrian accent in colloquial Arabic, tapped Sheikh Mobruk on the shoulder, "Wa-as-salaam Alaiku." Mobruk jumped to his feet in alarm. "What! What?" "I'm sorry old Gentle man, to disturb your prayers," the Archangel said, wrapped in a shining mist, "but can you tell me the way to the well of Zem-Zem? My foolish old husband and I are blind pathetic pilgrims from Baalbek in Lben-On, and we do not recognize anything here anymore in this modern city. Forgive my stupidity." Old Mobruk marveled at the foulness of the hag, for he knew immediately it was the Angel of God. He took her gnarled and trembling old hand gently and kissed her dried skin and brittle bones, No, it is you gentle Lady who should forgive me, for startling you when I jumped up in alarm. Here, take my brocaded cloak, for I feel you are shaking in the twilight's cold air, and your thin rags cannot keep you warm in this deserty night." He also gave her a bag of ancient gold coins of secret scriptural evidence

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which could only have come unto History out of some Arabian Night in another age and time. It was clear to them they were in a sacred place, where no man could say whence he had come, or whither he would go. It was not a story these actors knew beforehand nor was it of a modern time or an ancient. Fatima stood by, trembling in the cold air too, knowing she was in the presence of divine Genius remembering the caliph's lament - "Are we gods or men?!" - and knowing her prayers had been heard; but she did not know what the answers would be. She took the old pilgrim's hand in the twilight, "Humble Sir, permit me to show you the Well of Life. It is right over here. Please. As-salaam-alaikum." The old pilgrim smelled of poverty and humility. "Oh no, kind Lady, for I see you are the Queen, the great-grandmother of the Quraysh Nation. I could not submit you to soiling yourself with my decaying touch. I am only an old fool." Fatima put her arm around him, "Oh no, no, for Allah is in the least of us, in our Belief. It is we who are the fools who are the rich, to think Allah will reward us who are already rewarded in lite, merely for espousing we are Muslimmim. Come, old Gentleman, drink of my grandmother's well and feel her power of true belief nourishing your bones, like the stones of the Ka, and the body of Ba, and turning your brittle bones to immortal stones." The Messenger saw then his daughter's true faith, as the Archangel saw her priest's pure submission, and the four honest souls drank of the Well of Zem-Zem. When their thirsts were refreshed of the holy water of the well where Abraham and Ishmael drank and when Jesus was dying of thirst in the desert, the four Immortals returned to the Great Mosque, the cold and forlorn palace of the caliph Ali.

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THE LIBYAD
As lovely Dawn mesa across the eastern Hejaz of Mizrayim [the brother of Cush, Canaan, and Put], the two noble lords and the two noble ladies sat beside the bed of the sleeping old Emir. "Husband," Queen Fatima whispered in the rosy dawn, "holy pilgrims from heaven are here to see you." She spoke like a dream into the old man's ear. "The Evangels have come to answer our prayers, I think. They alone know the fate of our brother Sharif Muhammad. Tell us, kind lady, if you please, where he has gone and what has become of him? For we are more lost than ever without him, as long as he in lost, and more hopeless than ever. For we do not know who we are anymore if our Emir, the Sharif of Sharifs, King Ali does not anymore know what we are - whether gods or men, dreams or death - nor why we are here to live or die, or pray to the ima ginings of mad poets. Is it true, as the soul of our king has cried, that only the Prince of Libya can say what we are, or who we ever were, and soothe our burning minds?" So spake the virtuous Queen Fatima unto the poets, her whispers like a desert wind in the halls of the marbled mosque decorated in gold and sil ver with kufic designs on the classical walls a question for God as cool as the breeze. The old pilgrim from Baalbek in holy Lebanon who was the Archangel Gabriel, the black hand, put her fragrant lips on the queen's pale brow. 'Dear sister, your question is a lament of faith and your request an effort of your heart, I know. Can it be that you have forgotten the truth of Mizrayim, of Egypt, the 'HET-KA-PTAH', the most ancient name of all God's chosen lands from Memphis: 'The Castle of the ka-souls of Ptah'? Ptah is Put, Put is Libya, Libya is Memphis. Arabia is Libya, Arabia is Sabaea, Sebha is Libya. Canaan is Libya, Lebanon is Libya, Cush is Libya. Abraham was not from Ur, which was a Babylonian rewrite of the ancient texts, false Hebrew of Ab-Ra distorting hated Africa, anti-Hamitism,

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but Ab-Ra-Ham the heart of the Ra of Ham was father of Libya; Sheba, Sebha, the Queen of Lebda, Ludim, which is Af-Ra-Ka, from which Ifricus the king of Sebaea and Sheba was the source of Solomon of the al-Psylli Nation, and the cedars of Lebanon and Hiero-Solyma, Jerusalem the Mount of Zionai of Moses son of Ra. All the world was divided into Europe, Asia, and Libya. All the world were the three sons of Noah who was Nu, Nut, the black oceans of Adam's creation Set [Zeus], Ham, and Japheth. And here it was the holy messenger of The All [Pan] returned in me to restore the sacred worship of God, of Goddess, the Black Stone, the Ka'Ba of Egypt and his heirs the heart of Ra, the son of Ra, and Mosis, the Ish [or Eve] of Ra-El. Het-kau-ptah, Hikaptah [of the Coptos of the Nile of Cleopatra]. So there it is the holy son of whom you asked has gone, Sharif Muhammad of Put and Cush, Canaan's brother [Cain], the true heir of Caesar. DIVI FILIUS. He is alive but underground in jail. I will fly back to heaven at the left hand of God to ask of him, Ra-him, for his merciful permission to go to the far western lands across the seas of the blue Atlantic, home of the gods of great Atlas, and put the fear of God into the ears of the jailers of the sac red Prince, and coerce them into freeing him. All things are possible for almighty Isis. As to your Sharif's long story of a lost century by a third he alone must be left in peace to tell it." And when the old Emir awoke in the dawn of Mecca it was as if his dreams had flown out the window, for he was alone in the cold marble bed of Anubis of his limitless wealth, his sor row begat by a lifetime of pleasure and power and desire; and all he could do was cry into his pure white beard and remember his long lost wife, and his dead friends, and hope that God would be merciful to him, for Mahomet was the messenger of Allah.

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Book 3
Gabriel flew back into the seventh heaven, but already Michael, the cham pion of Eretz Israel, was singing praises before the Throne of God. God could not be flattered for He was Allah-knowing Adam and Adam-know ing Eve, but he was displeased by the absence of his black angel Gabri elof the left hand; and Michael had clouded Their mind with his songs of the beautiful midrashim, and it was a glorious song of Hebrew thanksgiv ing. "Great Majesty," Gabriel spoke when the song ended, "forgive me for my long absence, but your Emir in unhappy Mecca had forgotten one of your names and I had to labor to remind him of it, and You." "Jibra'il," the Thunder boomed like the spring rain, "you have left Islam untended for too long. I am not pleased. What name of mine you speak of has been forgot ten in ancient Mecca?" Gabriel looked at Michael, all-powerful Lord of light. He was the most ra diant man who had ever lived and his radiance like the sun blinded blackseeing Gabriel, until she was unsure of herself for a moment in the Great Presence and stumbled before the Throne, shrouded in seventy thousand veils of sunlight; and she fell helplessly at Adam's left band. "Great Lord, forgive my stupidity, for I became a withered old hag for a moment, on earth below, and forgot how to fly. In my sympathy for sor rowful womankind I had forgotten they had forgotten your holy name of Libya: androgynous angel of death, Saharan deity." Michael laughed and helped Gabriel to her feet, feigning friendship and kindness before God the Father. "Libya, my good and gracious Sister? Allah I know, and YHWH, Isis, the Red Dragon, the Christ, Zeus, Adam, Eve, Baal, and Ad onai, these and 89 more I know of of the 99 Names of God. But Libya? Where is that ever in the liturgy? Praise be to God in all his names and all the seventy princes of seventy lands of Our Lord, but who or what and why has this strange word so suddenly come upon your most musical of tongues? Beautiful Gabriel, blackest beauty of all Africa, I think you have confused the Black Nile of Ham with the wastes of the western Cyrenian

THE LIBYAD
deserts. It is a dream of a powerless and faithless Emir that has haunted your own demons of mortality." She could see that beneath Michael's shining glory his hatred of Arabia and Africa was an ugly flaw; an ancient revenge for centuries of blood feuds between the tribes of Isaac and his brother Ishmael. She herself could not forget or forgive Michael's legions who had sacked Troy and Memphis, the twin bastions of her poets Homer and Thoth; then, lying throughout history and claiming them as his bards of bloody Greece and violent Judah! 'No, kind brother, it is not faithlessness that haunts the Emir Ali of Mecca, Sharif of Sharifs, but rather his own worldly-minded broad ness of mind, the globe-girdlinq intelligence of the Arab. Perhaps your own demons from Tel Aviv and Rome have made you think almighty God needs us as intercessors for the prayers of men? Surely you don't think God doesn't hear all, from the cry of the smallest baby to a king? What need would Adam have to be told whether Libya was in his liturgy or not? That question could only be posed by the Unbelievers of Jerusalem who think God could have created evil, or a devil, or Satan, or any form of hell. No. Those are the imaginings of your own faithless legions, Michael, contradictory to monotheism." Michael's anger seethed beneath his serene demeanor. His fellow immortals, from David the psalmist to Joseph and Moses the pharaohs of the Light, gathered behind their champion, grumbling before God. But Michael spoke more eloquently than the poets of the Torah and Samuel, "I am always happy to have these good theological arguments of Talmud. I am glad to hear the pagan worshippers of the idols of Arabia know about monotheism. Your Arabic tongue does indeed owe a great deal to the Hebrew and hieroglyphic denouement of polytheists on both sides of the Suez Canal. Just when did the Mohammedan hero-worship cult branch out and away from the mother tongue; or was it from the fath erland persecuting Joseph's slaves, and the homeless children of 'Pharaoh'

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Moses, was that it? Or were they the sublime Berbers of Libya, barbarian nomads the Chosen People in the Promised Land of Libya, land of milk and oil, west of Eden? Have we confused our holy Scriptures and our his tories for, lo, these thousands of years? Have your songs of prophecy be come incoherent, Gabriel?" The legions of the left hand of Allah grumbled, angrily assembling behind their blackest sister the woman of God, Gabri el, kneeling at the foot of Isis, Ish [or Ishah of Yisra-el], Eve, who was the 'adamah of the prehistoric Revelations. "Incomprehensible Majesty," sang Gabriel sadly, "Mistress of all Creation and instrument of God's Love, can you tell us the holy secrets of your Name and how they have kept our noble relative in prison for a third of a century, Sharif Muhammad? For I assure you his sister and royal friend Queen Fatima of Arabia, she who is like the silk, shimmering, loves you with all her heart and soul." As the angels and apostles watched and waited in ever-growing irritation and frustration God behind her veils of seventy thousand suns held up her hand - to the left of her husband and motioned for silence and calm patience. The lords and ladies of all the sev en heavens felt the Eye of the Creator scanning their faces for the truth in their hearts, and minds. She saw Hera and Athena powerfully at the side of Jibra'il, and many others of the black lands overshadowed by Michael's glorious armies of The Light. She saw the elusive Jesus Christ lurking in the shadows at the right hand of God; and all his saints and the apostles of John called the Baptist, called Onias [Aeneas] or Honi. "The Legend of Ra and Isis is your God," She spoke in the Voice as silent as a magnet. "Whereunto Sharif Muhammad has gone in chains you must inquire further of the Roman slavemaster Jesus, who of course is the Son of the Queen of Egypt. You have Our permission to free him, Gabriel: if it also pleases the Lords Moses and Christ: for We have heard with delight your queen's prayers and also those of the agreeable sheikh Mobruk. I will tell you what the poets of TAWY have told Me of the gods, and you

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can then tell me about God, most musically gifted trumpeteer, Archangel, and thereunto, perhaps, liberate The Prince of Libya. Adam created him self of Us. It is that self-creation that first makes Us God. We are the Only God because I was the serpent of Adam, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. Remember? We made the beasts and the cattle, reptiles and fowl, fish, and all the breath of all the fire. We made it from the blackness and the thunder's silent words, naming it all in paradise, in colors. Gabriel is right - we could not conceive of evil. Michael is right - only the faithless dream of demons. There, lurking in those who cannot believe is the serpent, a serpent as foulness like a hag: and I am Isis, the serpent of Adam - A'TEM-RA. Millions of gods and millions of spirits and millions upon millions of emis sions Adam let go forth upon the earth, spilling his seed into me, through me, for my name means 'The Black Bloody Earth'. Let only the faithless say I am Eve'il -the goddess of Eve! Let only the unbelievers say I am Many when I AM who HAM, the On [or Anil and Only of ANNU, Heliopolis, and the On of the Necropolis! Let only those who would imagine pesti lence abuse my beasts and say they are of the Eve'il; any who would say there is Disease in God's World do not believe in God! They do not be lieve in Us. It is their own unnatural mutations who are 'evil': those who do not believe, or Know, of the fullness of Black Space - it is they who have miscreated Pain; it is they from whom pests and mosquitoes have been born of their own bacteria, viruses, of the mutations in the ignorance, sav agery, murder, of animal lusts. Adam did not create evil. Eve did not cre ate evil. When the Holy Serpent drove her fangs into him the Dragon's Eggs conquered all his members, and it was the milk in my fang that is his bone of life- which becomes poison only in an unbeliever's body. Just as Hapi the Nile River conquereth all the land through which She

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floweth, so does Isis love Ra. I AM Mizrayim HAM married to Pathros the southern Upper Nile wed to the northern Lower Lands of the Mediter ranean delta, TO MEHY of TAWY, PA RESY [PTAH the Everlasting ser pents Sera and Af]- Af-Ra-Ka: Sebha: and the other serpents Aapep and Temu. 0! Sing to me these ancient songs of creation to still the blood of creation boiling in my heart! 0 God, my father, lover, and ancient brother upon thy bed is my altar of ecstasy and joy! Ease my ecstasy with your songs, blessed Evangels! Tell me that Ptah is the most ancient name Pro metheus thrown out of heaven, Hephaestus the blacksmith, forger of fire, binding me to Him at the ribs with his black iron shackles made of the Met eors!" The scream of joyful torment of their Goddess in love's creation shook the Firmament of the world; and all the awestruck legions of all the heavens trembled in terror on their knees at the Fury. It was all the apostles and angels could do to back away penitently in prostration from the Pres ence of God, veiled as They were in their joy as Creator; humbling the former immortals as mere servants in the Presence of the illimitable Uni verse. No malakh or Sanctus or djinni or prophet could ever hope to fathom that endless Oceanus of God. They backed away from the invisible (which throne may have been as much like an altar or a bed of clouds for all they knew) and gathered in one of the lesser chambers of paradise, though still luxuriating in a garden far surpassing any mortal domain of Beauty. Trem bling, and filled with The Passion still of their incomprehensible Lord and Lady, the angels and apostles filled their chalices with sweet wines and ambrosia to ease the exaltation of the hour. They feasted as well on every kind of good food and drink known to the gentlest orchards and pastures of graceful earth, until they were satisfied; and had recovered from the Evening's delights. Many delicious draughts of divine knowledge also filled their wonderful enquiring minds, as full to Moses and Jesus and Ma homet as any of the Revelations they had known as men. "The bounty of

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THE LIBYAD
God is as great as God," Moses sang, a man who had been as great and proud as his peers, the gracious John and Mahomet whose ka-souls were also known as Jesus and Gabriel. For a while, Peace filled all the frus trated Prophets of Israel, Arabia, Rome, and rational Athens. 'Perhaps, it has been too much bounty for us, for one day," suggested the archangel Raphael, she who was still as the holy black stone-meteor she still wore around her neck, when Abraham had given it to her when he found it in a cave in Eden, according to a story Raphael loved to tell. The others stared at her with puzzled frowns. "Too much information, I mean," she explained. She it was who had first brought Adam-Ra the books of knowledge of Emmanuel at Hebron, and was known as a fair arbitrator and healer never siding with either Mi chael's partisans or the factions of Gabriel. Friel was the fourth archangel, a champion of Egypt, but also of Enoch and No [Noah], so therefore a partisan of Hebrews (at least when they were still the Hebrews of Egypt). "You're right," said Mahomet, "It's beyond understanding." Moses nodded. "God can only be glimpsed at best, when He recites in Thunder to us His sacred Books. Anything else is Probably the madness of Poets." Gabriel looked at Jesus, to see whether he was divinely inspired too, or only another crazy voice who had once been crying alone in a wil derness. It was all too much for any of the mortal halves of the gods and angels to grasp, in the Ka'ba. With God's permission and the blessings of Goddess Jibra'il flew back to earth to find the Prince of immortal Libya, Sharif Muhammad; he alone who might soothe the burning mind of the gods and goddesses of holy Mecca; and he whom no man or woman, Genius of the desert or god, had sought for thirty-three long years in the far heathen lands of the lost worlds.

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Book 4
Sharif Muhammad sat alone in his jail underground as alone as any man in the world buried alive, and happy. His heart and his soul were at peace. He was a man whose mind was made by God and it was that peace of mind that made him happy. No man ever had more cause to be miserable than he, homeless for a third of a century, torn from his family, from Libya, unloved among unloving enemies and captors unbelieving in God, many thousands of miles from Africa. His jailers marveled always at his generosity of mind and spirit, ever patient and even-tempered, if at times understandably angry and indignant; and they thought of him as a Libyan Terrorist and enemy of mankind, a bloody inhuman Arab hateful of all Christianity and a finer civilization; but nevertheless a man, a fanatic, who believed fervently and steadfastly in his own unholy Causes. He was the devil incarnate to the American police, as clever and charming as the Fiend of Hell. His jailer was a general named after an Adams from Eng land, the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic tyrants whom the prisoner in cell block four knew from years ago when immeasurable Muhammad had pen etrated the heart and soul at Stonehenge of the Anglo-American Empire, too. He knew. Prince Muhammad, Sharif of holy Goddess Libya, knew the sacred and secret myths of his enemies and it was this knowledge of religious certainty that had most kept him in Israeli and American prisons for many long years, in torture and misery, incommunicado even from Heaven. The gods of America and the legions of Christ were powerful, and powerfully kept secret the whereabouts of the great holy Jihad General for many years. In his jail cell somewhere underground deep in the belly of the Beast in the heartland of America, buried in Black Hills somewhere near the unholy graveyards of Buffalo and Wounded Knee, the Prince was buried alive; but his heart kept beating because he loved God. Many times his demon jailers and American torturers tried to kill him by trying to break his mind, his heart, his strong body that was tall and healthy. General Adams stared at General Muhammad al-Psylli with hatred in the dank stone dungeon un der a maximum security military fort. "You don't exist," the proud Americ

THE LIBYAD
an said to him smugly, "you are persona non grata, bloody Mo. We know you have murdered innocent women and children, in Rome and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem." The Prince smiled calmly from his dirty cell and cold cement bed in the windowless tomb. "You know nothing, Sir," he said in a voice clear of any undisciplined regret, in clear english, "or you would bring me to trial in your courts. Where are your facts? What is your evidence? What are your laws and your science but an excuse and a replacement for religion, and my love of God?" "Damn you!" roared the tall and godlike Adams, "blaspheming the Almighty, our Lord and Savior! Your rhetoric resonates only with your own kind. We know all about you." "Then prove it. Shed the light of day upon your own self-proclaimed truths." Adams smirked evilly from the hallway in the depths of his bowels with four Marines at attention at his side armed with every kind of weapon. They marched away back into the innermost recesses of their own truths and slammed the iron doors cruelly, plunging their top-secret classified prisoner back into their most lifeless concept of confinement - solitude, loneliness, a Behavioral Modification Unit perfected by all the rational ideas of irreligion, the cruelties of conquerors ignorant of the Dark who can starve and kill without conscience or concern. General Adams and his Marines and their confident lawyers were certain of themselves one hun dred percent; they were good and decent family men, churchgoers, con siderate efficient professionals who were doing a job. They knew the Arab and his covert cadres around the world were equally clever and commit ted opponents, worthy enemies skilled equally as themselves in war, and munitions, explosives, arms traffic and trade necessary to the covert world of mercenaries who would kill and maim anyone without compunction. Herald Adams had been fighting them all his life. He wanted a better

25

THE LIBYAD
world for his children and grandchildren but he knew it meant there would never be peace for himself. He sat at his desk in the sunlight four floors above the top-secret crypto-clearance dungeon below, above, beyond reasonable explanation that knew his was the noblest of all self-sacrifices: an offering of flesh and soul unto the God he believed in without doubt, in the like manner unto that of Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior. Herald Adams did not think consciously of this for he was not a melodramatic or insecure boy as he may have been, once, many wars ago. If a smugness or a hint of piety occasionally escaped his stern and disciplined expres sion and erect bearing then that precise crispness and military poise was not a betrayal of the same effort to wash away the sins of mankind that suffused the Place of the Skull, Golgatha, Jerusalem, Rome - all the Capit ols of the world. Herald Adams followed the example of Jesus Christ into victory, the victory over sinful life. He loved the Bible and attended Church regularly. They were his guides that consoled him in his combat with the unspeakable at rocities that were his own Cross to bear in his job, his sacrifice, his noble profession as Warrior. Pastor Paul at the Lutheran Church was a wise and great apostle of the Scriptures and they often sat down to the Good Book together, at home, on many a blessed evening of the week. Paulus James was truly an ordained Minister. His Church was a solid red brick edifice in the town near the fort, and his congregation was a pious flock as good and strong as their protectors at the fort: Rapid City, South Dakota, and Ellsworth Air Force Base. (Although it was a secret bastion of Counter-intel ligence to the world, their home was no secret to them.) Church and Coun try were an unbreakable bond there as strong as any temple in Galilee or Canaan; and the alliances of these nations under God were the unshak able legions of Michael and Jesus. Muhammad al-Psylli could not have been more alone or hated if he had been in a more isolated or fiery corner of hell, in the acids burning at the

26

THE LIBYAD
bowels of Satan like the gall dripping from the fangs of a viper. He was surrounded by thousands of megatons of nuclear weapons affixed to three squadrons of B-IB supersonic bombers and several subatomic B-2 Stealth Bombers. He stared into and through the impenetrable Darkness and there he heard the voice of an angel whispering, "Good Prince, faithful Son, do not lose heart. God has remembered you. I and your father are on our way." He sat up in doubt in the darkness blacker than death: was it a Djinn sent by one of his remorseless captors? There were often temptations like these the Christians sent to torment him, priests offering to help him, to save his immortal soul, to convert him to their Way, their Truth, and The Life. He often listened politely until the pros elytes began to have hope of gaining another soul for their salvation, of in stilling religion into heresy, terrorism, misguided african heathenism. He loved to discuss the tenets of any Good Book including theirs. He asked them about the Judaism of the Old Testament, and the "Greek Judaism" of the New. They smiled piteously at him for his foolish disbelief; especially was Pastor Paulus patient with the sinner. "It is all explained in the Scriptures, my friend," he said, "Word for word. The Greeks were idolaters too, and the Jews cynical, and the Romans, and the Egyptians. I hope I may call you Friend? Forgiveness of sin is the greatest teaching of our Lord and Master." Muhammad had smiled, "And of the Prophet Mahomet. Yes, we are all friends in the eyes of God. It is like unto our goddess Cyrene in old Libya, the holy Mother of God, daugh ter of great Apollo. She was the mortal daughter of a Greek named Hypseus whom king Cheiron the centaur prophesied Apollo would desire as his wife, and carry her off to Africa; and indeed it came to pass, and the Lord of Light conveyed the beautiful Cyrene, hunter of lions, to the richest garden of Zeus, where I was born, too' Cyrene, in western Libya, a famous Greek colony. A famous Temple to god Apollo is still to be seen there to this day, when he made the goddess queen of a great city having

27

THE LIBYAD
first gathered an island people about a hill rising from a plain, overlooking the Sea. Welcomed by Libya, the original Goddess and Queen, to a golden palace, Cyrene would be her daughter, hunter of lions, and she would give birth to a Son named Aristaeus. Hermes acted as midwife to them, bidding them feed the baby on nectar and ambrosia. When Aristaeus grew to manhood he was called Immortal Zeus' as well, 'Pure Apollo', and 'Guardian of the Flocks'. Aphrodite, whome the Romans called Venus, bedded Apollo and Cyrene in Libya's chambers of gold and silver, a palace of gardens and orchards; Apollo promising his wife a long life of hunting and reigning over the fertile country, her son in the care of the Myrtle-Nymphs, daughters of Hermes. Cyrene also lay one night with Ares, Mars, and bore him a brood of man-eating Niqht-Mares. The myrtlenymphs nicknamed Aristaeus 'Agreus' and taught him how to curdle milk for cheese, build bee-hives, and cultivate the sacred olive trees. I once saw a tomb-painting in the vast necropolis around the ruins of ancient Cyrene, above the town of Psyllia an the beach where I often swam with my father, showing Arotos lending flocks of sheep and fishing. There are also tombcarvings of glorious Cyrene as the midsummer Bee-goddess, stinging Her acles [Hercules] to death, and further emasculating him as part of her cru cial role in the Resurrection ceremony, exactly like paintings I saw in Hebron of Samson and David at Bethlehem. Have you seen those too?" Muhammad smiled at the remembrance of the Preacher's frown, his ten sion and intolerance of the sinful prisoner's patronizing manner as he hur ried away in a huff at Muhammad's impenitent impiety, as he saw it. But whose or what Voice had he heard in the Darkness? It was sweeter than that of any Djinn he had ever heard; he was reminded of the angels Hagar, the blessed mother of Ishmael, had heard when she was dying in the desert. It was a call from some cherished memory of his from home, home, far far away in northernmost Africa. "O God, how I long for You, and home, and family."

28

Book 5
Jib-Ra-rl flew West to Tripoli, Libya from heaven, knowing she had to fly on the wings of the prayers of her Prince, first, to his home; home, whereunto all men direct their prayers and best hopes, where God had first created them. She had to gather her own armies of warriors and the lawyers of Mahomet, and imams of Africa, to overcome the power of the light legions of Michael, and Jesus. In Tripoli on the Sea where the sun blazes upon turquoise beaches she flew unto the tent of that country's ruler Colonel Muammar al-Qathafi, son of the Syrtic desert. She changed herself into a black African woman, a lawyer from Benghazi loyal to The Brother Colonel, and a famous beauty unwed to any but the Revolution. She appeared suddenly to the Revolution ary Guards out of the sunlight inside the Aziziya Barracks where heavy se curity guarded against all intruders who would suddenly end the great Jamahiriya of Libya - the State of the Wretched Islamic Masses. The guards were shocked to see the woman at the gate. "'Halt!" the captain commanded in clipped Libyan Arabic. "Who goes there? How did you get inside the perimeter?" Just as crisply in her well-tailored Italian suit, she presented the captain her credentials and security clearance, "Sister Jasmine al-Psylli, brother cap tain Tahar. Gifhaelic bayhi. I hope all is well with you today, and your family, and the Great Libyan Jamahiriya? I have an urgent appointment for this very hour with the Brother Colonel about our glorious Jihad." Captain Tahar stared in amazement at the woman marvelous and proud, shimmer ing like black silk; it made his heart and loins swell with excitement to think of such power as hers in their great women, black women, like the black angels of the Prophet. "Jihad? I have heard nothing of a glorious But the Angel of God fixed the intrepid warrior's lips, and opened his closed milit ary routine, and habits, until he and all the elite Guards in green uniforms opened the way into Colonel al-Qathafi's humble tent. In the middle of the barracks bombed in 1986 by American supersonic fighters, in the middle of Tripoli prospering from the rich petroleum wealth a curse and a blessing

THE LIBYAD
to the poor North Africans a big Bedouin tent of black and rich white skins of the desert uaddan sheep flapped in the hot air; a shepherd's tent such as Joseph or ancient Garamas might have made, where Old Testament prophets tended their flocks and raised their pious families. Tall sandstone apartments white as cinder block and salt-baked in the Saharan oasis of date palm groves and heavy modern traffic, a modern progressive city at the end of its purpose at the end of the last century; where noisy machine factories and sirens wailed under tangled telephone wires and electric power lines a genius son of the desert dreamed alone of hell. Jibra'il knew the heart of the poet in Qathafi, Allah-engendered scion of poor desert nomad bedouins; and of his challenging heart as a warrior she also knew how he was hated by all the immoral men of the world, the men who hated dreamers and poets. She saw him alone at his simple table in the tent writing, lost in the suras and hadiths of the Quran; and lost in the technical age that called him Terrorist, Madman, a ruthless dic tator who ruled with iron fists hated by many of his people who called him Dictator, and Libya (Socialism the ideology) a secret police state. She knew when he looked up at her in surprise that his careworn face and blazing brown eyes, engendered by Allah, did not know what to do next with the billions of oil revenues from the desert. He did not know that he had to escape to the darkness that he called hell, that Mahomet had called hell, except as Sharif Muhammad could explain it to him. "I am here, Brother Colonel, sent by Allah." He looked sternly at her. "Then you are Angel of God." She nodded and looked at his brown silk headdress and rich dark robes over his simple western clothes, a man out of a medieval tapestry in the sag. I am here to rescue my brother, the Prince al-Psylli, General of the Holy Jihad of God. I am not here to ask for your help, or arms, or your fortune that is Allah's so amply given as a gift and a curse to the noble tribes of Libya, engendered by God. Your treasure is for God to give, and Their Kingdom is for the people to accept. I am here to see that

30

THE LIBYAD
Allah's limitless bounty is restored to the true freedom of my Prince, and to relieve you of the burdens of command. For I am Jibra'il, and not a demon Djinn of the desert." His face and whole body struggled to believe her. He stood up command ingly and then sat again as if he wanted to declare death to all angels, and other false prophets, anyone at all who would take away the freedom of his beloved Jamahiriya by any fundamentalist superstition, or medieval dogma; and most of all he hated the idolatrous goddesses whose worship and statues the one and only Prophet had smashed forever in Mecca 1400 years ago. Muammar al-Qathafi struggled against all his impulses to kill this woman, for she was clearly a temptress sent to destroy him, from the Marid and Iblees Mahomet warned him of - the devil herself in Italian stockings and chic black high heels. "I have seen many of you Petitioners," he sighed. "Did you bribe my guards, or work a woman's wiles?" She stared sternly at him, as ferocious as any soldier. "No. Here are my credentials. They are all in order. You have your commission, Colonel, now obey it." She turned about crisply on her very high heels and exited the humble shepherd's black bedouin tent made of the skins of the black and white uaddan sheep. Outside, she disappeared from Tripoli on the Sea where the sun blazes upon torquoise beaches, and before the enchanted eyes of the Revolutionary Guard she was gone like a song from the suras of God. They and their Colonel, who stepped outside to see where she had gone in the blinding hot light stood wonderingly on the threshold of Azizya Bar racks. Not a word did the soldiers speak to each other. They were men who had never yet been to wars where goddesses flew into view and out of sight from heaven, like the pagan idolaters once had claimed, before their Prophet put to death those terrible rumors.

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THE LIBYAD
Colonel Muammar al-Qathafi, the son of the Qaddaf tribe of the Syrtic desert at Dahra where the jerboa rats thrive, turned slowly into his cool dark tent in the day reading the dispatches Jasmine al-Psylli had given him. They were orders to proceed to Cyrene, east of Tripoli, along the torquoise beaches of the Mediterranean Sea to notify the al- Psylli family of his help. The orders were very specific, in classical Arabic such as he'd never seen except in the Holy Quran: to do the bidding of the old Emir Zeid al-Psylli, father of the legendary Jihad General, Sharif Muhammad. Colonel al-Qathafi stared at the unholy dispatches from hell in shock. His strong hands were trembling. Sharif Muhammad was a notorious apostate from Islam, with a price an his head since the 1973 Yom Kippur war; and the al-Psyllis were unrepenitant hereditary Royalists no better than the Saudi Arabian Aziz dynasty. It was Emir Zeid, in fact, who had once dis ciplined his father for insolence, when Muammar was a boy back in the days when King Idris al-Senussi ruled in the name of the United Nations, before the Revolution. Muammar sat on his leather stool from Nigeria al most in tears, as afraid again as he'd been as a boy. Their family was so poor he often had nothing to eat at the sharia school, and he slept alone in the Mosque on the hard cool terra-cotta floor, far from home. But he wanted to go to school. He wanted to love God. Now his beloved mother and father were long dead; but they had lived to see the Great Jamahiriya of their son arise from the sand, and the banishment of priv ilege, the destruction of the cruel tribal aristocracy like that of the alSenussis and the al-Psyllis. He stared at The Orders given to him by an evil Djinn; written in the classical calligraphy of Medina. Why had the Djinn chosen to torment him now? It was enough that he had to attend to the af fairs of State, every day meeting trade delegates from Sudan, diplomats from Eritrea, more than enough to withstand the ruinous economic "Sanc tions" of the United Nations and the plunge in oil prices because of glutted markets; but now he had to attend to a ludicrous hoax as well! It was noth

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THE LIBYAD
ing new. He was used to conspiracies daily. He punched his intercom computer console on his desk, "Send Doctor Dribrahim Azouya in to me, immediately." His Aides In the big office Headquarters Complex outside, next door to his eccentric tent in the booming city, jumped to action, even though they were very busy with a hundred matters of running the country: they had to keep the funding leveraged for huge Projects like the 25 billion dinar 'Great Manmade River' that was pumping subterranean seas out of the desert to irrigate the lush coastal plains, from Egypt to Tunisia; they had steel smelter factories to build, concrete quarries, new telephone and glob al telecommunications facilities; they had to coordinate all the industries and agencies through the Peoples Congress and endless Peoples' Commit tees as defined in the Brother Leader's definitive Green Book, All of the So cialist Peoples' Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had to be coordinated through the characteristic Libyan idealism, and impracticality, as personified by the Leader. They also had the latest Russian anti-aircraft defenses on perpetual Red Alert from more United Nations attacks; and the American 6th Fleet threatening them always, and their own Air Force was kept ready with French Mirage bombers and MIG-30s they bought from their Allies in East ern Europe. The whole Mediterranean Sea was always in danger of another of its end less wars for oil, land, or ambition. Libya was always in the middle of those tensions ever since Pharaoh and Alexander and Caesar craved money. Muammar al-Qathafi had been trying since he took power in a bloodless coup in 1969 to change that balance, that un-evening of Libya, forever, in the world scheme of conquest, greed, envy, murder, and hu man hypocrisy. Not since the great pre-Berber emperor Garamas had his tory recorded Libya's place in the equilibrium as anything more than a re source for wheat and slaves.

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THE LIBYAD
Muammad al-Qathafi had determined to change all that, and for that, the world called him madman, Terrorist. Doctor Dribrahim Azouya entered the feared confines of the Brother Colonel's tent wearily, with resignation, a career bureaucrat with a degree in engineering. Like all good Muslims he was devout in his duty. "Dribrahim, gifhaelic," the Leader muttered quietly, still on his stool look ing at the papers in his hand, "I'm afraid an annoying job has come your way. Take these dispatches to Benghazi and find Zeid al-Psylli. Report to me from there. Take an Air Force transport." Dribrahim allowed himself the indulgence of a question, "Zeid al-Psylli?" Dribrahim was a short, graying, portly man. The Brother Colonel nodded irritably and dismissed his Aide with the wave of his hand, a weary mo tion from a life in the heat, where every energy must be saved. Dribrahim left with a shrug, muttering "Maleesh." It was an untranslatable word that could have meant "Tomorrow" in any other language, or "Who cares?" It was too hot and there was always too much work to do, too many damn things breaking down, going wrong, personalities snapping at each other, that it almost seemed pleasant to get out of the city and fly to the beach at ancient remote Cyrenaica. He smirked outside at Captain Tahar. "What's up now?" The tall soldier returned the smirk. "Who knows? Maleesh." Both men shrugged and went about their business.

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Book 6
The C-130 Hercules transport cargo plane flew along the coast with crates of machine parts for the anti-aircraft Defense Base at Syrte, where oil re fineries and a huge supertanker port served as the terminal for the vast Zel ten Concessions; from Ras al Sider and Ras Lanuf to Mersa al-Brega along the coast pipelines snaked out to the desert at Dahra, Beda, Waha, Raguba, and Amal Nafoora. The 'Herc' had taken off from Oqbah ibn Nafi Air Base outside Tripoli, which had been Wheelus Field built by the Americans in World War II, fighting Mussolini. In 1986 the American 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, and 4 Squadrons of F-111s from bases in Eng land bombed the hell out of their old anti-Fascist Air Base in the endless battle for control of the vast oil fields. Many many billions of dollars and pounds were at stake for the petroleum that ran the machines of the 20th century; and if a few hundred Libyan civilians were also killed in the Raid, including al-Qathafi's baby daughter Hana, then the western propaganda Ministries could deflect that truth and declare hysterically that "Kaddafy" was another Hitler, Kaddafy was crazy, Libya was a murderous Regime, Libya exported Terrorism worldwide, Libya and Kaddafy were one of the great Rogue Outlaw States of the planet Earth. Dr. Dribrahim Azouya reflected idly upon these hateful lies as he looked out the C-130 porthole at his beautiful country below, the beaches and oases beyond worldwide opinion; the Tripolitanian Oasis from Tunisia to ancient Homs and Misurata as beautiful as any of the European rivieras, but empty, empty of all swimmers and lovers and sailboats. Even with the increasing pollution of tar-balls and oil-spills from the endless stream of Su per-freighters passing on the horizon, on the way to the same world that hated them, but craved their top-grade Crude, the white sand beaches and transparent turquoise surf looked to be the lace and skin of a Goddess from the air, in the clear blue sky over Africa. It broke Dribrahim's heart to be hated by everyone. He didn't understand why. Why did they hate Libya? The world, it seemed, had always hated Libya. It was a dreaded battlefield to Hannibal and Rommel. It was a secretive Regime building nuclear weapons and chemical weapons plants, bacteriological weapons,

THE LIBYAD
to the Anglo-American and Christian heirs of the Caesars. Why did they create the most improbable lies about his most improbable, miserable, and unhappy Nation? The world was trying to starve them out with their Sanctions, cutting off international Flights even for medical and humanitari an purposes. Why? They said Libya had blown up an airplane and killed 200, but they knew it wasn't Libyans - it was Syrians, Iranians. Did the many many billions of oil dollars, and vulnerability, drive the West to such easy hatred and evil, lying, Genocide? Libyans were dying for lack of polio serums, milk, air ambulances for heart patients, formula for babies. Their arid Nation grew only the hot hateful burning Oil, and that so deep down in the scalding Sand that his people no longer seemed able to love each other or play in the cool refreshing Mediterranean Sea. They didn't seem to know how to love life anymore, in their wealth, Dribrahim reflec ted bitterly. The Hercules came into boiling Syrte from the west, from booming enigmatic Tripolitania of the Garamantes; and landed on the overdeveloped military runway amid gleaming new refineries and muni tions dumps. Dribrahim stepped out into the blazing noonday sun in his rumpled expensive gray herringbone business suit and hurried into the overluxurious air conditioned Hangar to wait for Germans and Italians and Frenchmen to unload the cargo plane, efficiently, hard workers who kept the extravagant Libyan Industries running smoothly, foreigners profit ing themselves enormously. It was a national embarrassment, to Dribrahim, for foreigners to be the only ones able to run their country. In a few hours, after a delicious Greek luncheon, they took off again, eastward and then north to Cyrene, around Benghazi and across the Jebel over Barca to the ancient Greek port city of Apollonia - Marsa Susah. The lovely Green Mountains of the high rocky escarpment greeted him with its cooler breezes at the little airport; and a huge Mercedes-Benz 800 SL with military escort hurried him out of sight of sneering European tourists visiting the ancient city founded by Apollo and Aphrodite: but even then his chauf

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THE LIBYAD
feur in the limousine was Pakistani. A Military Attach in the front seat had already located Zeid al-Psylli - the Attach explained in Arabic - at the small village up the coast of Psyllia, an ancient seat of the late great Psylli Tribe. Such local folklore was already sneered at by most Libyans from their rich concrete city homes, but Dribrahim wasn't so sure how sincere any of them felt about folklore. Zeid al-Psylli was almost as legendary as his son whom most people didn't believe had ever existed except out of some su perstitious children's nursery tale. What existed today was the mystique of al-Qathafi's wealth; and anything else didn't pay the enormous bills for satellite uplinks and Jaguars parked in front of houses. In his air-conditioned limousine Dr. Azouya began to read the dispatches the Brother Colonel gave him, rolling smoothly over the new highway the Germans built. Dribrahim raised his eyebrows in surprise, and frowned at the puzzling story within the obsolete Arabic, It was not written in any of the usual styles of the dry bureaucratic, militaristic, Islamic rhetoric, nor did the story, or this trip, make any sense. It may have been like one of the verses or the suras the Prophet reportedly wrote on date palm leaves, or on black meteoric rocks from Mount Arafat, dictations taken directly (He said!) from the archangel Jibra'il. Reading the old Kufic gave Dribrahim a strange feeling like some silent magnetism vibrating in his bones. Where had it come from? What was this Paper? The long black Mercedes pulled up on the beach beside a big concrete house surrounded by flowers; hy acinths and bougainvillea grew in a eucalyptus grove partially hiding the modern new house inside the flora. Children playing football in the fine brown dirt-field next to the green spot stopped in their tracks when they saw the ominous black government vehicle; like statues frozen in fascina tion they stared at the Attach in a green beret and brown uniform go up to the door, and women in barracan robes stared at him from windows in the white concrete house.

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After a few minutes of talking the muscular soldier with curly black hair and broad shoulders, brown-skinned, returned to the car and reported to the aide-de-camp. "The old man is out back, the women said, but he won't talk to us, they said. I don't know. He's crazy." The Attach laughed at the joke, as Dribrahim wearily got out of the car's cool air and comfortable leather seats muttering, "Stay here. I'll try to talk to him alone. Maybe the uniforms scare him or something." The Attach shook his head. "No, he fought Mussolini with Omar Muhktar. He's not afraid, I don't think. Everybody here says that's probably the only reason they didn't take him away long ago, because he's a Patriot and fought alongside the Brother Colonel's father too." Dribrahim nodded, dis tracted, as he walked outside around the trees and past the boys who had returned to their football game in the dirt, shouting "Amshay Hammad, Hammad! Pass it to Hammad! Amshay, amshay!" He saw the women staring at him from the windows, chattering excitedly about this unusual official visitor. He was obviously a big shot or police man from the city. He took off his suit coat in the sweltering afternoon heat even though there was a soft sea breeze from the north. The usual big white thunderheads waited as always several kilometers out to Sea, always off from the share, like they were always waiting, or afraid, for Africa, of Africa, to storm the terrible continent and die in the desert. Only a few kilometers inland no clouds could ever live for long ex cept as red ghibli sandstorms: and for thousands of kilometers Sahara stretched eternally. Dribrahim stood on the fringe of the sandy beach as the sad wistful long ing of his blood and national fever longed for relief, or something; some thing mysteriously Libyan which not even he or anyone understood, or knew. He saw the frail old man kneeling to his cabbage and peas in a little garden beside a little shack, pathetic and silent, as insignificant as

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any other speck of the Sand. A skinny old Jackass the color of dried brown manure brayed irritably beside the shack, behind the old man. The old man looked up then from his work and smiled, and he saw Dribrahim in his expensive sweat-stained shirt and loosened silk tie, and waved casually at him. It was not at all the reception he expected from a man laboring in the soil of their long-suffering country. He called to him, "I hear the braying of our Jamahiriya, Friend. Come, join me for some sweet afternoon chahee. Come, come, cool off, Good Sir, a seabreeze is com ing up. Or perhaps that is only the loose gums flapping of the women." Dribrahim smiled and walked down the fringe to the shack and shook hands with the garrulous peasant. "I could hear their mindless gossip even over your engine and that is louder than the waves. You are Dribrahim Azouya aren't you, Almuakaf's son? We fought together at Sebha." Dribrahim smiled again, despite himself. "Yes. Yes. You knew my father? I don't remember..." "Oh, oh, you were just a boy, just a boy, at your Mama's tit. Oh, Sebha was horrible in those days, a sleepy oasis, but oh, now, well, it is a great metropolis, a Fort in the Fezzan to be proud of, holding off Tuaregs and Toutou Barbarian hordes, yes, yes, it's a good thing." They sat in the shade of the shack on the ground while the old man boiled a little pot of water for tea on an old butane burner that must have been 50 years old. "Do you remember the Hoosh in Sebha of Grandma Aisha?" The old man laughed gaily with only two teeth in his mouth, "That old whore?!! Oh you would remember that' Ha ha! Is that where all you Sebhase pagan boys got laid? Well, it's better than turning Homo like those city boys in Tripoli and Cairo! Spoiled worthless Mama's boys." He suddenly yelled at two women in barracans in the backyard up at the house, gesturing angrily at him. "Go away, you worthless cows! You spoil ers of Libyan manhood! Begone you ugly sows, fat ugly ewes, Gossipers!"

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They cursed back at him and went out of sight in the trees. "Bah, women. The ruin of mankind. The ruin, I tell you." The dirty old jackass knelt by the chahee teapot in the dirt beside the grumpy unshaven old fellow. "You remark upon my grandson, eh?" Old Zeid asked, petting the jackass affectionately and absentmindedly. "He's a good piece of shit, and better company for me than those nagging old biddies. Allah frown upon you!" he shouted suddenly back up the sandy slope at them. "Look at that goddamn house and cars in the driveway. They tore down our old hoosh for that monstrosity with plumbing and elec tricity and those damn factories at Derna. Look at them, belching, puking, farting pigs!" Dribrahim nodded, looking at the huge desalination plant thirty kilometers up the coast, and a liquefaction factory. "Farting pigs! They sit inside all day eating chocolate and watching the BBC soap oper as, bitching about everybody. And what about you, ibn Almuakaf? Eh? Chahee. Maleesh." He poured them tiny cups of very hot brown tea and scooped very large spoonfuls of brown sugar in them. Dribrahim shrugged and sipped the chahee. "Succharin. As you see. I have a very expensive English leather briefcase stuffed with very important papers of our govern ment. I have orders from ibn Qaddaf to find you, Good Sir, and deliver these strange dispatches in kufic Arabic. That's all I know, And then I re port back to Tripoli. Old Zeid stared hard into Dribrahim's weary eyes; then he took the brown papers that ibn Almukaf handed him, in a portfolio from the English briefcase. The old man looked at them intently for long minutes with the jackass, his grandson, peering at them too, over Old Zeid's shoulder. Dr. Dribrahim Azouya was suddenly embarrassed, for some reason, to be there; for he knew the content of the papers. "You bring this to me now, of my son?" said Zeid, in a strange dark voice very unlike his former tone: where he had been gleeful before, now he

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was somber. "You bring this to me now, from abu Qaddaf, of my son?" Dribrahim didn't know what to say. "Yes. Yes." Old Zeid stared hard at him. "What was his manner? Tell me exactly what your great Jamahiriya Leader looked like when he gave you these, and what he said." Dribrahim shrugged. "I don't know. He was quiet. He tries always to be a good man, like all of us, I think. He was sitting quietly and said he had a job for me, an annoying job." Zeid jumped up. "Annoying? He said that, eh? Hmmm, I wonder, I won der. Yes, indeed." He started pacing away from the shack, down the beach, lost in thought, his grandson walking softly by his side. After a long time, Dribrahim walked down the beach where Old Zeid and his Grandson were sitting in the sand, staring out to Sea, as gentle little surf of white lace washed up on their bare feet and sank into the sand soft and brown. Dribrahim took off his shoes and socks and sat on the dry edge at the uttermost reaches of the wet sand, where the sea ends and land begins, beside the pensive old Countryman of his lost youth drawing symbols in the sand with a stick and his toes. Zeid looked significantly from the drawings to Dribrahim and then glanced around, conspiratorially, paranoid, looking to see if they were being spied upon by someone. He had drawn an ANXH in the sand, the ancient Egyptian sign of the Cross that had been Africa's symbol of Life. The last frail touches of cool clean water washed his hot feet, and they sank into the light wet sand along with the secret signal, the Cross of the Pharaohs. Old Zeid said, "It was a female who drove him away."

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"I remember well every shade of light and dark the last time I saw my son sail away, out there, my oldest son the First Prince of the realm. He was al ways a handsome boy, a happy boy, and strong; and for that I know Al lah truly loves The Gifted. For my little Muhammad boy was also my best friend!" The old man broke down into the most wretched sobbing Dribrahim Azouya had ever heard in a fellow human being. "He was al ways the best and kindest boy I ever knew!" The old man stood up and howled miserably at the sky, wiping streams of sorrowful tears from his eyes. His body shook with sorrow and his voice in pain wailed in gutwrenching agony, wailing to the heavens, a hauls every hidden passion and buried heart laid bare in sobs, and tears, and body convulsions. He fell to his knees and crawled nakedly in the sand and then he stood and stumbled aimlessly in circles. "My best friend! My Son! Oh God oh God oh God!" Dribrahim was crying too, almost politely, quietly, down inside himself, within himself, on the beach watching the surf wash up on his feet and sink. The Jackass sat as before staring motionless out to sea. For a long time all there was was the sound of the little breakers and the little waves of the sea while Old Zeid calmed himself and sat thoughtfully out in the water. After awhile the floating foam and rising and falling of the clear green and white water, bubbles, white splashes, distracted the men from their pain and they stood and undressed and went swimming, with the Jackass bobbing beside them too, horse-paddling with his head sticking up from the surface, and it was cool and clean. After awhile they couldn't help smiling with pleasure. "Don't you know Libyans hate to go swimming!" old Zeid yelled as they crawled naked on a black reef. "Yes!" The reef had hard sharp points on their butts. "It's good," Zeid yelled over the crashing waves on the rock to his two naked brown companions, "it's good to remember. Shall I tell you the true story of my son?"

THE LIBYAD
Dribrahim gasped, out of shape, dripping wet and cold. "Yes, he lived in this water, and especially at our home across the Gulf at Leptis Magna, at Moms to the west. Oh, the al-Psylli Nation had sea-castles in those days, Neptune's palaces of marble thrones!" "When I wag a young man I was a poet, did you know that, ibn Almukaf? Oh yes, oh yes. I loved the pa gan tales before the crazy Arabs came to beat them out of us, and force their God on us, the jealous Jupiter Thunderer their Allah. Oh, ibn Almukaf, all the rumors you have heard of us over the years are true, and they are untrue. What you do not know is that we are the truest Believers of all. Oh yes, oh yes. I believe in God with all heart. I believe in Allah with all my heart. I believe, I believe in Allah, in all His 99 Names, and all Her 99 Names. Before I was a soldier I was a poet abu Almukaf, and be fore my son was a soldier he wanted to be a teacher, a student of the Our an, and the Bible, and The Iliad, and The Odyssey, and the latin Aeneid. Don't worry, you won't go to hell for hearing these heresies, your orthodox Allah won't turn you into a Djinni. Ha ha! Feel that cold water on your na ked shriveling balls? THAT is Allah, my Brother! She is our Sister! Oh ho. I taught all my children those terrible truths, which Garamas taught us all from time immemorial." Then he jumped back into the white swirling foam around the black reef, and all three companions swam back to shore as the sun was sinking. They found clean white towels and long linen robes on the beach where they had thrown their dirty clothes. Four women yelled at them from the sandy ridge and laughed, pointing at the droopy dripping males. Zeid danced suggestively, yelling back at them, "Oh ho, you wouldn't know what to do with it!" They yelled back and wiggled and ran out of sight. Zeid grinned happily as he dried off, "Help yourself Brother. These are clean fresh robes of Omani linen. Those worthless cows will clean all your clothes and shoes. Ah ha, and I see they have also left fresh bread and wine and cous-cous for us. It's probably poisoned. Allah frown upon

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you and your poison sweetmeats! And I see your servants have been de ceived as well, eating candy in front of the Italian television set. Beware Brothers! into such dens of witches many men have wandered, and met their eternal doom, I say!" Dribrahim saw his chauffeur and the Attache inside the house, at a win dow, sheepishly waving back. "It's just as well. Do we have business to do, or not?" Zeid shrugged. "You tell me. I'm only a crazy jackass." Dribrahim sat at the hot bowls of cous-cous and bread in front of the shack, in his soft white robe, and prayed. After they all had bowed their heads and gobbled the delicious soup, with excellent Cyrenian sweet wine, Dribrahim said, "Succharin. Byhee. Tell me your story, Good Father. I don't know what to report back to Tripoli, or even why I am here, really." Zeid sighed deeply and lit a bowl of brown hashish. "My oldest son, my heir, is alive, I think. I hope. I feel. I have not heard from him for many years, though. Before that there was a price on his head in Lebanon, where he lived, at the Baalbek temple of Venus in the Beka'a Valley that is also called Avalon. It is the holiest center of all Adam's holy land I have heard, east of Eden, and where Cain and Ham were going when they first built their Temples after leaving Africa - and where Abraham was going. But smoke ibn Almukaf, and witness the holy Angels sitting beside you, those from whom the goddess Cyrene has derived her stories of Solomon and Jesus." A dark misty light had indeed appeared subtly beside Dribrahim in the dusk, on the ground where they sat in front of the crazy old fellahin's humble shack. It was a strange and chilling Presence in the twilight. The three companions smoked from a copper water hookah and wiggled their toes in the clean brown sand. "You said it was a woman who drove your son away?" Dribrahim was sure, now, that the old fellahin was truly crazy; and so any tale of this Arabian Night was permitted. Dribrahim was a

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skeptic, a scientist, and he had never liked the fairy tales of magic lan terns, flying carpets, djinnis and saints and gods and angels. It was a silly waste of time to be smoking hashish like a college student when he had a deskful of work to do back at his office. Old Zeid grunted disapprovingly. "Yes, yes. My Muhammad fell in love like all fools do. Her name was Ewwa, appropriately, a skinny frail Eve from the rich schools of spoiled Tripoli girls, light-haired, light of touch too, probably, if you want to know my opinion. There were more beautiful girls, better built at least, you know what I mean? Voluptuous child-bearing mares." Zeid grew silent for a moment and puffed distractedly. "But he loved her. I could see that. I was happy for him. He was seventeen years old. You re member how it was? She was his first love, I guess. She was intelligent, I suppose, and always very polite to Muhammad's mother and myself. Ewwa was pretty and frail and spoiled. She ran off to Rome and married an Italian the last I heard." The three companions stared at the sunset on the sea and thought of their own private memories for a minute. "I don't know, I was busy trying to stay above water with my farm, and four wives, and eleven children, I'm not sure what happened. Muhammad joined the army and became the Casanova of the Tripoli jet-setters. Then he went to Egypt after the Six Day War in 1967 to join the Palestine Liberation Army, with Nasser. But I think it was the girl who drove him away. He never really came back home, ex cept for brief visits, and I could tell he was drinking and chasing whores. A father can tell. We have all done it, eh, brother? He married another girl, in 1969 1 think it was, but it didn't last, He didn't love her. They got divorced. He was lost and didn't know what to believe in anymore, and I don't think he believed in his country anymore. But he was a good family man and loved our Tribe very much."

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The strange misty blackness beside them in the waning dusk felt even more palpable than before, and alive, and alert. They sipped more wine and watched the first stars come out. They listened to the lullabies of the waves on the beach. "Then the Revolution changed everything for all of us," Dribrahim sighed, almost whispering, "and Nasser died in Egypt." Old Zeid and his Grandson nodded in the darkening night. "Then the Revolu tion changed everything for all of us." A Voice beside them told them a story. "You're missing the point," he said, and he was a handsome bearded man sitting beside them. Zeid gasped. "it is the Archangel Michael!" Dribrahim was shocked and numbed, unseeing as if the wine had intoxic ated him into a deep sleep. "Once upon a time there was boy who was the son of the Queen of Egypt, and the Emperor of Rome. DIVI FILIUS he was called even then, in Latin time, and in Greece his mother was a des cendent of Great Alexander. History has known him as Caesarion, King Ptolemy XV Caesar; and when he was seventeen years old Gaius Octavi an defeated Caesarion's parents in terrible battle and the noble young Lord had to flee up the Nile to escape the murderous pursuit of his Illyrian cousin; and there traditional history loses sight of him. But when he was a baby he was anointed EROS, god, and that would be the source of his many names over the decades to come, as King of Egypt, Cyrene, Arabia, Nabatea, Jordan, Syria, Judea, and Galilee. He ruled peacefully, loyally to his cousin in Rome, all the great Eastern and African Empire of 'Pax Ro manal, building glorious Temples to his relatives and ancestrs Venus, Zeus, Apollo, Roma, Isis, a champion of art and architecture infinitely praising the Imperial Cult." Zeid and Dribrahim stared unconsciously in the dark. "EROTOS BASYLIOS had a son born here in Cyrene by his wife Mariamne in 6 A.D., during the Census in which Octavian I called Augustus by erroneous history (for he always only called himself Gauis Julius Caesar after his great step-uncle

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the famous first Imperator) counted his people like money, numbers on a ledger-- Augustus Julius Caesar, usurping the true Divi Filius. The Son of God, the only begotten son of divine Caesar murdered brutally in Rome by the high priests, begat a Prophet named John Markos of the al-Psylli na tion - the Ba of Sylios whose name Erotos assumed as the god Eros - and his Jewish mother took her baby to live in Galilee, near Nazareth at Cana and Capernaum. The boy grew to be a Baptizer in the wilderness sworn to avenge his father, murdered shortly after his own birth because of the infidelity of his mother; but he was protected by his own royal household and relatives. He wrote an 'EUAGGELION' about his father and called him Joshua the Messiah after the Jewish prophets, the ancient Hebrews who were heirs of Ab-Ra. In Greek it is written JESUS CHRIST." Michael paused. The men were unconscious and uncomprehending, only turning their heads at the approach of a new sound from the highway up above the house, inland, away from the sea where Muhammad had also been born. Two big Chevrolet suburban vans roared up to the house with their glaring amber headlights piercing the night and there was the start ling interruption of men's voices in the night. Captain Tahar and the At tach came down to the beach shack in their big boots and green uni forms; and there was no memory of the blasphemous story of the Evangel. "Doctor Azouya, we have orders to proceed to Zeltan to meet the Brother Colonel at the Dahra concession." Dribrahim sighed and stood up. "Thank you Captain. Goodbye, Mister al-Psylli, and thank you for your hospital ity." Old Zeid nodded. "Maleesh. Go with God, my good brothers." "And with you. Wa-salaam, gifhaelic byhee." The younger men hurried off to work: Zeid watched them go, another look crossing his face which the government official had not seen all that strange afternoon and evening: the crazy old fellahim transformed in stantly in the dark into a serious man of authority, Zeid al-Psylli the King,

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majestical, sublime, and full of ancient concentration. He watched the government vans and black limousine turn around and speed back to the Cyrene/Shahat junction west and south, to the airport at Benghazi (ancient Berenice); out into the vast petroleum fields and drilling stations where the business of Libya occupied the world. King Zeid knew that he had probably persuaded Dr. Azouya of his harmless eccent ricity, and that he had answered the Jamahiriya's questions about his son without answering anything. The Jamahiriya had obeyed its orders by noti fying him (obliquely, to be sure) of their help, and that now they could get back to their State of the Masses. He hurried up to his waiting boat around a rocky bend and a cadre of his waiting Black Guards in the shad ows. They would speed all night across the Gulf of Sirte west to Leptis Magna and Home where his Tribe and Nation were assembling - where they had always had their headquarters. This dreary clump of shacks at Psyllia was a diversion. Jasmine al-Psylli, the beautiful black Archangel Jibra'il, waited for him, smiling in the driver' s seat of the Boat.

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Great Michael continued his tale of the god-king. Caesarion Ptolemaeus XV Eros Basyllaeus fled Egypt like Moses, the le gions of Rome and Gaius Octavian driving his mother Cleopatra VII to die at the fang of an asp like Pharaoh's daughter-wife in the Nile rescuing Osiris, like Isis, resurrected from bulrushes in the Nile, the River of Life re turning every year: from the sacred Uraeus serpent in her ancient crown. Young Caesarion, 17 years old in 30 BC, brilliant son of Julius Caesar knew already he was the heir of the godlike Moses - Joshua, the Messiah, Ra of Ab the heart of God, king of holy Egypt, fleeing his cousin who would be Augustus Caesar: jealous sibling, genius of Italia and Illyria as well. Frightened, immeasurable Caesarion Eros calculated the leagues from Coptos and Berenice back down the Nile to terrible Alexandria where his mother lay in her mausoleum with Mark Antony, a good stepfather, a god crowned by Apollo. Caius Octavian and all the legions of Imperial Roma would never have harmed the only son of Divine Caesar; but the only be gotten Son of God also knew the Senate and the racist Italians hated Afric ans and it would have been sheer folly to return (as some sloppy historians later conjectured) to Alexandria, and expect every merchant and Consul of the SPQR to refrain from political murder, jealous, bloody murder, such as his father experienced. Caesarion Eros was not that stupid. He was not a boy in an age when a man had been to war and was mar ried by the time he was 17, and already crowned King (and already a stelae at Dandara showed him wed to his mother at her teat, ptolemaic royal marriage). He knew that Warriors had far more honor than civilians. Velleius Paterculus the historian of Rome at the time correctly recorded that Octavian killed no one in Egypt after Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra com mitted suicide - their children heirs, after all, of Alexander the Great. Gaius Octavian was not that stupid. His 20 Legions would not have permitted the murders of the heirs of Caesar and their beloved triumvir Marcus Antonius.

THE LIBYAD
And Octavian needed able relatives he could trust to rule Mauretania, Nu midia, and oppose Parthia; it was only for Caesarion to wait and to find the right time to swear loyalty to his cousin legitimately named by Caesar as heir to his Name (one of the 99 Names of God] - Caesar's Will safely protected by the College of Vestal Virgins. Rome would never have allowed an African bastard an aedileship, or even a provincial Proconsularship. No, he had no desire to oppose his able cousin. Nor was it for common historians, plebeian philosophers to understand the ways of kings and gods and queens such as the Prophets told in the Byblos of Moses-- before the Babylonian exile when priests re wrote it; editors, mere scholars, knew nothing of the Pyramids, Pharaoh, Sphinx, Sekhet Aaru, and the Kingdom of God. Caesarion Eros sailed up the Great Nile against the current and prayed for help, for guidance, of the Guardian of the Flock, as he was called in faraway Cyrene: Pure Apollo. Immortal Zeus. Set his father-brother [for Caesarion was also Osiris, who was Eros, HORUS]. "Will Octavian truly spare me?" he wondered, watching the jackasses pull the wooden irrigation wheels to water the rich cotton fields and barley; wondering, that is, when he was not grieving for glorious Cleopatra, con queror of Rome and the world. She had been so kind and loved him so much, like his half-brothers Philadelphos and Alexander Helios and Selene Cleopatra the twin sister, by Mark Antony - and Antyllus his friend, the Consul's other son by another mother in Rome; and even his own halfsister Julia, lost, the only other child of Caesar's wives. "Caesar," he dared whisper aloud. "Ruler of the world." And how alone he was now on the river like the grave of his Father, whom he'd never known, murdered in 44 BC in the Senate in Rome when his Son was only a baby. "Oh heavenly Father, what should I do? I am alone. The sins of the world

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are weighing on my shoulders like yours - when justice, what truth, you had to dispense, in Judgement, regardless of your own personal safety." And for all his strength and maturity Caesarion wept. He could not think of his dead mother and father. His soldiers and guards most loyal to the Queen also could not bear the torment they knew their young Lord felt; and his heart was breaking on the Royal Barge. He looked east across the fertile fields and the sand to the part of Berenice, ancient Ptolemaic name of queens on the Red Sea, and burning Arabia on the far side. Where should he go to escape the Senators of Rome: east: or west to Cyrene, where Libya was still green and the Avengers of the Republic would never expect him to go - to disappear, in cognito, in Saharan anonymity? He could always change his name to Aeneas, grow a beard like a Jew and long hair, wear long Berber robes. Maybe disappear into a cave like a monk or a hermit. It was tempting. He already hated royalty and intrigue. What good had it done his father and his mother? What good was wealth and pomp and earthly power if bloody murder, intrigue, and hate were all that waited for a prince who would be king, or high priest of God? "Father, what shall I do? What would you have done ?" He wracked his mind to remember the history of his parents in similar cir cumstances, in trouble when Pompey or the Gauls threatened Caesar; but all he could think of was when Cleopatra was also 17 on this very river in peril for her life when her older sisters overthrew their father Ptolemy XIII with the help of Palace eunuchs; and . . . she went to Ashkelon in Gaza, in Judea, to raise an army of loyal Hamitic Nabataens! "Yes! Arabs!" he muttered excitedly to himself, wary of betraying his thoughts to the Guards, "to avenge her lost father, my grandfather Ptolemy, Queen Cleo patra fled Egypt for help from the Israelites." He remembered the famous story very well, as did all the people of the

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world who knew of great Cleopatra and how she snuck back into Alexan dria to meet Caesar - both of them surrounded by the armies of treacher ous Egypt; and it was not by force of arms that beguiled A'Tem and Isis, as they were called, Caesar and Cleopatra to find peace and love as the best way to defeat the Macedonian corruption of her brother and sisters in the palace intrigues of white-marbled Alexandria. Caesar's legions, like Octavian's 20 legions today, marched with the Arabs into Pelusium and the Nile to conquer war, and hate, brutally realistic Caesar also renowned for prudence, justice, and mercy. Caesarion Eros could not hope to op pose Octavian in Judea in the same way, but, perhaps, like Cleopatra he could swear by his boldness and raw courage loyalty to Rome, Rome, his father's beloved Rome no Roman would ever question. By Julius Caesar Caius Octavian was also Caesar by sacred Will and cousin to Caesarion, the bastard of Africa. All the world knew of the pride Caesar took and held in his only son by the only woman he ever loved; all the world would condemn the New Imperator if he, Octavian, murdered or mistreated his cousin King Ptolemy, obedient Governor of Egypt, Cyrene, Arabia, Judea, even Syria, a loyal devout brother and Son of Rome, a boy with no armies at all. He would have to go to Ashkelon and pray for help and ask for an audience of Octavian, sole Ruler of the world since he defeated Mark Ant ony at Actium; and he would have to do it publicly, very boldly in the light of day if he was to survive Octavian's notorious guile and cunning, ap pealing before the Tribunes for Roman justice. "After all, I have no Le gions. I should use that to my advantage instead of as weakness, appeal ing, as my father often did, I have read, I am told, to the Roman admira tion for courage in a man. Boldness. God's Justice." Otherwise, he mused, he could hide and sneak for years in caves as a beggar or a mad monk but eventually his fame and features would betray him; and Octavian, Roma, would sneer at his deceit and surely, justifiably, crucify him as a fool.

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Caesarion Eros sighed deeply and looked over the rails on the great ves sel, directly across the river where it turned back west to face the town of Coptos. It was the same famous spot where Cleopatra turned back where the Nile comes closest to the Red Sea, and Arabia. Camel caravans were setting out for the port of Berenice to Mecca, and Punt, and the rich trade to India. A day's sail farther south would take them to Thebes with its massive temples where the fourth Ptolemy had been faced with a rival nat ive dynasty, and war had been his only solution, he thought - resulting in thousands of deaths and most of Egypt's overseas territory. Politics came back to preoccupy his thoughts: Rome was weary of war, and its losses of revenues too. Egypt was by far the richest sweetest Province on earth. The New Caesar would be tired of killing Noble Ro mans. Pompey and Brutus and Cicero and Mark Antony were dead. The grandson of the sister of God had all the Legions. Caesarion Eros could smell the incense of Thebes (far beyond and above all of Octavian's wealth and power) a day's sail north of the tombs of the Valley of Kings where Queen Hatshepshut had built her own mortuary, a long horizontal series of terraces and chambers built into the hard bone-dry cliffs under myrrh trees, beside the fountains baptiateriese of Ramses II and III MOSES; as well as the Colossi of Amenophis III. Caesarion loved it. He could feel the Presence of God everywhere. The Hebrew legends moved him deeply too, for they told of prophets and sac rifices and rites skillfully told with genealogies of real men and women per forming ceremonies continuously to their Masters dead in the temples (not dead, but their ghosts given up), statues of Ab-Ra-Ham 60 feet high, stones irradiating still, like the altars their anthropomorphic shepherd Abram built, temples to Serai, bones, stones radiating fire under the desert sun. Genes is. Sour dirge-like mus1c. What was it in him that longed for quiet contem plation - Prayer? He knew the Caesars and Ptolemies, the best of them loved the Risen Ancestors too, with all the heart of Ra. Israel needed a

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Temple too, again, worthy of Solomon. He could appeal to Octavian Caesar to build it for them, for goodwill, for a Pax Romana, to close the gates of Mars and build churches for the blessed Holy Mother. It would be a legacy, a peaceful non-threatening legacy that would save Rome in the hearts of Roma and Isis and the minds of Venus, Jupiter, Horus, and Bac chus. It would be dangerous. He could be killed. Disinherited. "It will be the true carrying-on of my father's work. Lies will not work," he murmured louder now, "or deceit, or military action or political man euvers. Rome is bitter and vicious after 20 years of Civil War. Caesar wants peace. My father wants me to be a man. I will trust in the Lord, as the Psalmist David wrote." Is that what Moses did, after fleeing Pharaoh to Midian, hiding for years as a shepherd, returning to Pi-Raamses with the psalms and the lyre and the parables and throwing himself on the mercy of the Great God? Yes. He had to honor his parents, not avenge them: with noble Joshua the heir of Moses, as God willed. Yes. He would have to explore the tenets of Old Hebrewism. He would turn around and go back north downstream to Goshen and cross the Sea of Reeds to Ashkelon in Canaan, like Moses, like Cleopatra, 'The Promised Land' where he could gather his children in the wilderness scattered by civil war, distrust, murder, and hunger. He would not go to Alexandria. It was also called Babylon. "And . . . I will vow to my cousin to raise revenues and a Roman legion of Arab war riors here in the east: to keep the Peace - a holy Roman Empire beloved of God. If he kills me then I will at least have made my Peace." Michael paused in his remembrance and prophecy. "Is that what Jesus did?" Could it be that an Evangel even did not know everything of every man's mind when he is free to choose, to choose and decide, when even

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his own life as Prometheus, forger of fire, was a riddle confused in him by Venus for her own dark purposes of the black desert Genius, Death? What deceits was She practicing upon him and what were his own dark fears of the Blackness? He knew that Caesarion Eros deceived Gaius Octavian, unloading the gold and crown jewels of the Ptolemies his mother gave him, in her careful preparations, her larceny, at Coptos, with trusted eunuchs at Berenice; sending Cleopatra's magnificent Barge back to Alexandria empty of Egypt's last King, lost in shadowy histories of deceitful historians like Su etonius, Tacitus, Strabo. In a year or two an able young Jewish administrator known variously in vague granite inscriptions and coins as Syllaeus, and Antipater, and Aeneas or Aretas presented himself to Caesar and his admiral Marcus Ag rippa at Rhodes, or perhaps it was Samos, as adviser and counsel to King Obodas of Arabia, or perhaps HRRT of Petra; the record was never very clear. There were few documents to trace anyone across the sands of shift ing Ancient Rome, but neither Augustus (as he chose after that meeting, strangely, to call himself, after the Augurs) or Agrippa ever recorded a meeting with anyone named 'Herod' - Hrrt, yes, Aretas, Ptolemy Neoteros, Aeneas Syllaeus - only the fraudulent Jew Flavius Josephus 100 years later ever spoke of EROTOS [in Greek]; and Matthew, Mark, and Luke, of Erot os Basileus in their Euaggelions. "Who is he?" Gaius Octavian asked suspiciously (so unsure of his own name he called himself Julius) when he was told in his simple tent of the Ambassador bearing rich tribute and authorization from Judea. After that strange meeting, only ever recorded by Josephus, Octavian changed com pletely. He became Augustus. He went from a life of political intrigue and deceit to Princeps, the "archi-tectron" ("carpenter" in Aramaic) of the greatest building program in religious history of many hundreds of temples

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to Apollo, Isis, and Pan; of Caesarea, Paneas, Herodion, Masada, Jericho, Macheuros, and the incomparable Temple of Temples in Jerus alem. "Who was he?" The Christian Copts of great Egypt remembered, their tra dition that St. Mark the Apostle, Evangelist of the oldest Euaggelion, was from Cyrene. He was John Mark, son of Mary a devout Jewess and one Aristopolos, or Aristobulus, or Arotos, EROS [for spellings on papyrii and temple stones were never standardized, and often abbreviated]: a name rumored also in nabataea as Hrrt with no vowels like Hebrew, the king dom Rome records governed by Prefects and unnamed Procurators; but one of whom Julius Caesar called 'Malichius' in his own time and of whom Josephus said one Malichus assassinated one Antipater, mysterious father of Herod--in 44 BC 'Herod' was also tried by the Sanhedrin for blas phemy, but the cunning half-Jewish Arab opportunist threatened the high priests and scribes with his Roman soldiers - and by violence and deceit was acquitted by the Sanhedrin. "I think Caesarion Eros played Octavian perfectly," Michael said aloud to his audience, "as his father played everyone perfectly - except of course the Senate. They were Caesar's own bloody Sanhedrin, you know. The son learned ably from the mistakes of the father. By 40 or 50 AD JohnMark put it all together and Judaized Rome's imperial cult with Iesous Christos - Egyptianized [Libyanized to be more exact] Joshua. His Gospel is the most sublime synthesis of the Ages - bringing God into the Family, genealogically, and with mythology blending into the life of a real Man. 0 yes. I think Caesarion Eros made his father proud. And his Mother, But his own wife Mariamne was another matter, Herodias, as the Gospel sings."

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The black yacht of the royal Psyllian Nation hurtled at 40 knots, an aston ishing windswept speed west over the wine-dark Sea between the gulfs of Syrte, and King Zeid thought of the passage in The Aeneid as he watched the shores of Libya on darkest Africa: Along this side and that there towers, vast, a line of cliffs, each ending in like crags; beneath the ledges tranquil water lies silent and wide; the backdrop - glistening forests and, beetling from above, a black grove, thick with bristling shadows. Underneath the facing brow: a cave with hanging rocks, sweet waters, seats of living stone, the home of nymphs. And here no cable holds tired ships, no anchor grips them fast with curving bit. A convoy of black cars was also racing south into the terrible Saharan oil fields of Zleitan and Dahra; and spy satellites watched them all 200 miles up in the outer atmosphere where men pretended to be gods, the masters of Nature, sons of perpetual Earth; they watched metal automobiles and a fiberglass yacht like insects? and listened electronically to the chatter, like insects, bacterial communications codes and ciphers explaining their na tional delusions and special engineering. In Washington D.C. across the Ocean, and London, frantic decoders and experts in every foreign lan guage watched the black bugs crawl across their screens, and listened to the top-secret chatter of the aliens discussing plots and murders and wan ton destruction of everything good in Washington D.C., and London, but they couldn't make sense of the westbound traffic. "It's in some kind of new mythological code," guessed one of the top cryptographers, sophistic ated spies. "Whereas we can pretty much understand the others," the ex perts explained easily, "on their way to the tents of Khadafy, disguising vast underground networks of military research and the latest techno-terror ism, I don't know what the others are talking about, Sir."

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Assistant NSA Director Tom O'Malley in Washington glanced in surprise at his top cryptographer-decoder and senior systems analyst Pauline Dav idson-Kryll. She was the sharpest mind he had ever known there in 30 years of crypto-analysis and Programming. Asst. Director O'Malley was less than revered by hit staff for his intelligence or perspicacity; he was a Party loyalist and a career civil servant. He was an efficient automaton, in the common opinion of his staff, a short ugly man in baggy seersucker; but Mrs. Davidson-Kryll, mother of four, divorced, liked Mr. O'Malley's cold and impersonal approach to Systems Analysis, and the requirements of the facts of de-coding, and the rarefied world of cryptography. They were both devotees of the explosion of data pouring from the telemetry of the latest generation of Comsats, and the High Geo-synchronicity in Space. "Khadafy is planning a nuclear and biological attack on Tel Aviv, Israel," she said calmly, a matter of Fact. "When?" he asked unquestioning. "Soon. Weeks, maybe." He nodded. "That's good enough for me. You get that by the cryptic con versation about the so-called Tarhunah 'pumping station' under the Jebel Nafusa, for that bogus Manmade River Project decoy site they've been putting out?" she nodded. "Yes." They stared in rapture at the marvelous cascade of Data pouring in to their fluorescent Supercomputer from the network of interlocking Intelligence Comsats circling the Globe, and, also stationed immobilely on top-secret Stealth Space Stations 300 miles out. They were invisible multi-billion dollar Space Platforms far beyond the paranoia of the worst conspiracy theorists. It was wonderful, for both O'Malley and Davidson-Kryll were also Doctors of Physics, Ph.D.s from Stanford. The superhuman data was beyond any scientific miracle ima gined by Einstein, Newton, Galileo, or Aristotle. On the water in the Inter national Waters of Libya the gleaming black 80-foot Yacht named Vergili

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us skimmed the whitecaps, pulled by taunt nylon sails. King Zeid laughed. "They're hearing everything we say, right? And don't understand the first goddamn word." Jasmine al-Psylli nodded pleasantly in the brightening Dawn, crossing her long legs, revealing succulent thighs bare above her Italian stockings at tached to a sheer sexy garter belt from Il Maggiore's on the Via Veneto, and resting a powerful portable supercomputer on her lap. "These things are fun. I can activate this one with a thought. Look, no hands, Your High ness." The magic silver screen, without a keyboard, began printing in stantaneously millions of bytes per second, flashing pages of data in Arab ic backwards. "What's it say?" the elderly gentleman asked. The black-uniformed sailors at the rudder and masts strained to see the screen too, as well as Jasmine. She didn't look at them. "It's analyzing male lust and the precise appeal a naked woman holds for them, in terms of every ancient mythological grammar from the first Myrtle-nymphs and Lotus Goddess to Brigitte Bardot and my black Italian garter belt." Old Zeid's mouth dropped and his face fell flat. She laughed. "Don't worry, Your Majesty, it's all right. You won't go to Hellas. I like men look ing at my legs. It's ridiculous, but if that's what you like, enjoy. I think God dess Eve had a great idea when she invented Beauty. Would men have thought of it? You tell me." The black Ship with 2 escort frigates and a Gunship, sped west over the waves north of Misurata. "No," Zeid smiled, touching her inner soft thigh, "this would have been impossible for mortal conception. And don't say I'm too old for you. You've been around a lot more than me. Weren't you a mortal woman, once, Aphrodite I believe it was, foam-born, impregnated by the severed genitals of Uranus, castrated Titan?"

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Jasmine instructed the computer to answer his question while she opened her legs to him, whispering, "Greek lies;" further impossibly confusing the systems analysts. They sailed enigmatically towards the arches at the en tranceways to Leptis Magna, fabled city of graceful Phoenicia, colony of Carthage and Latium, as the Dawn put short Night to sleep in the desert; and the Royal Lovers glided together over the foam, the Sea, where Aeneas and Queen Dido might have played. Their sailors discreetly avoided the divine sunrise and courtiers might have swum through the Great Gate now almost underwater, the northern Arch of Triumph where, inland, Leptis Magna's crumbled marble elegance was covered by sand and sea and the hot sun until it was lost and forgotten among the greater memories of Athens, Caesarea Philippi, and Ephesus. It was a dead stone city of white pillars and arches and the king and queen from Hellas sailed gracefully over the turquoise depths where temples still shone below, in the dark Drop-off, among squids and eels; enchanted kingdom of Neptune of the al-Psylli Barbarians of Put and Cush, the sacred Derdei superchief of Hikaptah, and he gazed longingly in his rapture of sex over his once great Capitol below, beneath him, the still-great Goddess of Africa hold ing his penis and smiling with complete self-assurance. Queen Jasmine said, "The intrigues of Michael and Zeus." He nodded, holding Her too, not saying a word. "Yes, the Anglo-Americ ans have Brother Leader Qathafi so confused he doesn't know if he's com ing or going. Does his computer readout explain the latest double-lies about a nuclear attack on Israel, that we put out? It should. They won't know if it's true or not, or another of their double-lies within double-lies, un til they may even believe they're going to invade Libya, and Qathafi will believe what they tell him that he really has nuclear missiles ready to launch from Ras Lanuf!! And biological viruses from Tarhunah!" Zeid turned her over and grasped her Groin like steel. "So, Our Lady, my

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beautiful Consort and sweet schemer, are you ready to put in place your Lady's plan to liberate my son, finally, and foil Michael and Jesus?" She laughed delightfully and kissed his grizzled cheek. "You old donkey. No wonder Egypt never had a chance. Yes. I'll send a top-secret classified cryptogram right now, to Washington, telling them I'm in London with the Queen, negotiating Sharif Muhammad's release, and a dispatch to Lon don telling them I'm in Washington. I shall be, let's see, a major in the Peoples' Militia on direct commission from Qathafi and the Revolutionary Council, indicating I'm with the Central Intelligence Agency, indicating our, Libya's, close affiliation therefore with Israel's Mossad, too, and vari ous other Secret Agencies of Herod's and Michael's 'sovereigntists'. Then I'll fly to Washington for appointments at the Pentagon arranged months ago by the NSA and the white House, by unnamed sources of course, but very high level. A typical Michaelian-Christian tactic, and claim. A hint of affiliation with Exxon Oil won't hurt either. Then I'll tell the Pentagon I'm in New York at the UN, and I'll tell the dear old United Nations I'm at the Pentagon, and all channels will have been cleared for my military flight to South Dakota, in, oh, let's say, 3 days from now." The NSA and the Mossad Comsat (Communications satellite) 200 miles overhead heard only a garbled poetic grammar about a Black Goddess, as the Archangel Michael intercepted the transmission and left the Ph.D.s in Washington weeping with incoherent uncipherable noise. He frowned as he decoded Gabriel's nefarious plot. "We can't cross her," Jesus said, "it's God's command." The shrewd Mi chael was not so sure, not at all. "It's deceitful My Lord, and I don't think Their Majesty would approve of this at all. They don't know about it." King Jesus frowned again; but this time he was uneasy with the unending in trigues of eternal salvation, of life everlasting made almost ludicrous and trivial by political maneuvering and these all-too-human schemes.

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He was reminded of the Caliph Ali's lament in Mecca, "Are we gods or men?" Was it a Theme of Eternity? He was pleased to be free of the phys ical constraints of mortal pain - a ghost, now, free of the Body - but where was the line between the free and happy Soul and its Universal Mind, the line between Science and Art? Was Creation far too vast for any but God to understand? Should Jesus conclude it was Unknowable, and Unbeliev able? Michael was looking at him, sharply, very sharply. "Thought is vis ible here, Lord Jesus, like breath. We can talk forever about Faith and Be lief, if you wish, but there is always, always, the sermon of God. You won der why or how They can be omnipotent and yet not know every plot or prayer of every Man? It is like the spontaneous electricity of lightning and the Great Blackness between the few white flashes: They are Allah, the All'A'Tem-Ra, my friend, like a brain in which every cell is alive and free. I've been here longer than anyone, a Brother since we were Titans on Mount Atlas in Oceanus, and A'Tem-Ra was always careless of Power, Control, over it All, because, They were omnipotent already. They don't need or want all the power. They have made us of their mind to ease their ecstasy. You and I and Gabriel, and our royal kinsman below Zeid and Fatima are here to help and praise that Power. I know it's true. We are here to help Gabriel help God rid the world of bestial epidemics and atro cities. This is how it is done. This is how you did it at Panias cave in the tetrarchy of Caesarea Philippi." It was his turn to look askance sharply at the angel - whose argument Mi chael was using to trick Gabriel. He paused before he could make an angry response because he knew God was not well pleased with him; Christianity had become a double-lie of the mortals who were so much like cancer cells, to Christ himself; he knew he was responsible for them, it was his work, and only he could hope to correct the terrible damage done in his name. The Archangel Michael knew it all. Michael was one of the few inhabitants of heaven who had never been mortal, and therefore he knew

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the pain of the Christ probably better than anyone: because, he had been an original actor in the drama, a part of God's first mythic ritual drama of creation; the reference to sacred Panias proved it to the Christ. He was a proud and lordly man, one of the divine nobility descended from On (or Annu in Egyptian), from the House of Hyr. Michael put his hand gently on Christ's shoulder. "It is time for the Judgement, John." Christ nodded and watched Michael fly to Gabriel's White City below, Leptis Magna, much beloved by A'tem. Caesarion Eros longed for peace and final reconciliation too. Michael sailed across the bow of the black Vergilius in his humble fishing trawler, almost capsizing Her. "Ahoy!" he shouted, and the luxury voyagers screamed! "Avast!" the captain shouted back at him, her black hair blow ing wildly in the salty gales on the choppy surf. Michael, as a crusty old peasant sailor burned dark red, came about and maneuvered the vessels steadily to shore, landed them side by side on the beach beside marble pillars half-underwater, still, lovely white stones below in the green water, a strong Sailor, tanned and handsome. "Gifhaelic byhee," he waved, to the parents of the Prince. "Wa-as-salaamalaiku. It is a very beautiful morning." Jasmine smiled and regained her composure, alertly for her shrewd rival (brushing her disheveled hair), whilst Zeid and the crew hid behind the Ship's hull. "Gifhaelic byhee, assalaam," great Jasmine replied. The handsome sailor with mighty bare thighs and back approached the city woman in a wet dress without stock ings, barefooted, sunburned, smelling of salt and sex. He grinned at her and the reticent grizzled old man. "It is early for city dwellers to be out on the Sea. I hope I have not alarmed you, but the surf and tide brought me ashore suddenly where my nets, apparently, have become tangled in the marble statues below. The Sea seems to be rising each year, wa-salaam? Perhaps this ancient Necropolis will soon just disappear?" He glanced sig nificantly at the beaching frigates and more blackguards jumping in the

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brine, at alert. Jasmine motioned for the guards to rest at ease and pointed for them to go upshore at the old lighthouse. She followed Michael's glances, indicating concern. "Countless thousands of years have failed to flood Her," Jasmine replied, "impertinent fisherman, The White City like Memphis will certainly swallow you and your nets that are empty long be fore Goddess allows laborers here." He laughed happily like she had made a great joke. "0 excellent, beautiful Bitch, horned slithering sea-cow. How lovely are Your Lady's electric eels and sea slugs. Why, I should hope this dead pile of sandy salty rubble will indeed bring great honor to your sublime realms. But 0, do I sense an aimless plot coming over me, Virgil's poem, a wandering theme in which international politics will be brought to resolution here, of all places, a meaningless Tribunal like a Court, a place of final fateful Judgement convenient to bad poets? No? Do I sense a classical moment coming on? Quoth Aeneas: So Venus. Answering, her son began: "I have not seen or heard your sister, maiden - or by what name am I to call you, for your voice is not like any human voice. 0 goddess, you must be Apollo's sister or else are to be numbered with the nymphs' Whoever you may be, do help us, ease our trials; do tell us underneath what skies, upon what coasts of earth we have been cast; we wander, ignorant of men and places, and driven by the wind and the vast waves. Before your altars many victims will fall at our hands, as offerings to you." She smiled. "Do you claim Rome as your Poet also, as well as Homer and Thoth inspired by me? Rhetoric is more to your taste, obviously, inferior

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philosophy. We were just about to take a bath at Hadrian's Arch in the baptismal caldarium. Would you like to join us? It is a mere skip and a j ump into the waiting Abyss, whereon Ys is our Mistress of immortal purific ation from your Master's groundworms, flies, and mites." He shrugged. "Ys, eh? Do you mean like the 'Ys-Lands' of sunken Islands beneath Middle Earth, the Mediterranean of rotting corpses so sacred to your sensual Creatrix? No thank you. Very kind of you to offer an invita tion, but I'll return to the bright morning above your abyss, the black bot tomless hole of hollow mortality, and decay. I only came to say I'm sure Raphael and Uriel will be glad to join you as the three judge panel for our impending International War Crimes Tribunal. That is what you had in mind, God's Mind, isn't it, a rhetorical plot of law and justice and history? I'll be glad to act as Prosecutor of Islam and paganism, while I am sure you have already assigned your son the wayward prince, as chief counsel, for the Defense. Legally so? Good enough, my fair colleague and Gruesome?" She sighed deeply and looked at Zeid standing behind her. "Fair enough. We accept the challenge, if so it is the fate of my Prince to preside as Pro secutor of Judeo-Christianity, as well. I will assume you and the Christ, your Master, will not interfere in our efforts to free the Prince, finally?" The sailor of great strength seethed at that insult, of his servitude to Christ, and Plato. He stared long and hard at the anarchic old emperor of the Berber Confederacy, elusive and ruthless warrior. "What do you say old Jackass? Are you willing to throw your son again to these conniving daughters of Belle?" Zeid was frightened. "You quoth Virgil, and so, as well: Then a Trojan Caesar shall rise out of that splendid line.

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His empire's boundary shall be the Ocean; the only border to his fame, the stars. The sailor nodded respectfully to the soldier. "It continues: His name shall be derived from great Iulus, and shall be Julius. In time to come, no longer troubled, you shall welcome him to heaven, weighted with the Orient's wealth; he, too, shall be invoked with prayers. With battle forgotten, savage generations shall grow generous. And aged Faith and Vesta, together with the brothers, Romulus and Remus, shall make laws. The gruesome gates of war, with tightly welded iron plates, shall be shut fast. Within, unholy Rage shall sit on his ferocious weapons, bound behind his back by a hundred knots of brass; he shall groan horribly with bloody lips." Zeid nodded respectfully as if to the Titans Rhea and Cronos. "You speak with great knowledge of my parents. Though it feels like an earthquake un der my feet I must obey my son's mother, immortal Hera and Rhea. She is my friend and my sister and the instrument of Love." The cynical sailor snorted. "Brainwashed old lecher to the last, I see, be guiled by the black bewitching Djinn. So be it. It will be the triumph of Venus and Destruction again on your crumbling shores, your old ideas rot ten like these broken bones and the empty Theatre of Dionysus. No one cares anymore about your superstitious idolatry."

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With that he shoved out to Sea on the gentle swells in his little boat, disap pearing into the morning mist rising from the broken columns of Corinthian grandeur. Half of the city was gone from memory into mystery, the tiny mists, opposite to the poles and Arcs of mastery where men and gods had once played together in friendship like children sailing away on the Medi terranean Sea.

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Gabriel kissed the King's grizzled old cheek and said her farewells in a si lence no code could break, whispering a plot agreeable to them, unknown to any deciphers on earth or in heaven. She flew away on her missions to Washington and London, New York, and sacred South Dakota. She was gone as wonderfully as her rival Michael into the air, under way and with divine power. She was the orgiastic creation that was left after death - the only part of a woman to survive. She was Said's emissary and best friend, the dream and the music in the air on the Sea. Goddess, he loved her. He smiled and sighed deeply. It was good to play the donkey-trickster again after all these ages; he could have danced like Dionysus leading the flocks on the rainbow hills of Athens, and Troy, Bethlehem, Judea, and the Hejaz; he would be the rainmaking shepherd-god of Pan! "Oh ho!" he laughed out loud and danced on the shore, So they all think I'm a jackass, the crazy lecher!" The Titans had created him as their son Zeus and the father of happy Di onysus, by a goddess, and great Heracles was the great half-brother by another immortal woman [the opposite of Greek myth]; for Egypt came be fore Greece and Libya before Egypt, and Zeid knew he was Set the assking, not Dionysus, not Pan the goat-god, not Osiris, but his twin Set, later called Seth in the Bible and holy Qu'ran. Titanic Atlas was his uncle Gara mas of Africa. Zeid strode powerfully down colonnaded boulevards of holy Lebdas, of the wadi Lebda of Africa, the father of Muhammad, who was Ham, who was Hercules. Zeid was Zeus, the son of titanic Rhea, sister of Atlas and Prometheus, and son of Cronos - thus his parents were Rhea (Earth) and Cronos (Time). Their genealogy was in the marble columns built by the Genius (Djinn!) of divine Augustus: Caius Octavius DIVI FILIUS of Gaius Julius Caesar: Ponti fex Maximus, Imperator, high priest of Roma. "The panoply of history, eh, Libee Bro, gawad, zup widnick, inchay na ginta gawad 7ezha," one of the marbled statues said, on the Via Severan. Zeid jumped, at the sudden ancient Sud-Ani dialect and the white stones

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coming alive in the ruins. "How about let's have a cool one and cruise nymphs." He looked at the white marble statue of Pan that had come alive, as the stone gods of the Classics had always come alive, before modern memory forgot. "Think you can be me, eh, Daddy-o? Zeus gathered his composure of the modern song and sighed patiently, resigned to the impertinence of Dionysus [confused with Bacchus-Pan in Rome]; a worthy opponent, impetuous and unpredictable Mobruk - sheikh of Mecca! - Arabic impostor. Zeus and Pan squared off, staring at each other, mortal Zeid and his jackass consorts and Blackguards near his crumbled villa under sand and salty Sea to the west of Lebdas proper, his excavated house, and godly Mobruk arriving only that warm morning from Arabia with his drunken army of Maenads and Satyrs, naked dan cing pagan Lebu Berbers approaching from every direction of the city coming alive suddenly, dancing Libyans, music, bells and drums alive in the marble on the beach. Mobruk the god, the deceiver, the genius enchanter whom Zeid saw now was the goat behind Ali, and Mecca's unhappiness, Mecca's original plot; Mobruk had drugged caliph Ali, provoking God's Song all along, Allah's prayer; Mobruk was the rebel grandson of God, goat-king, grandson of Ysus-Ra. Eve of the Nile: his twin brother Pan, Ani, bard of Africa, "Pan. Good morning Brother. What's the riddle - why so many disguises? Decep tions? Tricks?" Mobruk laughed in his white beard and jumped down from his pedestal on the Via Severan built by L. Septimius Severus, muscular and black as the skin of invincible Poseidon [Neptune) in the lightless depths of the Sea, naked, "As you see Bro, to ease Our Lady's ecstasy." He pointed to dozens of goddess-maddened maenads dancing nearer and nearer, in circles all around, playing drums and flutes and lyres and bells. "She is mad, crazed with creation, orgasmic." He pointed to dozens of goat-legged horny satyrs singing and bleating

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happily to the music of the wild women, erect men, horns full of seed. "Full of Eve we've been called evil by the Evil I am here to join you and the plot of Hermes to save our lady, in the name of Roma and Libya, as you trained me." Zeid breathed deeper, his horn growing too with the aroma and beauty of the free women dancing nearer and nearer smelling of fresh date cream, camel's milk, coconut oil, sultani citrons, forgetful Lotus. The pagan city of Phoenicia and divine Augustus was alive again with sculpture and glorious Art, pageantry in the elegant Dionysia praising Ysus and Tanit, Caelestis, Athena, and the horned Serpent. Sweet wine and ambrosial mushrooms and nectar seduced Zeid with hallucinations of immortality, enjoyable girls, pleasure and peace of every kind. In the bright sunlight local Libyan camel herds and townsfolk from Al-Khums came running to join the party, the pleasure, the songs of praise; for word of the revels spread up and down the coast as far as Misurata and the outskirts of Tripoli. "Free Beer!" the young men shouted and ran and ran as fast as they could, grabbing their girlfriends, "King Zeid has defied the ban on beer and wine and singing!" The girls laughed like they hadn't laughed in a long long time and rushed to put on pretty dresses. "Art thou become, then, Dear Brother, pornographic?" Zeid lay in the tepidarium of the cool Nymphaeum near the Baths Hadrian built upon the holy Sanctuary to the Genius of Augustus, High Pontiff, in cool comfort, where thousands of years of wisdom reposed as well in the cool green pools, with happy nymphs. "Yes," he sighed, "I suppose it's in evitable, the only moral thing to do. But what brings you here, Sheikh Mobruk? I thought all was unwell in the land of virtue?" Mobruk smoked his hookah in the shade of the cool tiles, massaged by servants oiled like one of the Caesars, Romans lounging after their solemn

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baptisms in the holy Temples. "Yes," he sighed contentedly, "I suppose it was inevitable as well that pagan idolatry would enjoy a resurgence. Hm, resurgere, in Latin, isn't that a synonym for resurrection? The Baptist's head? He and I must have felt a surge coming on too, eh, resurging from the looks of Salome and that maenad? Can you believe the breasts on that Blonde? Animals everywhere, statuesque metaphors out the Ass. So, how are you? And unhappy Libya? Cry Libya, O?" The two Romans sized up each other, critically, not unlike many other god like twins and rivals; men of creation divine in their handsome faces and unusual strength, in harmony of feature despite their age they were both formidable allies, friendly rivals, the best of friends, and their great years were an added subtlety of wisdom, mixed with joy and God's love. "How is Fatima, the beautiful queen?" Zeid asked. "Does she know the goat-king has been unleashed upon us, and Islam is in terminable danger?" Mobruk smiled. "Yes. The mother of Arabia is well. Venus of the Hejaz is praying for our success. When Jibra'il and Mahomet went back up to heaven after praying with us in Mecca and the Ka'Ba Queen Fatima went back unto the holy Mosque of Venus, or Dushara as she was called once; and I was sent ahead to keep track of Jibra'il and her antics. Do you know what she's done, Brother?" Mobruk looked seriously into Zeid's eyes and the ancient king saw that he was not the Pan-Goat of debauchery, the maligned god of the drunken vine, but, like Dionysus, the grandson of Great Eve, Isis, the mother he was the serious master of ceremonies refining his mother's creation out of existence; ecstasy, orgasm his duty to his Goddess. "Yes," Mobruk continued, "Jibra'il has punished Hercules, your oldest son Muhammad, all these years and kept him in prison. She's the one whose

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anger at Libya has been like Juno's anger at Italy and Aeneas in Virgil's heroic epic of Rome: and for the same reason ~ the rape of Helen, Wo man, Muhammad's abandonment of her lady's daughter Ewwa,, lo, thirtythree long years ago in Rome. It is well known in heaven that Gabriel's an ger Eve's dethronement by Adam, by Allah, by Jupiter, has been the cause of her war with Jesus and you, my dear friend, the once-mortal Zeus and King of Libya, father of Muhammad, and Venus his mother has kept him homeless, buried, forgotten." Zeid hung his head in sorrow for the second time in a day and a night, sorrowing again for his son because of his lust, his own passion for love; but he never knew until then that his boy's mother was Venus, and not the seductive deceptive Gabriel. "Venus is his mother?" he asked. "It was not the Angel who came to my bed that long night fifty years ago?" Mobruk shook his head sadly. "Your son is Hercules, goddess-engendered by lightning and black night's blackest thunderbolt, treacherous concep tion, Our Lady's work to protect humankind and the gods from destruction. She it is who has been in league all along with Eve, and Gabriel has been their Messenger of anger, and discipline. She it is whom even now, as you know, flies on wings to release Muhammad, under orders finally from Eve so that he may fulfill his Fate, which is her fate, which Muhammad has prayed for truly and honorably, lo, all these long years of our lost pur pose. She it is who has confounded our efforts these years to find the Prince and restore him to the throne of Holy Libya, original Goddess to the Titans. I know, I know, it has been hopeless confusing. That's how these goddamn women work, and Venus. Fatima was your wife, and mine, in heaven, after the long genealogies when the Deities were all a Holy Fam ily, once upon a time, long long ago. I don't pretend to understand, Zeid, these masteries of God's infinite mysteries. All I know is that she is not evil, nor are we, nor are Michael and his men confused by Women. It is the holy war in heaven that is the law by which eternal men and gods are

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made of conflict." Zeid sighed and stared out to sea at Lebda, and the maenads and satyrs of Mobruk slept peacefully like marble statues forgetful of pain, and forgot ten by women. "Islam?" Zeid asked. Mobruk yawned. "It is clearer than Judeo-Christ, for it honors truly the holy birthplaces of the prophets and their progeny, Libya." The old men, two godlike kings of the Goat and the Ass, fell asleep for the afternoon by the ruins of the Baths in the city built by the deified Emperors. And the Police of modern cruelty arrived at the Arch of Venus at the front Gates to the ruined Temple of Lebda and found them entranced among their drunken followers, their Libyan countrymen, naked debauchers at rest [like Ham found his father Noah], brown-skinned men and women of the desert who had always been Berberians of the Nomadness. Colonel Muammar al-Qathafi and his captains kicked the sleeping old men awake in the sunlight, glaring harsh Saharan daylight burning their eyes and minds, standing like pillars of shade over them. "Wake up, you fools," the Brother Leader commanded. Zeid and Mobruk and their demobilized bodyguards winked and blinked back to aware ness, dazedly; they could only see looming shadows around them. "Arrest them."

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General Herald Adams in South Dakota stared in disbelief at the classified top-secret Orders from Washington D.C. to release the Libyan terrorist from jail. It might as well have been in Greek to him, for all he could un derstand of the teletype with official data, corroborated by code to release Jihad General al-Psylli, the architect and mastermind of global murder. There had been no trial, and there had been no charges, or arrest war rants, for seven years since al-Psylli was captured in the Golan; but that made it even more urgent and believable, and there were dozens of eye witnesses and victims to his crimes in the Holy Land, high crimes no trial or travesty of justice could impugn greater than his apostasy against Western Civilization and God. "These Orders are unspeakable," he muttered, "They are treason. What is going on in Washington?" The teletype, consisted of fifteen pages in code on thin facsimile paper the Pentagon often used as a guarantee against infiltration or interception by complex technological counter-intelligence hackers, dangerous nuts with satellite modems and computers who could disrupt any and all National Security operations, from basic daily military communications up to launch ing missiles; the printed teletype codes were used as backup to the instant aneous electronic transmissions that were more and more vulnerable to spies and every high school kid and misfit criminal with the will and a home PC and a telephone to destroy America, even as a mischievous prank; the technology was out of control. General Adams Picked up his secure phone and called Washington. NSA Asst. Director O'Malley was expecting his call. He too had been unable to understand the Orders that had come directly from the NSC in the White House. "This is too crazy, Tom," General Adams snarled, when he heard the whole rundown, on the phone. "It's too complicated. Has it come from the JCS?" Tom sighed. "The Joint Chiefs of Staff? Possibly. I don't know Herald. Sorry. I just don't know. It's not my place to question anything, or try to stay afloat in the bureaucratic quicksand. I'm just another idiot down in the hierarchy doing all the work

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while everything goes to hell." Herald snorted. "Yeah. Smells like lawyers and politicians. Still, even then, it's inconceivable. I'll tell ya Tom, I'm really hesitant to go through with this, unless I get some eyeball contact from JCS, or the NBC adviser to the President himself. You know what kind of madman we have here?" Tom took a very deep breath that came from deep in his gut, and looked at his top systems analyst Pauline, who wearily took off her reading glasses in the Intelligence Room at the Pentagon and shrugged too. "I've quadruple-checked the data and chain of command. It's a class-one prior ity. It checks out. This is from the highest levels." General Adams heard her on the squawk box intercom. "God almighty." Tom tried a little joke, "Maybe." They were all left with their private thoughts for a moment, about the inex plicable incarceration and career of al-Psylli, as they knew it, as it had been presented to them in pieces over the years. Somehow, something had been unraveling since the Cold War ended in 1990, officially, when the Soviet Union was defeated and American democracy and capitalism took over after a century of terrible World Wars; something came apart as America finally was able to enjoy the prosperity of peace: leaving the last remaining Superpower alone to conquer starvation, overpopulation, fear. Americans were good people in a great country to whom Providence had decreed world leadership, but they were constantly haunted by ethnic strife and Arab terrorists who hated Civilization blindly, stupidly, cruelly slaughtering each other in the name of every greedy, selfish, savage de sire the human race was capable of - killer apes. It was a thankless task in a bloody angry world. Americans were sick of the ungrateful Fate that left them hated and resented by people and they turned away from it, again, inwardly hoping to be happy, enjoying the pleasures and fruits of freedom the rest of the world refused; Americans built their culture upon values that

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were their own, to go on into a better future. But there were always these failures of nature in their Government, of Law and Money that let criminals go free on some technicality to kill again and be heroes to their violent cults; there was always a politician or a lawyer who tried to ruin the truth of the common good for his own corrupt ambitions and desires and delu sions about bleeding for humanity or some such Cause or Crusade to save the world. "It's madness," Herald said. Tom replied, "Yes." They hung up their tele phones, their transmitters of sophisticated advances in fiber optics and it was all a waste if there wasn't a better way for justice to be done, for men to live in security. General Adams wanted to tear out his teeth or break his fists against the wall or window of his computer screen, or television console, and lash out at himself, beating himself raw. He felt as if it was himself who might go mad. His world was torn apart. It was unbelievable. He steeled himself and fell back upon duty as he had done for thirty years as a soldier and stood up and went out of his office, straightening his khaki tie; carrying his Orders. "Captain Montoya, I've just received confirmation in quadruplicate to re lease the prisoner in Cell Block 4 immediately. You will proceed at once to the Brig and initiate all appropriate procedures thereunto." U.S. Marine Capt. Montoya stood promptly and saluted, "Yes Sir." Adams was grateful for the proud Marine reply which was full of tragic discipline for them: two soldiers obeying orders that meant sure death on the field of combat, but which they obeyed without hesitation, without dis honor to themselves. The General returned the salute, drawing himself up full formally in front of his men as they faced cowardice courageously, do ing their duty.

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The squad of Military Police had tears in their eyes as they turned to ex ecute the suicidal command. They all knew to a man that the lone prisoner in maximum security isolation Cell Block 4 was a soldier too, a dangerous and disciplined enemy. It was not theirs to question why. They marched downstairs in the olive drab Brig past a dozen security checkpoints, lasers, digital video cameras, electromagnetic gates, iron doors, down into the dungeons four floors below ground level, out of the natural light down into air-conditioned cement walls three feet thick and re inforced with steel, electrified floors and walls, impregnable, black, ines capable, solitary, tomb of a man. The U.S. Army general followed the Marines through the labyrinth on the Air Force Base of the cross-Serviced correctional facility, presenting his thumbprints and corona as ID at half a dozen more security checkpoints, punching more classified codes on digit ally-timed airless door locks five feet thick, and waiting at each one for confirmation, clearance, admittance; hidden, thousands of miles from the rest of the world on the prairie. Pride filled General Adams and Captain Montoya on Ellsworth Air Force Base deep in the heart of America, which had 3 B-1B attack squadrons stationed outside, above, and 3 Missile Wings with 15O Minuteman III multiple-warhead ICBMs in concrete silos in a IOG-mile radius around in the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana - all aimed at the enemies of Amer ica, the former USSR and China, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Cuba - as well as submarine fleets in the world's oceans. (Had they all been disarmed by the end of Cold War, Start II treaties, the promised Peace Dividends?) Ells worth's vast arsenal could still hit dozens of targets worldwide with super sonic weapons each one hundreds of times greater than the prototypes that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (a US ally, now) in 1945. It was one of the world's most dangerous Bases, capable of killing hundreds of millions of people. It gave Herald and Jose the greatest pride in their work, and all their men, their families, their Country, the greatest

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sense of Peace. They were secure. They had decent-paying jobs. They hes itated for a moment outside the last door that held a man committed to the overthrow of all that power: a soulless enemy of America. "Goddamnit," the General swore, and the Captain nodded, grimmer with every footstep they'd taken downstairs, into the labyrinth, down, down into their darkest fears in a world gone mad as long as they could remember, an atomic world with anthrax weapons too, VX, Sarin, AIDS, Ebola, chem icals that could eat away flesh. A soullessness gripped them as they un locked the last door into the dark room at the end of the tunnel to free the last man they feared; the worst thing a soldier should ever have to do. "Prisoner 4722-R, get on your feet," a guard said. "Orders have come from Headquarters for your release." It was the first thing any Condemned for life without a trial ever dared hope to hear; prisoner 4722-R blinked in shock at the words spoken harshly, angrily, abruptly in the darkness. "I won't pretend to approve this evil shit, but I want your stinking cadaver off my Base pronto!" the General barked, hate in his voice. "Get on your goddamn feet and get the hell out of my presence, and I hope those Washington lawyers are the first ones to feel the bombs you set off!" The Condemned stepped into the pale light in the hall, blinking painfully at the new fire and hate aimed at him, dirty and stinking in overalls and stinging cold-shaven cheeks, lice-ridden, malnour ished, barely able to walk barefoot out into the gray concrete hallway out side his black cell. His leg muscles were weak from little exercise and poor nutrition, and his skin was pale yellow after being deprived of sunlight for seven years. He filled the healthy American soldiers with disgust. "Move it, Scum!" another vicious guard snarled, pushing the POW until he fell roughly on his face and bloodied his nose on the hard cold floor. Two guards pulled him unmercifully by his arms to his knees and dragged him, moaning weakly, down the hall to the next open door of iron and steel,

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computerized locks and lasers shut off; 4722-R stumbling lamely to his feet, bare and black with filth, dried feces and urine, barely a man any more with dried canker sores and oozing pustules from months of poor bathing. "Hose it off, god almighty, I can't stand the reek," the general gagged, in horror, They threw the rags and vermin under an icy shower and then sprayed him with disinfectant as he screamed, the man barely able to breathe or hold consciousness with the repeated shocks and para lyzing body blows burning out his mind, Screaming, weeping for mercy. Finally, he had some clean dry clothes and cheap hard shoes and the guards, squeezing and bruising his arms, pushed him and dragged him forever in the halls until they kicked open a door and the Sun cooked his eyeballs! All he could see was red burning pain. He screamed and screamed in agony and fell to his bleeding knees. The soldiers laughed. "This piece of Shit crybaby is a general?: and so is my grandmother!" Re whimpered, "Please"; but they only laughed more, and threw him roughly on his face again into a jeep, smashing his lip bloodily, the sun excruciating, daylight and noise more exquisite in their fire and chaos to the godly soul of the tortured prisoner than any peace or cool cold mild darkness had ever been, or could ever be, "O God." He wanted to laugh out loud at the glorious Release of pain and joy filling him simultaneously at that moment, happier than he had ever been before even in peace, at rest, as it were, away from immediate sensation, all re lease, all escape, forgotten in his freedom! He managed to open his eyes after a few minutes after covering them with his manacled hands (and how many years bad it been that he hadn't seen daylight?), the beautiful hum of the jeep's engine on a road and the wind of an open sky blowing on him the most magnificent pleasure he'd ever remembered. Through the blur and the red blindness and blood he saw buildings and

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cars and people and trees. Trees! "O God." Clouds and blue-white sky! Natural warmth on his skin (after how many years of artificial air?) took his breath away, and his tears, his racing heart, and ears exploding with sound, gasping, sobbing uncontrollably, passionately! He thought of his father for a moment, emotional Zeid, who had never been able to be calm either in times like these. He always cried too, or laughed and shouted when any great emotion or event presented itself to him, and so his son laughed and wept in rapture to see the sky over him, only the sky, blue, limitless, instead of a roof in a box like a coffin in the ground. O God, it went on forever, with no barriers: it never stopped, it went etern ally and infinitely, infinitely! He breathed deeper and deeper, gasping for it all, gulping the freedom and the moment before the killers would end it all completely any second, he knew, any instant, the Guards would put a stop to it and end all this. He was sure they were going somewhere to kill him, finally, and there death lived at his side freely, freer than it, he, had ever been, any second, every instant, divine therefore. All he could do was revel in every moment, celebrate every breath like it was his last; like every warrior in combat lived with death at his side at all times. He didn't want to think. General Adams in the front seat of the blue jeep also felt like everything was coming to an end as they approached the Main Gate of Ellsworth AFB. Capt. Montoya sped up to the AP Security Post at full speed and slammed the brakes violently. The two MP and AP pickup trucks escorting them stopped with a squeal of sirens and brakes beside the jeep at their assigned parking spots. A dozen crisply-uniformed elite Security Personnel watched helplessly as a tired Army general got out of the pas senger seat, saluted the Duty Officer at the Gate, and the DO (officer of the Day), Security, and exchanged bulky notebooks of orders with the OD, NCOD, 7272nd Wing Command, USAF. Cars went in and out the Gate on the main road in the hot midday sunshine, as guards inspected them, occasionally saluting an officer passing by. Otherwise, it was a calm quiet

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day in the West at one of hundreds of ordinary US installations. Americ ans were going to work or returning from lunch, driving their luxurious cars. A General turned to a pale (brown-skinned?) man in the backseat between 2 Marines. "Uncuff the prisoner," the General commanded. Handcuffs, chained to a leather belt on his waist, and chained further to leg irons on his ankles, were unlocked, removed, and stacked neatly in a box for manacles and weapons on the seat. The General silently motioned for him to go; pointing to the road outside the Gate, off the Base, to a bus stop by the side of the road in the shade of huge gray cottonwood trees. He flicked his hand contemptuously at the man with curly hair and a swollen, beaten face. The hand motion said to get the hell out of there. The prisoner stumbled out of the vehicle and left without a word or a glance at his tormentors, stumbling feebly past the perimeter and out, out, unable to think or understand any of it. He shuffled in the cheap tennis shoes they gave him, across the asphalt road and obediently dragged his feet on to the sidewalk by the stop, where a boy and an old woman watched curiously. Expecting a bullet in the back at any second the pathet ic middle-aged man looked at the sky for the last time and prayed, "Allahu akhbar."

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Fearful, as are many people, of a bloody man scarred by fearsome sores and bodily wounds, the other passengers at the bus stop moved away from the dangerous dark-skinned man, who was dirty in cheap clothes, standing feebly beside them. Appearing intoxicated and lost, badly disori ented he looked around slowly at his surroundings and at the Main Gate like a crazy drunkard. There was a lot of activity in jeep and trucks as a swift police force, heavily armed, turned around and sped back into the secure perimeters. A captain asked a general, "Shouldn't we alert at least the local law enforcement authorities?" The general sneered. "Why? it wasn't in the orders. It's not for us to go outside of channels." And at that moment he looked at all the bombers on the flight line and the power of his empire and felt helplessly like something greater than America, and certainly out of his control, had been unleashed upon the world and all life. Muhammad watched the hot dust and flies blow across the dried brown grass and cotton drift from the trees over a barbed wire fence; the sky white hot with a few high clouds forming thickly against pale blue in the distance; while cars and airplanes noisily came and went in the barren as phalt and concrete around billboards advertising colorful automobiles, blue jeans, perfume, hamburgers, tourist motels. It was an ugly landscape of bald greediness and tasteless adolescence which didn't bother him; he felt, again, oddly at peace, indifferent to pain, tolerant of the foolishness of men. A blue bus from the Base stopped by the bench and he asked the driver at the door, "How much to town?" The clean Anglo-American tolerated the dirty Indian, "It's free, Buddy. You getting on? Move to the back." Grate fully he got on the clean military bus, plain, air-conditioned, pleasant and loud, "Thank you, Sir." The guy nodded like Muhammad was going to hit him or beg for money or start an irritating conversation. He went to the back and sat next to an old lady with two plastic sacks of groceries and a purse. "May I sit here, Ma'am?" She frowned rudely.

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He sat on the hard gray plastic, reticent, withdrawing like everybody else, strangers crowding around each other in the bus, annoyed Americans who couldn't afford an automobile. They were the resigned resentful Poor in a rich country and there were a lot of Indians there. He was surprised to see Asians in the mixture also. The bus speeded past an Air and Space Museum with B-17s and Titans and a sleek B-2 Stealth exhibited in front of the huge tourist facilities, and past a McDonald's hamburger building, used car dealerships, repair garages, more stores and traffic until they turned onto Interstate-90 west to Wyoming, the Black Hills, and, nearest of all, Rapid City. The heavy traffic was speeding fearsomely, frantically weaving in and out between lanes as gigantic 18-wheeled trucks pounded the road and expensive cars hurtled at 75 and 80 m.p.h. as they all com peted to speed past each other, hurrying superiorly to their moneymaking tasks. They all passed the bus like it was sitting still, angrily, like they hated it. It was going the speed limit, only 65 m.p.h., as they entered the city limit where more salvaged cars, garages, junkyards began to fill the rolling plain fields of the prairie where endless billboards lined the highway on both sides advertising restaurants, Mt. Rushmore, new TVs, resort hotels, gambling casinos, the Mall. In the bus his fellow passengers ignored it all, reading newspapers full of ads for clothes, perfume, furniture, staring blankly at the floor. The high rolling Black Hills blocked the horizon ahead as ominous dark clouds built up over the pine woods. The bus pulled into the busy roads going downtown and stopped finally at the Federal Center in the heart of the unimaginative offices and banks and retail shops, and he got out on the white sidewalk alone, penniless, hungry, his soul confused by all the dizzying events. Across the streets and between a few hard square buildings he saw some trees and green grass so he stumbled there, looking for what he knew not, not daring to wonder yet where he was or what God might possibly have in mind for him. He

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crossed a busy thoroughfare, barely, able only to run a few feeble steps between the cars which hooked angrily at him, impatiently speeding both ways, shining hot machines mean and merciless. The cars seemed to be everywhere he went, everywhere he looked, the purpose of so many roads and businesses, signs, people, the straight lines of telephone wires and sidewalks, gutters, stoplights, noise and stink. He hobbled into the park, and he had been around modern cities all his life, of course, until his long inhuman imprisonment; so it wasn't new, it wasn't alien, to be there. There was something changed about him, though, or within him maybe. He wasn't sure. It was strange. He felt light er than ever before; or maybe blacker. The Park was very green and lovely, suddenly cool, bicyclers and healthy joggers gliding past on a path of wide white cement, and several Indian wines watched him curiously be side a cool rushing Creek. "Oh!" It was beautiful. That was it, that was what he needed, a cold wet baptism in the little creek. He stepped into its overflowing bank among willow bushes and fell headlong into the shallow alluring water! It shocked his burning head and clammy sick skin, draining away all his breath as he clawed at rocks on the freezing dirty bottom, ali en other world finally, after all the lights and sights and sounds of the noisy adolescent world of men and machines. This was all the silence and shocking coldness he'd needed, he'd been looking for, and (of course) didn't know it. All ordinary life swirling around him stopped for a moment and he was alive again, screaming and gasping as he pushed immedi ately out of the freezing icewater. "Hey, are you crazy!" someone shouted in the air and noise roaring sud denly again in the air and light. He couldn't understand anything for a long moment and didn't want to, sopping heart-stopping breathlessness ex actly like a new rebirth into a purer world. Several hands grabbed him roughly by his soggy shirt, "Hey brother, take a breath. You okay? Pro?" He looked around at the concerned bedraggled bums who were kneeling

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in the tall grass and flowers at the creekside holding his shirt and trying to keep him from floating away and down into the white splashing current of Rapid Creek, in Sioux Memorial Park. He grinned. "Yeah. Goddamn. That was great brothers, you ought to try it, a regular biblical baptism." They looked at each other and laughed, two dark-red men scarred for life too, black-haired, men who'd been ath letes and muscular when they were young. Happily, they pulled Muhammad out of the water, splashing themselves too and slipping in the muddy slop on the banks of the clear shallow rocky mountain stream, and they all laughed their asses off as they fell on their backs in the drier high er grass and looked at the sky. Muhammad felt like a man again after years and years. "Baptism!" one of the Bros laughed, in a whisky voice, "Will you listen to this crazy nigger? I thought I was crazy." Muhammad leaned on one elbow and smiled, "No shit, Man, it's true. I just got out of the Joint and I haven't smiled in seven years, but I'm smiling now. I feel like a new man. No. No. A different man. Yeah, it's wild. I'm an Arab and I'm talking like you, like a Red Indian, eh? Is that too fucking crazy?" The bums sat up and stared at the creek somberly. Muhammad took off his shirt and wrung out the water. "See my back? See where they tortured me?" The bums looked at his scarred back. "Jesus Christ. Where were you, Sioux Falls? The State Pen?" He sighed. "No. Ellsworth. I was a Federal non-person, no trial, no law yer, no charges; you name it. I ain't shitting ya, I also had a Cheyenne wife years ago too, but they probably think I'm dead. I was never allowed a phone call, and no mail." The bums stared incredulously, believing it all. They took off their wet rags and shoes and socks, drying in the warm son

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on the grass by the creek homeless vagrants who'd been to jail and lost their families too, in the familiar story, despised and abandoned by man kind, despicable in their actions and ashamed of their lives. "What'd you do, Brother? I never heard of that." Muhammad shook his head to clear it Out, cleanly. "I was born in Libya. I fought for my God against Israel and America in the Holy Land." Their eyes widened. "Damn. This is an honor. We're Vets too. I'd like to shake your hand. My name is Tony Red Horse," one of them said, the leaner and older man, reaching over and offering his right hand to Muhammad. They shook revolutionary style. "This is an honor. Libyan." The other man shook his hand too. "Rowdy Bichette, I'm from Crazy Horse's band an Pine Ridge reservation. This guy is a Cheyenne. What's your wife's name?" Muhammad took a deeper breath, deeper and sadder. "I don't even dare to hope to see her and my children. I haven't been able to endure it, Broth ers, all these years, because I was sure they'd kill me, or even my family if I even thought about them. Annewen White Calf." It took everything he had to say her name, pausing between words in a way inexpressible except orally, traditionally telling a story in the pauses and silences, staring off wistfully like he was finally able to admit he'd nev er been happy all those years in Solitary but which, dishonestly (he heard a Voice telling him), he'd told himself he was; he was happy, he told him self, superhuman, a warrior in the Jihad ideal that could admit no human frailty, no mortal weakness for a woman, especially, to come between him and his belief in immortality, eternal life. But with this liberating baptism today Muhammad felt more like a man than ever before, even as he felt more like a god too, honest, vulnerable, a Ghost who had come back to life and freedom. "I can't explain it, but you guys must know it too, if

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you're related to Crazy Horse. It's in the water. I was seven years in Solit ary and I was a dead man." He grew silent. Tony nodded. "I know your old lady. She's here in town, over at the Lakota Homes ghetto. She has some kids too, I'm pretty sure, man." They all looked closely at each other and they knew something very solemn was starting to happen, like the air was filling with perfumed breezes from flowers on the wind, in the excellent wind lilacs and roses on the skin of a woman blew gently from the northwest on their faces. "She's alive?" The question was a scent he inhaled, and he looked up stream towards the hills. "Brothers, do you know the source of this creek?" Tony nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Twenty miles maybe, up one of those canyons where rich people live." Muhammad felt the Spirit in him like the wind. "We should go there soon and do a ceremony, for I feel that the people can be renewed and forgiv en in the baptism of the holy Abyss. It is the Ab-soul of -Yss, the hiss of Isis the snake who is your Thunderbird my wife spoke of years ago, in prayer. The sacred black goddess of eternal life from whose creation we survive, as the orgasm, the white milk of the Fang. But come, let us go and find the women and children." The three brothers stood solemnly by the creek bed, but Rowdy touched Muhammad's arm desperately. "Baptize me too." The others looked at him, amazed. "What do you mean, Rowdy Bichette? You would go with God into her immortal abyss with me?" Rowdy gulped with sudden terror, black horror raising the hairs on the back of his neck; then he nodded at the Prints of Libya, shining like sunlight in the clean sparkling willows. "Yes. You are a Prophet, I think. I am a sinner. I'm no good. I left my family for the wine bottle." Muhammad took his hand and they waded barefoot (in their dirty pants)

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into the knee-deep swift creek. "Do you believe in God, and the Holy Ghost of Hercules, whom mankind has come to know as Jesus Christ?" Rowdy was shaking and shivering. "Yes. I am heartily sorry for wasting my life." "Then I baptize you in the name of the father Jupiter, and of his son Her cules, and of the Holy Ghost given to us all by the great Goddess, A'TemRa of sacred Libya - soothe thy burning mind." Before any of them knew what was happening Muhammad dipped Rowdy entirely underwater and held him there in the swift running stream from melted snow and pure un derground springs. Half a dozen clean sweating American bicyclists and joggers and strollers stopped to watch the scene of amazing grace, embarrassing Winos ritu ally splashing foolishly in the public park, downtown, in the middle of an ordinary business work-day. The dark men stumbled clumsily out of the rocky bed and one of them said, a man tall and strikingly handsome, his long curly black hair graying and silvery, "Go, and sin no more, Brother. If you drink again or abandon your family God will kill you instantly." He raised his voice and spoke commandingly, mesmerizing, a voice deep with bass authority and soothing resonance, "my friends, it you please only yourselves like this God will not forgive you, and all your money and debts and democracy will mean nothing at the moment of agonizing meaningless obliteration. Believe in God and you will be happy and healthy. Believe in God and you will live forever in joy, easing the ecstasy of the great Creator Goddess, and your death will be but an orgasm of ec stasy in which the best part of you will continue beautifully, pleasurably in a heaven of love, of life, continuing with all its best foods and fruits, fulfill ment, lovemaking, music, and the wisdom of the Ages." Rowdy was kneeling penitently at his feet, "Lord, you have returned at last

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to save us." Muhammad laughed. "No, my sad disciple, Rowdy of the band of Crazy Horse, I am neither your lord nor any kind of savior. None of you will ever find your soul except in God. I am only the grandson of a royal family gif ted by God, by seed and blood like the body and wine of Dionysus my family is sacred and true, yes. Now all of you, go in peace, and search the darkness tonight, and in the black bloody waters of the Abyss for your Belief." He watched the Cheyenne his disciple Tony wade into the water and fall in, gasping, self cleansing himself like a drowning man. When Tony came to, gasping and kneeling in the coldness, he prayed, "0 God, I can feel it. It is a miracle. It is! 0! I feel like a helpless little baby." A dozen more passers-by stopped to witness the scene, circling naturally around the humble healer, "Oh ye of great Faith, today truly you have entered the kingdom and queendom of Heaven." Stumbling, Tony and Rowdy crossed the creek with Muhammad and they walked across the park to the north, to the poor and miserable part of town; and the assembled skeptical crowd broke up, talking, shaking their heads in disbelief and disdain until the muddied spot on the banks of the polluted creek by the grass under the shade of the willows in the afternoon cleared up again, and the water flowed pure and clean.

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Annewen White Calf was hanging laundry on the clothesline in her back yard, wet clothes cleaned in an old hand wringer washing machine; she couldn't afford an electric washing machine and she didn't like them any way, she told herself. They were lazy and polluting and she longed for the old self-sufficiency Cheyenne days. But they were gone. Her people were prisoners of war in America on the squalid Reservations. She held three wooden clothespins in her mouth as she hung up the 'whites', towels and sheets blowing softly in the mild breeze, her underwear and her daughter' s and son's, Athena and Mars who lived with her in the plain box house Subsidized and controlled by the US Government, a cheap small wooden house in a neighborhood of houses just as cheap as hers, exactly the same, rows and rows of ugly Projects where no trees grew, no flower gar dens, no parks for the children. It was a desperate ghetto for Indians, for Indians who had few good jobs, bad food, poor health care subsidized resentfully by the US; the highest infant mortality and lowest life expect ancy by far in the statistics of the world's Superpower. Annewen was sick of thinking about it all; as hopeless as everyone else of ever changing it, or escaping it; or making any sense of her life except to help Mars and Athena survive it better than she had. Annewen was proud she still had her figure and good looks, but she was going nowhere, really, as a part time legal secretary and a part-time college student and a part-time woman with an occasional Apache boyfriend from Arizona. She still had a big framed photograph of herself in the living room when she was a model at 21, gorgeous, exotic, eyes exploding with life and hope. It was a typical romantic and cynical story. She heard a truck pull into the front driveway around the house with peeling lavender paint, and several men's voices she didn't recognize. It was too early for Mars to be home from work so she hoped he hadn't been fired again, and, she hoped, it wasn't Athena skipping school. She put down her pin bag and wearily went out front to see what the commotion was about. A dozen local Indian men in the back of 2 pickups were piling out onto the driveway and side walk. They were acting strangely, especially when they saw her. Then she

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saw him. He jumped out of the back of the truck with the other men, barechested, not much different in looks from the others except that his dark hair was shorter than theirs and curly, but he had a much different sense of peace about him, a calm self-confidence and beauty. "Hey Annewen, look who we found in the park." She looked at Tony Red Horse addressing her and then back at the stranger looking at her. Several other men were talking excitedly too. "It's a good thing my cousin came by with his truck and Hobart or we'd still be walking up here. You oughta see this Libyan guy, hey, he's a prophet. He was baptizing us in the park. I swear to God it's true. I'm off the wine for good right now. I don't have any thirst at all for it, I swear to Christ. I feel all cleaned out. Rowdy too." They all looked at Rowdy who nodded solemnly. "He's the Prophet. That empty hole in my belly is gone, it really is. He just touched me and I was cured." Muhammad stepped lightly towards Annewen and held out his hand. "Hello Annie. How are you?" She looked at his dark brown hand thinner than she remembered it, and his eyes, kinder. "I don't believe it. It can't be you. It He took her hand and she felt a tingle shoot up her arm and down her legs. He said, "Do you mean that I was dead? Yes. I was dead. But your faith kept me alive, and our children, I know that now; only now. Are they well, our Mars and Athena? I can hardly breathe hoping they are well too." She couldn't take her eyes off his hand in hers. "Yes, they are well. Muhammad? Is it really you? I have prayed so long and alone ashamed of myself that I didn't dare to think." "Yes, I know what you mean. But I'm here now, I've been only a few miles away in prison, apparently, at Ellsworth, incommunicado, a POW 'Terror ist' they called me."

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She looked frantically to the east past the Mall where B-1s were taking off, then back to him, her husband, oh, her husband! She glanced at the other men shifting nervously on the sidewalk embarrassed to show her feelings, confused, almost frantic, panicked, faintly. "Gentlemen, would you excuse us for a little while? my wife and I have a lot to catch up on." The guys all nodded understandably and embarrassed too at the dramatic homecoming, poignant tragedy, like a beautiful comedy on the street their lives as Indian POWs the unspoken truth of their survival; and they drifted off into the curious neighborhood to explain this happy experience to their frowning wives, and alcoholic friends; the word of the miracles by the creek to spread like baptismal wildfire. Annewen knew none of this; as her legs buckled and she almost fainted like a silly schoolgirl in the arms of her lost Love, her first love, his power beside her draining her and filling her until she was dizzy and almost fell down. "I'd better get you out of the sun, Annie," she smiled. "Nobody has ever called me Annie except you. Oh it is you isn't it. Isn't it? Oh, yes, come inside. You've never been home. I'm going to college now, did you know? I'm a Senior." He smiled, genuinely pleased. "Really? That's great." She led him, hand in hand, feeling foolishly uncomfortable to the front door and inside, when she saw his back. "Oh my god. What happened to you? Did they whip you?" She was looking at the welts and scars upon layers of old scars and welts on his back and neck. "Among other things. I almost don't remember." She sat him on the big lumpy couch in the plain cluttered living room, "Lay down and I'll get some medicine. Oh I can't be lieve it. Seven ... seven years." She ran back to the bathroom down the narrow hall almost glad to have something physical to hold on to. It was all too shocking and sudden, new, terrible, wonderful, mysteriously in the middle of a story, she fumbled in the medicine cabinet for salves, creams, worrying she was getting back

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into something from which her life would never recover. She quickly brushed her long black hair in the mirror. The bathroom and the house were cluttered; it was way too small with 3 tiny bedrooms piled with way too many things for 3 people. Then she thought, 0 god, what if he stays! Where will he stay? She couldn't believe it. She couldn't just pick up again where they left off 7 years ago, shift everything at a moment's notice; then she felt guilty, immediately, a selfish bitch. She hurried back into the living room guiltily. He was looking at pictures an the TV cabinet of their children, terrible happy tears in his eyes. "I missed their childhood." He hugged her sud denly. "I'm sorry." "Oh ... Hamad ... it wasn't your fault, You don't have anything to be sorry for. They're wonderful people, they really are, they've got your strength and brains and integrity. I can't tell you how proud I am to be their mother." He leaned back with his arms still around her, natur ally, "Mars is a man now, my beloved son, and Athena is a woman, the dearest little girl a Daddy ever had." And then he broke down completely and sobbed in her bosom like a helpless child, like his father whom she'd met once, emotional Zeid; and they sat on the couch with his head on her shoulder. Only his sobs broke the silence. She had never heard a man so filled with grief. She loved his vulnerability at that moment. She put the herbs on his wounds her grandmother taught her to gather in the sacred Black Hills, when the moon was waning and shadows were lengthening. After a long time her slow steady breathing helped him to slip into merciful forgetful sleep. She eased him onto his stomach on the long sofa and propped soft pillows around him and under his head. Then she put a chicken and potatoes in to cook in the kitchen and made some frozen lemonade. She changed the sheets in her little bed room and went outside for some fresh sun dried sheets, smelling of the sun and clean wind, double white sheets for her soft bed, and four fresh white pillow cases. She cleaned up her room and made space for his clothes in

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the drawers and closet; then she took a quick shower using some coconut shampoo and conditioner from Hawai'i. She remembered fondly how they had honeymooned in Hawai'i 21 years ago, on Oahu and Kailua-Kona, after they had met and fallen in love in London when she was a glamorous struggling young model and he was the most eligible Palestinian revolutionary in town, fiery and fiercely reli gious and intelligent. Her admiration and fear of his Genius (which he called a Djinn) had been limitless; just as her own feelings of powerless ness faded when she was with him; even when he adored her she didn't feel like the ritualized beautiful Party Girl anymore; love and sex and beauty became spiritualized, useful, and motherhood replaced girlish con fusion. Her baby boy helped her to see herself, Mars, wild and dangerous and darkly, blackly Beautiful. She sat in a chair in the living room with a cigarette and looked at the big man in deep sleep on the sofa, He was very tall and still very muscular, powerful, even with the hideous scars and emaciation of years of war and torture and failed dreams. She drank cof fee and enjoyed the reverie of her life; even with her own powerless daughter draining so much energy, Athena, contentious, brilliant like her father and gorgeous like her mother. She was 14 and already the leader of the community and a serious rival in every way of Annewen's. They both felt bad that they both didn't much like each other, seeing every fault of the other magnified superficially, suspiciously, females mistrusting each other. How would their father react to these two strangers when he re covered from seeing they were grown up, teenagers selfishly pursuing their own personal pleasures? She worried that Hamad's idiosyncratic idealism and the trauma of his terrible ordeal would hurt him, or them, and her, and it would be too sad to bear. Her poor little family was horribly shattered. She gulped and wondered if they would have sex. She couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for him for seven years, all this time. She wondered if she'd ever be able to have intentions that didn't al

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ways include something for herself first; if she could ever put someone else's feelings before hers, as Athena accused her of; like Hammad seemed able, truly, to put the children and the Holy Land and God before himself, like she'd seen him do many times. He truly seemed to have that rare and remarkable ability to put himself last in all his most instinctive in tentions. He once said that it was a rare gift from God and he was not conscious how he could do it: overcome his own desires when he had the same desires and selfish human urges as everybody else. It was not a will ful choice, he said. It was not Free Will. The front door opened suddenly and Mars burst in with the blinding light, tall and dark and thin and serious in his black leather jacket and un brushed long black hair. He saw the man on the sofa. "Hey. Who's that?" She sighed deeply and sighed, "Sit down, Son. Please." He raised his eyebrows and sat on the edge of a chair (for it was clear he adored his mother and respected her), and looked at the back of the head of the man again, who was coming awake. "Dad?" The 19 year old asked her instead of him. She nodded. He looked at the older man opening his eyes. "Dad?" He smiled. "Son. Hello." He was too emotional to speak. "We thought you were dead. What's going on?" All that Muhammad could do was stand, feebly, and put his arms around the hard muscular neck and shoulders of his astonishing son, Mars, godlike with dark red skin shining like a classical statue. Athena burst in the back door at the kitchen with 2 other teenage girls, preoccu pied, busy girls in blue jeans and designer t-shirts smacking gum, carrying backpacks with books. "Hey mom, we're going to the Mall. Hi." She barely glanced at the foreigner in her living room with his arm around her equally tall brother; he stared confusedly at her, however, amazed, rudely staring at her like an old lecher. "Athena? Is that you? Now it's my turn not to believe it." She smacked her gum, "Yeah?" She was shorter

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than her mother, not fully grown but just as beautiful, young, auburn skin glowing like pale light. "Girls, you better run along for now. Athena," An newen said, "come in and sit down please." The other girls left uncon cerned, overweight Indian girls, and Athena came in obediently and sat on the sofa. "So what's going on?" Mars replied, "This is Dad. Don't you remember him? You were seven I think." The girl looked away, annoyed at the seri ousness of this intrusion into her afternoon plans to go shopping; then she glanced quickly at the uncomfortable man in her living room, awkward adults all around her trying so hard to understand something so easy. "Oh? Daddy? I think maybe I do remember you." Mom ordered, "Well give your Father a hug." She stood, annoyed at the bossiness, the obvious game, and smirked petulantly. "Oh yeah. Wow. You're tall. I think I remember you were always really tall." Mars grinned, "Short-stuff is always worried about everybody being tall." "I am not. Shut up." Her father smiled wanly and then said in a soothing voice, a whisper, but deeper and more masculine than she'd ever heard, "I think you're just right. You look perfect to me," That made her feel better and she reached up on her tip-toes and gave him a tentative hug, but he held her (in his bare chest!) harder and longer than she liked. He smelled funny. He had grease on his back. She frowned at his raggedy clothes. "So where you been? What's going on?" Mars asked. Athena got away from him and sat on a chair across the room. He sighed, "Prison. Political and religious ... They didn't allow phone calls or mail, I'm sorry." He couldn't go on and sat on the sofa. Annewen lit an other cigarette and explained, "We have a lot of catching up to do. Your father's tired, and we can talk about it when he's rested. We have plenty

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of time. We haven't given any thought to what comes next or any plans. We're just grateful you're home." Hammad nodded. 'Yes. I'll tell you all about it. But tell me, what're you two up to these days? You both look great, incredible, I'm blown away." The kids felt awkward and shrugged silently. Annewen rushed to explain, "Mars has a job as a mechanic and Athena just started High School." Hammad smiled, "A Freshman? My little girl? So how do you like it?" She shrugged. "It's boring. Stupid." Eventually they warmed up and had a chicken dinner and talked for hours into the evening, trying to be a family again, quiet, and away from the world. Hammed took a long luxurious shower and tried on some of Mar's clothes, which were a little tight, then he and Annewen went to bed and made love. It was a long cool night in the delicious bedroom of a woman, for him, and he fell asleep exhausted. She lay awake in the dark for hours, thinking, smoking Ultra-Light menthol-tipped cigarettes with low tar and nicotine, inhaling deeply, slowly. She should have been studying all evening for a geology test tomorrow, and an anthropology assignment was due; but she couldn't leave her husband and children alone, not to night, not now when there was such a new crisis in their lives. She didn't know what to do. She was so confused. It was everything she could do to keep from crying.

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Muhammad woke up at first light in bed with a beautiful woman who had once loved him, he knew, but now she didn't know who he was; he knew she had another life and another purpose beyond loving him, now. Love had evolved into parenthood, the remote, detached, separating passage of years that saw mothers and fathers saying goodbye to their grown chil dren and turning to their souls within, turning inevitably away from each other; for their purpose as co-creators was done. They helped to raise their independent children and they would continue with that lifelong job, but it was different now, the old lust was gone. The first blooms of ecstasy and total loving desire were steps in a longer and more lasting purpose to raise their own energies toward a better death. Age, at best, would bring wisdom and friendship. He had to think about love and what it meant; and what orgasm had meant last night for the first time in 7 years, with a woman, apart from masturbation, the solitary energy, raising power, shud dering sex. Simple pleasures like clean feet touching a soft rug in an airy room with a window, and cool light, natural light on his burned eyes soothed him; elegant luxuries like a clean quiet bathroom, toothpaste, the freedom of the body to urinate in peace, his pale face, pained eyes, in the mirror. He was shocked to see his eyes were sadder than he could admit, the fail ure and body's pain hurt mortally, worn and wearying of its burden. The ghost inside him, the holy immortal Being did not know about that pain and lack of resilience, its own purpose and joy befriending as well as hurt ing the sad man who carried around the kind god. He had not looked at himself in a mirror like this for many years, and he was disappointed: his body was growing sad and old and worn. And yet, it didn't matter. The Ghost smiled; an inner joy that was not dishonest or weak or indiffer ent to the worries of the physical world: it said to him, "I am capable of the greatest miracles, the Oceans, birds, and flowers. I can heal the body. You can be reborn. It's already happening." He shrugged and sighed and flushed the toilet. It made him laugh. It didn't

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matter. He didn't care. He peeked in his children's bedroom in the morn ing like he hadn't done for 7 years, to see them asleep, deathly different their faces empty of life. Only their slow breathing betrayed their anima tion and even then they looked like different people. His heart felt peaceful to see his son and daughter, with their rock n' roll posters on the wall and dirty clothes and shoes piled on the floor. He sighed again and swal lowed, It had been so many years since he had a peaceful moment like that, a mundane, happy, ordinary moment. He had never been in this house, and he didn't know his family was so close, or anything at all. The emptiness was too much for him anymore. He hadn't seen them since they'd lived in Canada before he had to go back to Arabia on his ministry and he was caught at the Golan, betrayed by his own people, imprisoned, tortured in Tel Aviv. He made coffee in the kitchen and went outside to pray to the dawn, to the sky he hadn't seen in so many years, forever, an American world unknown to him except in their prisons and manacles, hatred, gray government rooms. There were a few old chairs and a rickety table in the backyard by the clothesline, on the dry grass brown fields sloping towards gentle gray hills past more square tortured houses and junked cars. With the greatest pleasure he poured fresh coffee in the kitchen, and milk and sugar, and sat outside by the rickety table in a lumpy unmatched chair and watched God rise in the east over silky clouds; purple and then pink in the deep azure horizon. It was unbearable and his silent tears in the dawn shook him surprisingly hard, wave after wave of involuntary emotion; from which he didn't know if they were of the human side of him or the god. Maybe they were both. He was ashamed of it while it was happening; then, when he stopped crying, when the meadowlarks also paused in their sunrise songs, he was relieved and unashamed. Annie came out the back door already dressed and carrying a cup of coffee and a cigarette. "Well, there you are." He smiled and held out his hand to her, which she held

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and they smiled wistfully. I'm enjoying your lanai in paradise, Do you remember Hawai'i?" She laughed and sat, "Every minute." He looked at her fondly. "Do you know you are more lovely than ever?" She snorted and shook her head. "And you're more full of it than ever, if that's possible." They laughed and drank their coffee but their hands slipped away, as the sun rose higher; chan ging the purple and gray light to orange. "I have to go to classes all day, Hammad, sorry. I have tests and midterms are coming up too, but there's bacon and eggs inside, help yourself." He nodded, "Sure, don't worry about me Annie. I don't want to impose on you, I really don't. I expect nothing. I'm just stunned I found all of you as it is, on the first try, as it were, here." She looked solemnly at him. "You've really changed. I don't know what it is, but . . . suppose you're still doing the same work?" He took a deep breath. "I suppose. Whatever that is. Do you have any money left from what I gave you? I know it's probably hard on your own." She frowned and looked away and took a big drag on her cigarette, oddly, "I haven't touched any of it, Hammad, thanks. It's been in savings accounts and treasury bonds all these years, and I invested in mutual funds." He stared at her. "But ... how have you lived?" "We get by, like every body else, on baloney sandwiches and odd jobs delivering newspapers and pizzas, with food stamps, AFDC - aid to families with dependent chil dren. I liked having something put away in savings; but I also felt like it was your investment. I don't want that to sound crass and I don't mean it critically, not at all; but I always thought it would be needed for something greater than us and the family's mundane survival. I don't know. There's about twenty thousand dollars total after earning interest, com

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pounded semi annually." He looked softly. "This is an extraordinary wo man." She got up to leave. "I'll be back tonight. I left out a roast for Athena. She's a good cook. Just rest and make yourself at home. Byebye." She left quickly, waving behind her with one hand, while carrying a backpack of books and a big bag; around to the driveway with no gar age to an old car. Mars came outside in his bare feet with a cup of coffee. "Good morning Dad. Did Mom already leave?" Muhammad's heart soared at the simple happy life. "Yeah, you just missed her. Good morning. Good morning." His son sat casually on one of the rickety chairs and slung a long powerful leg in blue jeans over the arm, his big foot browned and strong. "So Dad, I know you couldn't tell the women where you've been or everything, but what, what happened? Why'd they let you out of jail? And how did you get in there in the first place? The last I remember you flew off from Canada and the RCMP came flying over our camp up there in helicopters, and Chevy Suburbans with armed mean Pigs came around searching for you, I guess, and hassling everybody, looking for guns or drugs or some shit. Of course they found nothing; I know you never allowed guns in the house. I still don't even know how to shoot or the difference of an Uzi from a Tech-9." Muhammad smiled at his son and almost laughed. "Okay, sure, I owe you the whole story, Son. I've already trained you to be a warrior, haven't I? It has nothing to do with weapons or war as people think about them now, totally false war. A warrior is a man of knowledge, of power, who knows that his creative spirit is his soul, not his fist or his anger or any extension of them with weapons or any tools of deluded men. I have tried to be that kind of warrior, Son. Your grandfather in Libya, King Zeid abu Saturninus didn't agree with me and we quarreled badly about it over 30 years ago, after the disastrous Six Day War in 1967." Mars interrupted, "Yeah, but, how do you fight these assholes with guns everywhere? Maybe Grampa

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was right." "Well, to answer your first question, I think, may best show you what I mean. I know it's hard to understand - whole armies in the Holy Land didn't understand what I meant, and they slaughtered each other need lessly because of their impatience, and, much more seriously, their disbe lief in the Creator. Yes. The brave soldiers of both those terrible armies, of the UAR in Egypt and Syria as well as Israelis, where I fought to bring back the ancient bloodless warcraft of Cain, didn't believe the miracles of Moses and Mahomet. They didn't believe me when I walked unharmed through the walls of bullets on the Golan Heights in October 1973; many eyewitnesses saw me do it. Their science and education and philosophy didn't allow them to believe in magic rituals anymore, other than those falsely taught to them by rabbis and imams ignorant of the true parables of the Bible. Their priesthoods are now the same Pharisees and scribes who also conspired to discredit the ministry of Christ. How did I get out jail? My American jailers didn't even know how it happened. They were like sleepwalkers yesterday, hypnotized by an Angel of God. Gabriel the Archangel was there, my sister guardian, I'm sure of it even though I never saw her. It was her style. She is also called Hermes Or Mercury, a god dess, it seems, sometimes, through whom by some blind act of Faith I be lieve truly Fate happens; Life leaps forward in a creative quantum; and the common man calls it luck, or coincidence, anything; anything but divine will by a plan as universal as life and death and the universe. They can not, cannot, cannot believe it is God. Man cannot create himself, or fly, or dream, or walk on water or walk out of a tomb, they think. Their disbelief is the source and cause of evil. General Adams still can't believe it happened. He never will. He is probably searching right now through channels of the government for a culprit, a clue, a mistake, for this heinous crime against everything he believes in. I went to war when I was just about your age. Oh I was scared, and I loved to party in Tripoli. It was a

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swinging Italian city back in those days when oil had just been discovered and booze was legal, bikinis on the beach, and The Beatles. I didn't want to go fight for Islam against Zionism and godless Capitalism or Socialism or something. I wanted to get drunk and chase pretty European girls. I hung out with American boys and girls from Wheelus High School, from the evil Air Base; but I didn't see anything wrong with them other than be ing arrogant racist assholes like everybody else. I wasn't cynical about it, don't get me wrong - they were. I just couldn't judge anyone automatically for their race. I loved talking to British soldiers and French philosophers in the cafes downtown, and going to Fellini movies. But it was the girls and the music and the liquor that drove me wild. You're laughing? I was a kid, a teenager in lust with the world bursting all around me, and it wasn't wrong. It still isn't wrong. There was something like an aphrodisiac in the air of Libya, It was in the golden and turquoise ecstasy Of the Sea. I ache for those beaches, a baptism again, in the Mediterranean. I can't tell you, Mars, how important it is for me to see it again, and go swimming at Ptolemais by Cyrene and Psyllium and Lebdas Magna; and for you, for you and Athena to go with me. I want so much for you, or anyone, someone, to believe me, that it's all true and not a delusion; but for my children above all others to believe it and know it. There is an Apotheosis upon me, a transformation that is changing me, draining me, leaving the old Muhammad behind like a snakeskin shedding, or a severed head like John the Baptist's on Herod's silver charger. The Resurrection happened to me after the '67 War - or else I wouldn't believe all this either, probably; that very summer of love and hate, in the very spot where I was born." Several Indian men interrupted them just then, walking around the side of the peeling house from the front street. "Oh, Man, Chief, there you are." It was Tony Red Horse and Rowdy Bichette from the creek, and a number of other Indians were with them, including a very old and sick lady in a wheelchair. Muhammad and Mars stood up politely to shake hands with

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them and the Elder, and a dozen more timid ladies and children, poor, afraid Sioux and Cheyennes. "This is Grandma Running Fox," Tony introduced, "and Grandma this is the Holy Man I told you about." She offered a frail transparent hand trem bling with palsy, but her eyes were sharp and inquiring like clear glass. Holding Muhammad's hand she said in a strong voice, "my grandson tells me you know about Crazy Horse?" He looked inquiringly at Tony and Rowdy. "we said you cured us in the Rapid Creek where Crazy Horse, Tashunke Witko, Wakan Inyan was born. Grandma wants to know if you can baptize her and cure her arthritis which has crippled her bones." Muhammad looked at her. "Do you believe in God?" Tears came in her eyes, "With all my heart and soul." "Then arise and walk and go no more in pain. For your tears are all the Ba-abyss your Faith needs." In the kitchen Athena was at the sink window fixing bacon and cheese om elets when she saw the old lady stand up and push away from her wheel chair. But what startled the girl more were the Two Men she saw who were her father, by the old lady. As an electric hush came over the crowd watching the crippled old woman walk for the first time in years, steadier and straighter with every Step, Athena saw her father in two places at once: his second identical self about twenty feet away in the yard, apart from the crowds, peacefully watching, while he also accepted the gracious hugs of all the people in the middle of the astonished, and growing crowd. Athena shook her head to make sure she wasn't cross-eyed, or see ing something else. She wasn't. Her father stood outside in the yard in two places at once.

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Athena looked down for a moment at breakfast to make sure it wasn't burning in the skillet on the stove and then back out the window, but the second man was gone. She ran out the back door to see (after taking the eggs off the stove) but he was gone; the growing crowd was making odd noises she couldn't describe, around her father; loud sighs, in a circle while several women were actually kneeling at his feet in adoration; but her father, her second father, was nowhere to be seen in the brown dusty yard. She couldn't believe it, and neither could anyone else. She felt his hand on her shoulder and he smiled, "Good morning. Something smells good in there." She stared in wonder at this strange intelligent man, pale and scarred and so very very foreign to her. He saw the questions and panic rising in her face and everyone else's in the yard, "Is it so hard to believe in God when you see his miracles every day?" He led Athena and Mars toward the back door and indicated by his calm reticence, a distance in his manner of distracted thought, strength, and the three of them went inside the little house. The crowd outside milled around, talking excitably, with Grandma Running Fox in their noisy midst showing them her strong elbows and flexible knees. "I can't believe it," she was crying joyously, "God has answered our pray ers. God is great, O!" In the kitchen the father and the son and the daugh ter sat down to hot eggs and whole wheat toast and jam. He answered their eyes, "It is the dream of a warrior. Let me tell you who Jesus really was, and Crazy Horse, and Merlin. They were great gods capable of sep aration too, resurrection." Athena said, "I saw you in two places just now, in the back yard. At the same time. I know I saw it. You were on both sides of the yard." The men were staring at her in amazement. "You saw me?" her father asked. "You saw me?" She nodded, calm, sur prised at how calm she was. "Good. I knew I could trust both of you. We

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have to leave here soon because the people outside will soon turn on me, they're dangerous; just as they betrayed me in Jordan and Syria. They are mortals, I'm sorry to say. A warrior has to be ruthless if he or she is to save her soul from the destroyers, the lower animals of the human race. Je sus knew it, and Merlin, and Crazy Horse, and they had to escape often, alone, to pray and prepare to raise their ghosts at the moment of their murders when the people turned violent in their disbelief, their needs, their childish fears for an easy salvation. Athena saw me at peace and purification today, helping an old woman find her own lost ghost; but my Other Self can also come in a thunderstorm and tornado protecting me and my family from them, from human destruc tion, mortal choices, death and decay by building a barrier miles high into Thunder Nation - so that no one may harm us and our noble house. For we are of a divine Nobility, Mars, and Athena. Mankind hates us. They can't believe in us. So they have erected their false religions of democracy, science, philosophy, psychology, as their gods, their images of themselves to pray to. Idolatry. The priests who persecuted Jesus will soon be here to question my miracle and call me a devil; and their congregations, their flocks will obey the wolves; if they don't - they'll be killed, like millions of us were in Africa and America when we didn't convert fast enough to their Heresy. Unwash able blood is on their hands, like apes eating the carcass of a zebra and rolling in the gore. I cannot allow them to murder me or you. I must teach them the Truth of the Gospels quickly for the sake of God and then we must flee to safety in Canada; and make our way all the way back to the obscure wastes of Libya, to conduct a Tribunal of them, at last; at last the criminals and real heretics will be tried and judged before God and his archangels, as purification at the second millenium of the birth and resur rection of the Great Christ, Caesar, of Libya. Gabriel Is speaking through me now in a way greater than the Internet, or an instantaneous satellite

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that She will capture the Pope, the President, and the Queen and deliver them in chains to the Theatre of Dionysus. I am to be the prosecutor of the false Judeo-Christ, and great Michael their chief defense counsel. For now, I'm afraid you'll have to quit your job and school and go around the world with me as my heirs. We have money in savings to pay for it. Your mother will have to make her own choices. I know she is of the noble line of Sweet Medicine the prehistoric savior of the Cheyennes and Hero, also; so she will do what is best as a royal queen. Believe in your dreams, Son, and your heart. Athena, I always knew you'd be worthy of your namesake. Of course if you don't want to go, you can stay, you can work here all your lives as slaves and study algebra and pay rent and watch television advertisements. They laughed, easing the tension. "Are you kidding!" Athena asked, "But how did you do it? Did you do it? I almost feel like this isn't happening, or you aren't here, or that lady was faking it or she isn't walking around outside, not really. It's the strangest feeling to see a ghost. Is that what it is? Is that what you're saying?" He smiled and touched her shining black hair. "Yes." He touched his stubbled chin with whiskers. "In prison I was forced to shave every day even though I always had a beard for years, as you may remember, Son." Mars nodded, "Yeah, I knew there was something different about you." "Well, that's not all, of course. I'm different, I think, in that my soul, my second self or twin has been forced to rise stronger out of me than before because of the suffering I endured. They made me shave every day in cold water in front of a dimly lit mirror with an old razor. The truth of a nation, any nation, is in its jails. They knew an Arab man is proud of his beard. I was taught their christian humility through pain but it also forced me to look hard at myself in the mirror every day; and I let myself out; or, I should say, the physical man let the soul out, more openly, freer, synthesiz

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ing as Two Men. General Adams was a Smart man, observant, and he took away the mirror, oh, years ago. I had to shave in the dark then; but that only made me more alert to myself, for the darkness, the darkness, that is where a man can really see and hear god. I was free to roam the world at will in that tomb; to face myself purely and totally in the black light. I became conscious, Athena, as much as I could become conscious of something that is invisible and irrational - of another being always at my side. I was able to become aware of Him as much as the mortal man, the physical body, can become aware of itself as something apart from itself and infinitely greater, freer, incorporeal, and alive just as much as you and I are alive right now. All that was only the struggle of Muhammad the man; while the Twin operated always on his own agenda which I still don't understand or anticipate at all. He does what he wants on his own il limitable timetable which is impossible for me to explain. You see? He can cure that old lady in some way I don't know. I think it depends a lot on her faith, though, and whether what we call god trusts her and knows her in her heart of hearts; and then my Spirit helps to guide her to health; she does it, essentially herself her own dormant ghost. Whether we all have such a spirit is doubtful. Every one who chooses to die seems empty of it. So I think I'll let my beard grow again." He charmed them again and they laughed together. Tony knocked on the door and leaned in. "Oh, hey, sorry, there's a lot of people out here who'd like to meet you, and Grandma wants to say thanks." Muhammad waved, "Tell them to come on in." A stream of timid Indians ill-clad and embarrassed filed in the back door, and then the front door, until dozens of men, women, and a few children filled the little kit chen and cluttered living room. "Everyone please sit down. I have some thing to say." Obediently, reverently, they found a place to sit on the floor, with the elders on the sofa and chairs, silent, afraid, skeptical and wor

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shipful at once. A few ladies helped Athena make some more coffee. "My name is Muhammad al-Psylli, and I'm from Libya. My wife and chil dren here, whom I have not seen in seven years, are Annie White Calf, Mars, and Athena. I have been kept in Israeli and American jails off and on for many years, accused of terrorism, murder, and high crimes against humanity, without trial, lawyers, or any communications. I apologize to you for entering your country without permission of either your elders or ancestors, or for not speaking your languages or offering prayers to your Spirits and purifying myself. The Americans threw me out on the street yes terday bloody and beaten, homeless, penniless, and lost, from their torture dungeons an that Airbase over there. For seven years, I am told, I lan guished there in the dark with no human company or compassion except Marine Guards, General Adams of the US Army, and a Pastor Paulus James from a Lutheran church here hypocritically attempting to ease my torment and horror with ignorant recitals of the meaning of redemption, the Bible, America, and their greatness and goodness. I wanted to wash away their dirt and sins in the creek downtown, in a beautiful park with grass under skies I had not seen in a lifetime; and there I met these gentle men by the banks of the sacred Creek, where, they said, Crazy Horse was born. Then I knew I was in a state of grace, of sacredness, and we fell into the clean water and emerged as men baptized, babies again, anew, washed of the crimes of the invaders. Crazy Horse - he was always a great Hero to me and our armies fighting in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. His valiant story of the true classical god of tragic sacrifice, suffering, death, and resurrection always inspired our holy men like Ptolemy Caesar and The Prophet to live lives of impeccable war, and Holy Jihad; for was he not Wakan Inyan the prehistoric Thunderbird of whom your poets sing? I would like to go into your sacred Black Hills to ascend to the source of that creek the River Jordan, and enter the cave or Temple- Tomb of your patron god. I think the ceremony of renewal and

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cleansing in that Ba-Abyss, Baptism, which is from the Abtis or Abyss of eternity, the underworld, will help us all to understand this miracle today with your grandmother. It will help us to wash off the blood of these lambs and re-conquer Jerusalem. My brothers here, Tony, and Rowdy, did we not see our ghosts together before we spoke after you pulled me out of the ice water? Have you not dreamed before of recovering your youth and en tering heaven clean and unsullied of the false sermons of 'original sin', sin, human desires and procreation dirtied by calvinist guilt, Catholic preju dice, Methodism, Jewish law replacing the Temple worship of the Hebrews? Have you been called "Pagans!" and Savages like us, Hostiles and Terror ists too? Who are the real Devils? Teach me the true story Of Crazy Horse, in your dreams, your black caves where my soul wandered from my body in the dungeons along tunnels deep under the ground, through glittering crystal caverns. Oh, my Friends, it was there I escaped from hell to your spirit-cities, where your ancestors live. Have you not seen them? Do you not know where they are to be so drunk upon despair and genocide on this cement ground above the ugly american sidewalks? I could not have survived the worst of all those solitary confinements without the free release of my soul; and it was there, in that, Grandmother, we healed you. Your bones were released into The Other World; and it is there where Jesus Caesar walks on the water, Merlin immortalizes his son Arthwyr in the cauldron-Grail, where Crazy Horse rides a thunderbird a hundred miles high. Come into the tomb with us: that's all it takes to walk forever with Mahomet." They all sat motionless, looking stunned, shocked, undecided about wheth er to run or fall on their knees. They were not used to any sermon or lesson that did not automatically include Christian Love and hate, political out rage at the injustice of centuries, plain talk.

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An old man asked, "Are you a Muslim?" He replied, "Did not the people question among themselves, 'Is this Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph?' To ask if a Libyan is a Muslim, a true Libyan, is to wonder about the ministry of all the prophets and their origin in god's world, the earthly paradise, of Egypt, Arabia, Lebanon, the land of Cain. Am I a son of Ham, the son of Noah of Nu, and are we not of Ab-Ra-Ham of Cush and Put? Is he the patriarch of Ma-Ham-Et and Isis Christos, Dionysus, the ghost of his brother John, Hanina ben Dosa, sons of Herod the Herculean Arabian Aretas of Nabataea, Transjordan, king of the Jews and the Arabs? Have not we all rendered unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, unto God that which is God's? But come, brothers and sisters, tonight to a meeting under the stars out yonder in the back yard, at sunset, to a feast and a Revival of miracles. Spread the gospel and the qu'ran to your families and we will plot the peaceful overthrow of evil; disease, and America, tonight under the stars. Go in peace."

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Within days the Black Hills were aflame with the ministry and miracles of the Arab preaching and teaching a very new message in the slums and al leyways of the Indian ghetto. People saw him like a man who was no longer a man, but a prophet, a wonder-worker; and indeed, Muhammad al-Psylli abu Zeid was becoming a ghostlike prince of Libya. He was no longer a man, that was, to be sure a physical being with earthbound limit ations, for he was seen to float off the ground and his eyes looked through every man with wide black orbs as dark as Africa. When he walked out of the ghetto south into the non-Native neighborhoods with schools and stores and many churches hundreds of people followed him; and he was dressed in plain pants and shirt, and beaded Cheyenne moccasins; his white curly beard growing thickly on his face healing of its wan imprison ment, and tanned; he looked to be stronger and surer than before, very handsome and tall and his voice deep in his chest. 'His eyes flashed intelli gently and his long stride revealed an athlete and a soldier. He was gain ing weight and his scars were healing. Annie saw that he was indeed no longer a man. He was not a man. They slept together but he was a spirit naked and free of flesh until it was in their ecstasy of lovemaking that she felt the true nature of their creation to gether, not as some girlish idealistic fantasy but divine, truly, creatively, spiritually copulating. He lifted her right out of her body, she lifted, they rose up through the raging convulsions of pleasure until her brain burned with the fire shooting up from her legs and vagina and spine. It was the most complete madness of her life. They fucked like it was a pagan sacra ment. She followed him with the ever growing crowds knowing they saw not a man either; and he was not a real man to them anymore. He had cured more elders in the neighborhood of their palsy and despair, curing alco holism, and feeding them with their savings, money in his pockets for their desperate bills and debts, generously giving away thousands for charity directly to the sick, the poor, and the hopeless. She trusted him to be wise

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in these Give-Aways that were traditional with Indians and Arabs, for the survival of her family. Athena had changed. She was a loyal believer in her father now, and helped him in every way she could, cooking, quitting high school at his request, and forming a Cheyenne Society of girls, the Young Wolves; and Mars was organizing a Warrior Society from his old local drinking and smoking buddies, lost boys, men of the streets, Sioux and Cheyenne hunters who were protecting abused women from drunks and mean husbands, boyfriends, sons, fathers were thrown out of the com munity and themselves beaten by the akicita H'e Sapa of the war chief Mars; with his father's blessing. The whole society was changing overnight, like a dream, like a dream. Annie accepted it too. Schools and education whether for her or Athena didn't matter anymore, they weren't. as Muhammad said, the answer. They followed him to Sioux Memorial Park downtown to the creek, which ran past the huge Civic Center where a fundamentalist christian tele-Evargelist Luis Palau was holding a revival for Jesus Christ attended by 10,000 of the faithful from 4 states. Word of the local Arabic-Cheyenne miracle-worker, however, had preceeded him, and almost pre-empted the Revival, and hundreds of the gentle lambs from dozens of the Pentecostal and Wesleyan flocks scampered outside into the lovely sunny park to see what this prophet was all about, and if it was true that he was a devil as their Pastors said; their Preachers with divinity de grees and Right Reverend titles like Paulus James from First Lutheran saying he was "a Moslem heretic." Pastor James, in fact, had just given an inter view to the daily newspaper, the Rapid City Journal, revealing that the "...so'called 'prophet' is a Convict I counseled in Federal Prison, no less than a Libyan Terrorist, one of the many false prophets of Islam, which, by the way, is a very fine religion." How, Pastor James mused on the front page of the sympathetic newspaper, he had come to be free on the decent streets of their city was an alarming question? "For this man is lower than a murderer. He laughed at the Bible when I presented it to him, attempting to ease his anguish in Maximum Security." (And, to be sure, reports of the

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Libyan's provocations had reached General Adams, and Washington.) Twenty policemen from the city, county, and state watched the impromptu gathering in the public park, alarmed, checking to see if they needed a legal Permit, and curious, about the mixed reports of miracles, terrorism, and a new 'warrior society'. Muhammad waited for the people to settle on the grass in a semi- circle around him, with his back to the creek at the very spot of his own baptism; when he spotted Pastor James milling in the back with the suspicious police and other preachers in their clean polyes ter suits and trim haircuts. He waved for him to come forward. "My friends, we are honored today to have the Right Reverend James with us. Please come forward Reverend Pastor and share with us the good news of Jesus Christ." All eyes turned to behold the flattered holy man whose eyes were blazing with righteousness and piety. "What do you expect me to say to you, Sir, except 'Satan, get thee behind me'? God have mercy on you." "Thank you Reverend," said the Prince by the River, in a voice ten times deeper than the good Lutheran's. "May I ask you just one point concerning Scripture? Mark 6:14-20." Paulus frowned, coming forward, and the congregation was swelling a thousandfold as word of this thrilling Biblical debate spread. Paulus came up to his adversary. "my, how you've changed. What sorcery is this that you're free?" Muhammad smiled. "The Angel Gabriel set me free, opening the hearts of my guards to Allah and God. But tell me, please, the riddle of Saint Mark 6: 14-20. 1 want with all my heart to know Christ's Love." The clean white people in their suits and church dresses began thumbing their Bibles immediately, eagerly, among the dirty red people waiting for an an swer. Pastor James could not resist the challenge and quoted from memory: "And king Herod heard of him: (for his name was spread abroad:) and he

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said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. Muhammad could not resist the temptation either and quoted the next verse: "Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets." He nodded to Paulus, who nodded respect fully in return, and continued: But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead. 17. For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife: for he had married her. 18. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. 19. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: 20. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly." Pastor James finished his recital satisfactorily and the audience noted the sacred quotations pleasurably; and they were so attentive the singing of the birds in the trees was the only sound interrupting the peace and si lence. Muhammad nodded, "Amen. What does it mean?" Paulus smirked victori

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ously, "Just what it says." "And what is that, if you might indulge a Moslem heretic ignorant of Christian theology? Herod is speaking of Jesus Christ and John the Baptist?" Paulus nodded, "Yes, There was much talk upon the Holy Land of the ar rival of The Savior, our blessed Lord and Master Jesus Christ of Nazareth." "But why does Herod express this curious belief that 'It is John, he is risen from the dead'? And apparently others are saying it all over Galilee, and identifying Jesus with Elias (Elijah) and a number of other revered Hebrew prophets." Paulus responded confidently, "They are Jewish non-believers, and of course the evil Herod was their king. They could not accept the Prince of Peace as their Messiah and probably wanted a secular military General or king like David to throw out the Romans." Muhammad added, "That would agree with Islam, that the Jews are the imperialistic Zionists of King David." "Yes," Paulus frowned, "as St. Paul has said." "Good, my brother, then we agree it is the Jews who are the enemies of God and Peace and the Holy Land. But I am still confused about the place of John in the Gospel, and his story of resurrection so similar to that of Jesus, and why St. Mark repeated the story in Holy scripture revealed by God; and St. Matthew corroborated the story in his Gospel, if Herod and the intolerant Jewish or thodoxy were only the most decadent and faithless heretics of all time, as it has come down to us in tradition." Paulus interrupted eagerly, "That is exactly why it is included in Scripture; Herod is not a Believer, he is looking to some Jewish predecessor instead to explain away the inconvenient arrival of the Messiah. Jesus Christ was already baptizing new Christian converts all over Galilee, and preaching a new religion of Love and mercy and God's eternal Forgiveness."

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Some of the revivalists in the open gathering began murmuring "Allelujia" and "Praise Jesus." "Praise Jesus," Muhammad repeated, "absolutely. Muslims believe totally in the prophethood of Christ. It is a beautiful message and teaching of Brotherly Love. It is the same message of John the Baptist. I know your or thodox viewpoint of John, whether it ranges from the Catholic dogmas or Protestant revisionism, that he was the prophet who foretold the Coming of his cousin Jesus Christ. I am here to bring the Truth of these gods to the world, in all their great mythic finery that has been lost and buried for many centuries under the rubble of the Roman ruins of Palestine, with his torical accuracy as well as mythic grammar: the correct poetry of the divin ity of Christ and who he really was in those Temples two thousand years ago." Paulus interrupted, "We already know all there is to know, as re vealed completely directly from God." Muhammad suddenly turned sternly and forcefully upon the well-paid and ordained Minister of The 1st Lutheran Church - and the tall Arab appeared to grow taller and his voice to grow greater next to the white pastor. "No you don't! Everything is in your Bible, yes, but you don't know anything at all about it. I am here to reveal the Truth and the Way and the Life and you are going to listen for once, Preacherman, for God is here today, in every atom of life. I am going to tell you who John was, and who Jesus is, and I will tell you first the history and the facts of that rational truth; and then I am going to show you the divine Transfiguration, the Transformation of man into god; and you are going to be baptised right here, finally, in the baptism of the abyss of the Holy Ghost. Hear me! good people and most faithful flocks! Sinners! Jesus Christ is the Holy Ghost of John the Baptist. Jesus Christ is the Holy Ghost of John the Baptist. Historically and humanly I will explain that to you, first, and then I will explain to you as a mythic poet like Mark and Matthew, Luke, and John himself: what they meant by "It is John, he is risen from the dead.' 'It is John, he is risen from

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the dead.' Mark is repeating the belief in his infallible Gospel, unmistak ably, that Jesus is John risen from the dead. He is saying that Jesus Christ is John the Baptist, and that the inexplicable event of bodily resurrection from the dead happened from the very first; in the beginning of the min istry of your Lord and Savior. It is an event and a belief important enough to be repeated almost verbatim in the Gospel of Matthew: 'chapter 14, verses 1-2: At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, 2. And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist: he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.' Now, Friends, is that not verbatim, word for word, with Mark, even down to the odd word 'shew'? Did not our noted theologian just reply to me when I asked 'what does it mean?', say, "Just what it says'. Just what it says? 'This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead.' Now, might I submit to you as a heathen Arab, Christianity is founded upon the sole Godhood of Je sus; or, at least, as the only begotten Son of God? Am I correct theologic ally good doctor and professor?" Paulus stared ashen-faced at him. "You belabor a point, Sir. Yes, of course, Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God." "Then I submit to you, Sir, you are not a Christian, for you do not believe the gospels of Matthew and Mark!" Paulus spluttered, "This is an outrage! The Devil is amongst us! Begone, my friends!" He started to leave and many followers with him when Muhammad unex pectedly leaped in his path and struck the enraged pastor a slap full in the face. "Heretic! Anti-Christ! You are the Devil from Hell and I, I am the only true Christian Believer here!" He spun around into a rage, a raging circle, that threw the pastor and many of his congregation to the ground onto the laps of other amazed followers; simple americans scrambling away in panic.

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"Be still and silent, all of you, and listen. Listen! Read the gospels againt John is the english translation of On in Egyptian, Onias in Greek - the great AENEAS! Honi in Hebrew, also Haninae Johanan, Ananas as vari ation. John. Ani from Egypt and Libya the first Scribe in all human history and literature wrote the original Book of God, the Book of the Dead. Read it. It's in the library. Therein you will find A'Tem, Adam, and Isis, Eve, and A'Tem-Ra the first and Only God of great monotheistic Egypt. Ani is the poet, as John is the poet, the prophet of the New Testament gospels and epistles, and Revelation. He it is who is central to all the Euaggelions of Christianity. Aeneas. The Jews recognized him as a charismatic Hasid from Galilee in the time of your Jesus, first as the mythic Honi in the Ag gadah books and then his reincarnated son Johanan and then grandson Hanina ben Dosa a famous miracle-worker. It's all in the Talmud, Mishnah, and Aggadah: Holy Books of rabbinic lit erature, law, and history comparable to the holy books of Greece and Rome, The Iliad, and Virgil's Aeneid. Look it up. Go to the library. Visit your local synagogue. The true ancient Hebrews always believed in Honi and Hanina as charismatic saints and holy men; but it was the lawyers and rabbis from Babylon who hated them, who didn't believe in God's magic anymore; whose philosophers were threatened by the poets. St. Mark was an enemy to the scribes and Pharisees because he was not a mere scribe or pharisee, accountant, schoolteacher; he had the much greater power of the miraculous pen, the mythic grammar of the Aggadah and Homer. So what happened in Galilee in the year One? If that doesn't matter to you then you are right, the calendar is hopelessly confused, and God's miracles are far more important than man's numbers, and the sci ence of history that is silent in its records of those years, and the laws of Talmud. The Good Book, the Byblos therefore, is also only pages of paper, an earthbound thing. Throw it away. If it isn't important to you what Mark says, that Jesus is John risen from the dead, or if you can't live

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with a double resurrection, throw it away. Burn it as blasphemous Roman and Jewish Evil. It is only a physical thing, paper from trees. It cannot be God's Word which is eternal, in the air. God would have no need of po ets or books. If you are a true believer destroy your Bible now. No? You look at me as a Satan (Saint?), a clever fiend. Then let us turn to the sixth chapter of Mark and pray. Come forward into the River Jordan and be baptised, in the name of the father Jupiter, and of the son Hercules, and of the Holy Ghost Dionysus of Libya. Amun-Ra." Television cameramen and newspaper reporters were arriving in the park, hastily, every minute setting up their machinery and scribbling their notes as word of the dramatic religious conflict spread like wildfire through the city, the Civic Center, and the Black Hills. The very reverend and very elo quent and very rich Dr. Luis Palau came outside in the sunshine to confront the violent heresies he was hearing every moment from his excitable pa rishioners, disrupting his Revival. Pastor Paulus James was like a man pos sessed in the midst of the quietly panicking crowd in the sunny park; he had mud on the knees of his polyester slacks and his short graying hair was comically askew. Dozens of devout old church ladies in cheap dresses were weeping and wailing hysterically, confusing their cries of "Lord LORD!" with "EVIL is upon us! SATAN is here! John 3:23! The END is near!" The great and good very reverend Dr. Palau beheld the scene of chaos aghast, blinking in the sunlight, putting on his sunglasses, trying to comfort those whose rising hysteria was all around him, at the center of the uproar he could not find anyone other than a tall plain dark man poorly dressed, stepping backwards on the grass into a tiny swift creek with his hands raised in prayer to heaven, to the brilliant blue Sky: and then in a moment of blind ing sunlight greatly increased like the white glare from a mirror everyone including the live TV cameras, saw him rise above the water into the air, his feet in mocassins clearly above the rushing water!

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A moment of electrifying blinding, Disbelief filled all the people in the park as all the people saw a man shining and floating like a god in their midst: and at his left hand a Black Angel of unspeakable beauty, as perfectly na ked as him in the center: and a White Angel on his right hand smiling and joyous and divine as the other two, all three as bright and beatific as the Sun.

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"Great Father," Muhammad said to Michael, smiling, "you have carefully told the story of Eros slyly; of Egypt and Israel instead of Libya. Africa. In stead of King Jude Eros the son of Caesar and Eunoe, a Berber mother, you have spoken of Cleopatra and the fabled Nile instead of Leptis Magna and the true Caesariensis of Carthage, Numidia, Mauretania all the way to the Pillars of Hercules and Atlas, in the far western Atlantic Ocean. Very clever." Michael smiled in his turn. "Juda Eros? Who's that? Another Libyan fantasy of your mother?" (And Gabriel was nowhere to be seen.) "Caesarion Ptolemy XV Eros is your fantasy, I'm afraid, most honored Father. History does not record him, nor does Caesar, except as the brother-consort of Queen Cleopatra; not her son. It is more Egyptian propaganda, I'm afraid, anti- Libyan literature, Africanist prejudice. You are playing into the hands of the same liars of history, dupes, the Greek Jews and philosophers who would make of the Gospels philosophy, theology, instead of poetry and myth--" Michael interrupted, "You're repeating yourself. The surest way to be a bore is to say everything. Make your case, as crazy as it sounds." The men stared at each other. "Jesus Christ was King Juba II of Africa amply recorded in reliable history, son of Julius Caesar, husband of Cleo patra Selene, father of the evangelist Aeneas Marcos of Cyrene, scholar, high priest, Roman citizen, King of Africa, Egypt, Arabia, and Assyria by royal edict of Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus; renowned and revered as a simple shepherd teacher in his own long lifetime, and Judaized by his son Saint John Mark after his murder by Caligula - a regular Pontius Pilate if there ever was one - in 40 A.D. Astonishing? Lucius of Cyrene records he was born in 6-7 A.D. during the Census of Cyrenius, began preaching when he was about 30 years old, which makes it 37 A.D., John writes he taught for 3 years, Passovers - that puts it at 40 A.D. when King Ptolemy Juba was killed in Rome in 40. The Gospel of Luke proves it, the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum have Crosses and baptisteries, altars, buried Leptis as well, Carthage, everywhere. Architecture. Archeology. The truth

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had been monstrously destroyed, deliberately, by Emperor Constantine in the 300s A.D. and his philosopher thugs Eusebius, the self-castrator Ori gen, Helen, Emperor Theodosius of Byzantium, Trojans who have hated Libya since Queen Dido cursed Aeneas, the Italians and haters of the Dark Ages. But all truth, Father, is, as you have led me to believe in your actions - clever clues pointing to this all along honestly in our holy world here; not in the labyrinths and mazes of the Monster Race below on earth. There, it is a world of constant danger and murder. They don't care at all about truth or justice. But in Augustan Rome, 0, and Leptis and Caesarea, I can imagine the greatest gathering of gods on earth since Osiris married Isis in prehistoric Africa, and Horus was their son: Eros. The Hero. The Two Lands of Tawy went bad too, and became the Greek Aegyptos, by the time of the same priesthoods who stole the simple resurrection and made of it material Mummies; cities of gold and Pyramids. No. Like Jesus it began simply with a holy man named Osiris. There was no need for elaborate Books of the Dead and Theban rituals to rise, ascend; the body is more than enough to transfigure itself; energy; an organism; finer and greater than any ma chinery invented by liars. I can see them now, like Caesar and Virgil in the beautiful rooms of Her culaneum in Italy, his cousin Iuda of Africa, Cleopatra of the Moon, Hor ace, Marcus Agrippa, Maecenas. I can see them. On the marble walls of bright red and fresco masterpieces of Dionysus painted realistically; lovely yellow garlands for Venus, bronze statues of Pan and Isis, honored ancest ors, evangelic they sang the truth and beauty of God; just as much as I do you. But you have sent me to learn more, to do more, haven't you? Yes. It is only with the greatest honor and respect for you, Dear Father, that I have tried to improve your knowledge, as you desired, as God wills, even it I'm wrong. It is for Augustus and Caesar's phenomenal Genius that I have returned." Michael's excellent eyes filled with Love. "Can it be that a

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father can never really know his son's fate, or even his own? I think so." Muhammad added, "God is greater than we are - as great as you are Almighty Archangel. We cannot know why he has allowed monsters to roam the earth. I can hear the kings and poets, queens and goddesses, now, sipping wine in glass cameo Grails, wearing purple cloaks from Africa and lounging on sofas of fine walnut and panther robes. 'We can save the world,' one of them says to one of the Caesars. 'Imagine what we can do. You have the world's only army; you have completed the con quests of Divine Julius: he suffered heroically in cold army camps for dec ades in Gaul and Spain and Illyria, Armenia, Pontus, Syria, Alexandria, Numidia, so that we can have Pax Augusta to avenge the Senate murder ers, the charlatans of the Republic.' I can see them, in their 20s and 30s, idealistic, energetic, handsome and beautiful, and very rich. 'We can write Epics about Aeneas and Moses. We can build glistening cities for Apollo and Minerva, purer than Egypt, for Jupiter, Isis, Juno, Libya, Je hovah. We can feed the world, if only we decide we want to. We can do it here, we few.'" Father and Son felt very close at that moment in an aerie perch vaguely in some Idyll; a bond the mother could never know, or the wife. [Gabriel was Venus.] Muhammad spoke again for they both enjoyed intellectual journeys. "No mention is made in history of a son of Julius Caesar, inconveniently. But it is very suspicious to me that the infant Juba II of Proconsular Africa was paraded in Caesar's Triumphs in 46 B.C. - the same age and place strong traditions have claimed Cleopatra claimed her own son was present; even though Caesar himself wrote that the boy was her brother. It is also curious that all Octavian's extensive memoirs and books have been lost to us today, except for a stone momument discovered in Turkey that the later Christian destroyers overlooked: Res Gestae, in which he refers to Julius as his father, makes no mention of anybody named Herod, calls Gaius and Lucius Caesar his sons, and speaks of Africa vaguely and only writes,

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carved on marble ... 'Cyrenae, which was then for the most part in posses sion of kings . . .' It is clear to me at least that Mark's gospel has taken for its model of Jesus the Imperial Cult of Divine Caesar. It's also clear, or per haps only curious, that Juba's extensive works have also been 'lost', while second-rate gossipers like Suetonius and Josephus critical of the Caesars and 'Herod' have survived nicely. Juba however is included in even those minor writers as the king of the Moors (Mauretania) and son of the Herod-esque evil Juba I who fought Caesar and lost, as an ally of Pompey (who was beheaded, by the way, like John the Baptist; in Egypt). Pompey and Scipio Africanus also recorded the rumor that J. Caesar had an affair with Eunoe, the wife of the Berber king Bogud. Juba Il was brought up in Italy in no other than Octavian's own household - along with the children of Cleopatra and Mark Antony and received Roman citizenship; and, apparently, accompanied Octavian on his campaigns. Strange treatment, for the son of a notorious Roman en emy, a savage brown 'Barbarian'. (Josephus records Herod's children grew up in Rome, in royal households... ) Augustus reinstated Juba [Ptolemy?] as King sometime between 29 and 25 B.C.; the exact same time, Father, you had perceived Kaiseros Erotos as Aretas or Herod begin ning to thrive after the apocryphal deaths of Cleopatra (unproved) and Marcus Antonius. And again we discover the supposedly vile Octavian raising their 3 children kindly as his own, in his own home in Rome - Cleo patra Selene and her twin brother Alexander Helios, and baby Ptolemy Philadelpos (after whom, I think, Philadelphia in Jordan was named, Am man today, the Philip of the Gospels, brother of Herod, tetrarch of Caesarea Philippi of Christian fame). Herod, by the way, had a son named Alexander too, according to Josephus. Anyway, Juba II indisputably ruled what is today Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco; and then, when he married Selene (the name of the mother of Dionysus by the way) he was also given Libya and Cyrenae, because M. Antony back in 34 B.C. gave them to her

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in the so-called famous 'Donations of Alexandria', which Octavian upheld. This extends Juba's kingdom all the way across North Africa, especially if you are right, Father, about him controlling Egypt as I think you are, as Caesar's son and Octavian's trusted cousin. History records Augustus kept Egypt off limits from the Senate and everybody else, appointing nameless Equites (Knights) as quasi-Pharaohs, Prefect(s) of Rome. And since not even Josephus can always be wrong, we now find 'Herod' ruling over Arabia Felix (a name suspiciously cropping up in Actos of the Apostles, which I'll get to later, Nabata, Judeae? and Syria, calling him ),ERODOS BASILEOS in the Greek original. About A.D. 6 the Gaetuli tribes rebelled in far-off Tunisia and Juba put down the war with the help of a Roman proconsul, Cossus Lentulus. In 17 Juba seems to have taken part in the defeat of anoth er Libyan terrorist Tacfarinas. He married at least once more to Glaphyra when Selene died, and, I think, again to a Jewess in Cyrene named Mari anne; and died circa A.D. 23 and was succeeded by Ptolemy, his son by Selene. But I think Ptolemy is still our Juba, or Iuda. The extant records, as always, are very thin. The Oxford Classical Dictionary goes an to say, quote, 'Juba was above all a man of learning, who sought to introduce Greek and Roman culture into his kingdom. His capitol at Iol (Cherchel in Algeria today, on the Sea), refounded as CAESAREA, and in the west Volubilis, where he may have had a second residence, became fine cities. His artistic collections were re markable. He developed the production of the Gaetulian purple, perhaps prepared by his invention from orchil. He wrote many books (now lost) in Greek: works on Libya, Arabia, and Assyria; a history of Rome; researches into language, drama, and painting; a treatise on the plant euphorbia, which he discovered and named after his doctor Euphorbus, brother of Ant onius Musa; and another comparative study of antiquities, mainly Greek and Roman. Pliny the Elder and Plutarch were among the authors who used his writings,' Unquote. Kaisaros Eros indeed, Father."

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No one in the park by the creek could say how long the vision lasted or if it even happened, for there was no sense of time or space anymore to any of them; but after an undetermined period they all 'came to' and dis covered to their wonder that everyone had shared the exact same hallucin ation. They all looked around for the Trinity they had seen but He, They, It was gone, like it had never existed. Only Mars and Athena spied their father up the creek a little ways, sitting under some trees in his plain clothes, again, on the other side. They crossed over a little wooden foot-bridge while almost all the (hushed) crowd on the grass missed their movement, failing to find the Prince where he sat almost out of sight under the willows casually smiling and quite alone, and relaxed. Annie followed her children who took their father's hands and they walked slowly, leisurely, up the creek, against the current; and their friends, the We Saps Warrior Society and the Young Wolves, followed at a safe protective distance behind them. The rest of the crowd milled restlessly, aimlessly, back at the creek, while TV newsmen and cameramen checked their videotape to see what happened. One chic news woman in a tight mini-skirt shrieked when she saw the very raw footage. Her cameraman nodded numbly, understand ing, "Yeah." In the TV studio a few blocks away the producers were arguing, "We can't use this, my God. These people are completely naked! Look at them. We can't put this on the air. It must be a hoax. Some cheap pornographic publicity stunt." A woman producer and owner of the Station, a very con servative Roman Catholic, and devout, said, "There's no special effects here. It's raw footage. It's a photograph of a miracle, whether they are devils or demons I don't know, but, my God." one of the veteran reporters stared at her, "You don't believe this, do you?" She looked at him, "How can you not believe it? Look at that. There it is." No magic of modern cine matic wizardry, no matter bow marvelous or expensive at the hands of the best geniuses in Hollywood could match the opacity, the transparent fig

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ures in the picture floating off the ground. Muhammad walked easily on the grass by the creek under the great green willows swaying and tower ing above him, over them, with his children and his wife. They saw him now, they knew him completely, as a different man, a god, far far above them. He was completely changed and looked like someone else. They knew he had done it as proof of his ministry, and they knew it without be ing told of it. They walked steadily and surely up the creek, following it to the west to its source in the Hills; leaving everything they had ever known behind. The creek meandered through the city's parks and past hamburger stands, un der road bridges, beside more parks with flowers and playgrounds. The day and the sun never seemed to set and the light was yellow and orange on the lovely trees. "One time," Mohamed said, out of the blue, "Honi ha-Me'Aggal went to sleep under a carob tree for 70 years, and when he awoke he was John in the year we call 1; and he was the god Dionysus. On. Isis. John and Je sus. Like the Son of the God Jupiter his father, who was also like Hercules, who was Herod, he was tortured and murdered in a ritual sacrifice so that all life would be renewed, all sins washed away - that is, the legacy of Monsters would not win. Redemption, you see? The self-sacrifice of Her cules beheading himself in the myths according to Aeneas Marcos: 'It is John, whom I beheaded, he is risen from the dead."' But Mars was confused, "Father, how does that make John Jesus? And Je sus Herod?" Muhammad smiled at him, "The deified Emperor Augustus Caesar built the Temple in Jerusalem. It is very Greco-Roman. You see? He put up Temples to Venus and Pan over the sepulchre and Caesarea Phil ippi where Jesus was supposed to be entombed, and where he was hap tised; it was, historically, in Herod's garden of olives and fig trees and carob trees, just as Dionysus was crucified - sacrificed ritually, hacked to

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pieces by his angry mother Hera, jealous of his father's, her husband's in fidelities - sleeping ghostlike for another sacred 70 years. Fact of history: the emperor Titus put a Temple to Venus over the sepulchre where today Jesus is identified, honored for his devotion to Mother Mary, the tomb and womb of Fortuna goddess Venus. Constantine tore it down in 330 A.D., erasing all evidence of 'Paganism'. Fact of Judaism: Honi and Hanina were real men. That's why Jesus doesn't much like Mary. Or why John doesn't like Herodias either. Jews and Arabs, my children, what I can tell you of the destruction of Jews and Arabs, today, horror stories, gods against monsters. And the true grandeur of Rome and Libya. Pan, the goatqod, the Lamb of God, Ram of Libya, slept under the Cross of the Carob Tree. Therein, in Aeneas Marcos, lies the Son of God, the living breathing figure of the Bible of Jesus walking across the groves of history. He was everywhere for centuries, Jesus as Dionysus, in hundreds of temples and homes of the Empire; in Virgil's 4th Eclogue, the hero Eros as John Mark's holy father whom John praises hundreds of times, compulsively in his Gos pel, officially sanctioned as the State Religion. The New Testament is just the Judaized version, the Herodian family's private funeral books. CHRIST is from the Greek for MERCIFUL KING. Like Caesar he was the original, universal, tolerant Renaissance man." ("And like Mobruk, my uncle," he thought, "Pan has been arrested in Libya at Leptis, sleeping.") Rain started to fall in a strange delicate mist and they saw a rich Bible Col lege across the creek. Wading over on the granite stocks they ran through the mist toward the school, apostles and warriors and wolves of the young societies of the new savior. "Christianity," he shouted as they ran, "is the paradox, both Herculean and Dionysian. But come,we must go preach the fiendish heresies of the Goat Devil to the flocks." They ran inside the Stu dent union while boys in crewcuts and girls in neat clean dresses stared at the dark-skinned strangers in the rain. "May I help you?" a boy asked. "Are you lost?" The oldest adult among the intruders stared fiercely at him

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with terrible eyes. "'And he went round about the villages, teaching."' A girl squealed beside them, "Hey, didn't we see you on television this after noon? Yes, it's him!" she screamed. Looking more carefully, at that, of the bellowed aura of TV around a man, they paused again; but Muhammad only quickened his step into the neo-Grecian pantheon of pseudo-marble. Inside, the lobby and bookstore and cafeteria buzzed with vigorous young life, bright and modern windows flooding the enclosed atrium with God's rainbows shining through the rain. A number of students were grouped in a clump around a big console television set in front of sofas watching re play after replay of Muhammad's transfiguration over the creek, and excit able commentators, experts already arguing over the necessary suspen sion (of disbelief) magicians of the day commonly devised to fool and en tertain the very very gullible public. "'And he marvelled because of their unbelief."' The voice of a living man beside his television ghost stopped the vital activity of the Student Union, as if a gunshot had gone off in the sunny air. He stood beside the TV and said, "'And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits."' The familiar phrases of St. Mark warmed and consoled the emotional audience of viewers, witnesses, of miracles, or diabolical illusions that day in their vil lage, by the creek in the park. Muhammad gently took one of the girls of the Young Wolves with him and paired her with an Indian boy, and two by two they mingled silently around the audience, until only Mars and Athena, and Annie by his side, stood in front of the silent congregation by the television. He turned down the sound while the picture remained. "'And he commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse.'" An official in a gray suit with a policeman stepped forward and said, "Excuse me, Sir, this is private property. You'll have to leave, and your friends." "'And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into a house, there abide

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till ye depart from that place.'" The men grew louder, "Sir--" Muhammad moved around the audience, speaking familiar Scripture in sequence, Mark 6: 6-14, to his Indian dis ciples, the warriors and young wolves, "'And whosoever shall not receive you nore hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tol erable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgement, than for that city.'" Muhammad stared fiery rebukes at the policeman and the officious school administrator, who visibly shrank before his terrible humbling stare; and the students marvelled at the wonderful display of defiance, and scrip ture. He continued to circle around the outside of the audience until he re turned to the front again by the television, still replaying in stunning slow motion and closeups his Miracle. "'And they went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them,'" Then he slapped the top of the TV with sudden explosive force, and the picture changed, with him quoting further from Mark, with Paulus quoting, "'And king Herod heard of him (for his name was spread abroad:) and he said, "That John the Baptist was risen from the dead Enchanted by the magic-making of the screen few viewers were aware, until only slowly, that Muhammad the man was gone from the room. They all watched him on TV: until he finished his discussion, his duel, with the good Pastor, concluding, " . . . and he went and beheaded him in the prison. And he brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother. And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb."'

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An arm reached across the TV and turned it off. The viewers blinked in sur prise to see the blank black screen in front of their eyes. Muhammad stood again before them in the room. "And the Apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile; for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat." He stopped, and smiled, and sat comfortably on a sofa. No one knew what to think. He looked to be a ghost from TV, not a man, unreal, larger than the life of the compelling image he had been in the electronic light. He motioned for them all to sit on the floor, and, like one, mesmerized, boys and girls, teachers, policemen, and his disciples, they sat obediently around him, like a movie star had come among them from the stars. "Have you noticed what secret spells Mark has cast? For sixteen verses in the middle of Chapter Six Jesus is gone, and the whole story of John is told. Jesus leaves and Herod and John arrive in the story and then, via their disciples and apostles, Jesus appears again, immediately, as soon as John is in his tomb. Jesus makes not the slightest comment about it, but soon, we have two of the most wonderful miracles of the Bible, in a row: the loaves and the fishes, and the walking on the water. And it is all still in the same chapter six, the most wonderful Ode, to me, in all of literature. Heroic Ode. Herode. The parallel in Saint John is equally revealing in his Gospel, chapters five and six. Never once does John ever mention Herod or the famous beheading scene; but, immediately prior to the same mir acles of the fishes and loaves feeding the five thousand, and the walking on the water, John, the beloved, goes on and on about his father, "'For as the Father raiseth up the dead'" (as Jesus is John raised, according to

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Herod and Mark and Matthew), John verse 21 continues, " '...and quickeneth them: even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the son.'" "Brethren, I don't know how many times John speaks adoringly of the Fath er, on and on, but it must be hundreds throughout his Gospel. Hundreds. He was obviously profoundly influenced by fatherhood, far more than the other gospels, the synoptic gospels all scholars and poets agree were far more objective than the personal, unique style of the mysterious John. I think what we have here in John is the word and voice of Jesus himself speaking; torn, profoundly shaken down to his immortal soul, his eternal self, by the regenerative force of his own resurrection - that is, by the di vine spark of the kingship of his father Herod." Gasps went up from the audience. "Can you imagine what it must be like to die and then wake up with the sunrise on Easter, and go on living hun dreds of years a god in the Libyan desert? Yes. Take heed and do not panic Children. Then you can begin to understand Pan and to see what John is really talking about. He is, as the scriptures repeat over and over again, the father and the son and the holy holy ghost, like Ra rising anew every morning. He is talking about in personal terms what Mark has repor ted objectively in the Family's solemn funeral book, sublimely like a great epic poet: his own Beheading. Yes. Listen! Do not run away! Why else would Jesus disappear from the narrative of his own biography, for so long, so clearly, significantly, unaccidentally, for Mark, as all the scholars and poets agree, is the clearest, neatest, least sloppy and zealous of all the Evangelists. I think his is John Mark's first draft, and he rewrote it, clari fied its myths and theology, later, as John's Gospel, the sequel. It is not an accident or a fabrication of mere fancy, my friends, but a carefully wrought clue to the truth by a mythic poet who knew the truth of his own

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resurrected Being, which he called Jesus Christ. John Mark is the real Jesus walking the peaceful groves of his Galilean home. It was an Age in which the known world was civilized by the very highest order of worship, and this is the Hebrew version of Hercules and Dionysus - Herod and Jesus. "At Pompeii, where I've been, the culture of that day was preserved by an act of God under a mountain of ash and lava from the eruption of Vesuvi us: keeping intact for us exactly what people believed in then, in 79 A.D., very close to the time of John and the Herodian family of Agrippa and Drusilla the daughter of King Iuda (Jubal of the Jubilees) relatives of Caesar, and Berenice of Egypt and the Ptolemies - all in the New Testa ment. Without all the editing and censoring and lying of centuries of churchmen and disbelieving philosophers with the schools of Science and 'Fact' burying Jesus alive again, we can see at Pompeii on the beautifully preserved color wall paintings and frescoes and mosaics Proof of the great devotion of the Romans. Yes, Romans. John Mark and his father Juba II were from Africa, grandson and son of Caesar! The paintings show a brown-skinned Hercules among the whiter Italians, obviously North Afric an. Every house had an altar or lararium to God and Goddess in all their aspects. They were not the savage 'Barbarians' of lying history, they were Berbers, Cyrenians of the original and most sophisticated cities in the world - Cyrene, Leptis Magna, Carthage. Berenice was not a Ptolemy but a Berber where Benghazi in Libya is still named after her. Whole empires are buried under the shifting sands, according to aerial reconnaisance photographs taken between 1946 and 1949. The truth has only begun to be revealed, my friends. God has proven it and his complicity at Pompeii. Temples of Apollo converted to Churches and Mosques and Synagogues too. "But there's more, much more. One exquisite wall Fresco tells the exact story of the birth, the life, the death and the resurrection of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; that is exactly how Dionysus and his virgin mother

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Semele [Selene?] are described in Latin and paint on the walls and walls called 'The Villa of the Mysteries': a vast 90-room mansion that was only discovered at the beginning of the 20th century after Christ. It contains the most famous of all Pompeian frescoes, and, probably, the most authentic record in the world of the nature of true Christianity as Jesus meant for it to be: as Mark understood it in his Gospel as the Angel [Evangel, EUAGGEL] sitting in his tomb like paintings in Egypt of Angels with human heads hov ering over the sacred Mummy, on Easter morning. (Biblical scholars also think it was Mark who was the strange naked man in Gethsemane running away after Jesus was arrested, Mark 14:51-52: the same young man in the otherwise empty tomb of Jesus in 16:5-7, thus ending the first original Euaggelion) The Fresco goes around a large rectangular room, a frieze, representing the main stages in the Apotheosis of Semele and the parallel apotheosis of her son Dionysus. Apotheosis means to deify, a man turning into a god. It is in beautiful colors miraculously preserved after 1900 years. The Art is as great as Michelangeo's and in the same style; which he could not have known except through divine inspiration in the 16th cen tury after Christ, in Renaissance Papal Italy. The long complex story with many fascinating characters illustrates the rites undergone by a lady of the Roman aristocracy, in the same familiar flowing robes of classical Christi an paintings in the Middle Ages, as she is initiated into the Dionysiac cult. It shows Semele's union with Zeus (or Jupiter in the Latin), and the mar riage of her priestess, very tastefully and modestly painted with no sex, with an angel again announcing God's immaculate conception of the sac red child; just like Gabriel coming to Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, the mothers of Jesus and cousin John as related in Luke's very strange state ment (strange only if not understood) 1:41, 'And it came to pass, that, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.'

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End quote. Elizabeth, the mother of John, was filled with the Holy Ghost? Isn't that Jesus? Herod the Great had several wives named Mariamne. At Pompeii, on the frieze of the Villa of Mysteries, two cupids, little boys, Eros, Angels, contemplate the two women, the mistress of the house and her priestess. 'The babe leaped in her womb.' Semele's pregnancy and her next initiation rite in the next panel of the painting show a maenad, a naked priestess of Pan (or Dionysus, also confused by scholars with Bac chus; poets know better), her son, carrying a thyrsus, his characteristic staff Jesus suggests in Mark 6:8, which is entwined with vine leaves and ivy, which symbolizes the child that is about to be born. Nowhere in the panel is any male among the women. Then the next panel shows the an nhilation of Semele-Mary, and a winged demon, Gabriel, is about to strike her with a whip, symbolizing the lightning that killed her; and a torchbear er reveals a phallus, representing childbirth." Murmurs continued to rise more and more from the assembled students and teachers as they began to try to shake off the shocking hypnosis that must have overcome them, in the Student Union, "With her annhilation therefore, came apotheosis (and the terrible cold ness of Jesus towards Mary, such as John 2:4, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' like Gabriel's black presence, Terror in the painting), that is, the awakening eternal sexual orgasm of creation that is the immortal part that survives the body." Outright exclamations of "Pornography!" greeted this last religious teach ing, and the crowd, mostly boys, grew uneasy and noisy at this latest out burst. Police cars and television vans were seen outside pulling into the parking lot, alerted by the Bible College. "Jesus-Dionysus is seen next as a precocious boy studying with the priest ess and his secular mother, god's nurse, The death (from Dea) of Dionysus-

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Jesus follows in a series of extraordinary panels and masterful paintings highlighted by the priestess's role in the initiation of men into the Myster ies; with goats, the fat satyr Silenus, with ritual actions directly associated with the legend of the future god. A woman brings a plate piled with cakes; the priestess appears again, crowned with an olive wreath; a ser vant girl pours a fine trickle of water onto an olive branch. Silenus plays his lyre and sings a funeral dirge (The Evangelist? Herod?) in honor of the dead Dionysus, whom we don't see until he lies peacefully in his mother's lap, very much like Michelangeo's magnificent PIETA, like the women at the Cross and at the Tomb bringing 'sweet spices'. Dionysus has never been in the frieze, alive, as a man at all until he is a muscular god, dead, draped in the lap of his serene and all powerful, all-suffering Mother. Two shepherds with goat's ears accompany him. In one awe-inspiring panel the priestess is greatly disturbed by the appearance of these representat ives of a barbarous and archaic religion. Perhaps it is Silenus himself who becomes the handsome young god, at last? In any case, she is horrified. Yet, while remembering the fears she experienced on the eve of her own conversion, or apotheosis, with the terrible Archangel, she learns that her misgivings were unfounded. For the god her son who appears at the cen ter of the composition, like John whose awful head is passed ritually from [Salome, who is named only at the Cross?] the priestess to Herodias [Mary] the queen, as every man, is the god of eternal youth, reborn from his old age, repugnant to you as Herod, the necessary villain, tragic Hero: and that is Jesus. That is why he shows no concern in Mark when he re ceives the news of John's apotheosis. In fact, it releases him to perform even greater miracles, the beneficient god who feeds the multitudes (as the Caesar's fed the world from their own pockets, as Herod has been recor ded too, generously), the god renewed who washes away all the sins of common mankind." Holy hell finally broke out on the surface of the school, from deep in its

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concrete foundations where horror, lust, and fright seethed within; and teachers, preachers, policemen, and journalists entered the main doors into the hallowed Union and shouts went back and forth from them to the students assembled, seduced, by the Arab charlatan in their midst. His great deep voice spoke over the tumult, continuing, louder than the crowds, "'And he gave them power over unclean spirits . . . and they cast out many devils."' He looked to his four pairs of Young Wolves and H'e Sapa Warriors, at the four directions around the chaotic circle. His Voice suddenly burst greater than a thunderbolt and threw every man and woman to the floor. "Tragedy is the Goat-Drama. In Mark chapter one, what does your Lord Jesus, whom John the Baptist of the Ba-Abyss has called 'the Lamb of God' almost from his first breath (John 1:29) mean, when he says, 'Unclean spir its'? 'Devils'? He is talking about goats, lambs, the shepherd's flocks, people gone mean and monstrous (terrifying Mary and Salome at the Cru cifixion), this divine soul in us that has been imprisoned, repressed, by Scribes, Pharisees, the same intolerant orthodoxy here today who would say to you, 'Creation is dirty. The naked beasts, the goat devils, the sheasses, are pornographic. Sex is filth! proclaimed the heretic Paul. Love is only good when it is unclean, unexpressed physically, permanently adoles cent, for the body, the animal, the monster is evil, procreation is unclean! well I say unto you that the naked god Jesus hanging from your crosses was the God of Love, the god Dionysus who freed the world of guilt. mark 1:26 describes a man ejaculating, 'And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.' Silence, you pagans, truth-haters of the Academy! Mark 1:31 describes Dionysus bringing a woman to orgasm, 'And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she min

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istered unto them."' People struggled to their feet, apoplectic with horror and fury, while older well-dressed Indians joined them in the room, pouring into the room from the society outside, respectable, orderly, well-paid college professors. Muhammad persisted, backing away only a few feet, "'And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.'" Backing out a side door, with Mars holding back the screaming crazy pseudo-Christians of Amer ica, Prince Muhammad escaped outside into the open air with his wife An nie and his daughter Athena faithfully, adoringly, at his side, amazed at him.

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The crowds shoved and shouted at each other. The reincarnation, the heir to the Queen slumped his head and shoulders under the cries of "Terrorist!" and "Prophet!" On either side of him under the wild-eyed scru tiny of people he made his way through the lines of the crowds, with Mars and the H'e Sapa warriors protecting him, on either side, and the girls of the Young Wolves. They made their way to the park again, by the creek, the hurrying crowd running and chasing after them. Policemen didn't know whether to arrest him or the crowds, for the riot, the Sermons of the Creek (as they came to be known later) inciting disorder; and the tall dangerous Indian youths, his bodyguards were zealous in their newfound newly-won fervor. The sun was thinning its hot afternoon lights and the blue shadows were lengthening over the city from the Black Hills, to the west of the city. The Prophet hurried his step westwards by the creek, following it always up stream where narrower canyons of high rock cliffs of redstone and ponder osa pines squeezed the roads and the stores out of the rocks; narrowing, darkening, the river-cut higher canyons drew the creek up along steeper and steeper ridges. The quarreling ignorant crowds thinned necessarily in a long rambling line behind the quiet Leader, who was watched by slowly moving police cars alongside him on the road, the road also following the winding creek, crawling, as TV vans and cars too, scrambling cameras and reporters, followed and shouted. Muhammad finally drew Annie, Athena, and Mars to him in his arms and spoke reassuringly to them, "We'll have to feed everybody. You have the cash card for the automatic teller machine and the checkbook, Annie, get some cases of the best wine they have up there, I see a grocery and liquor store. Some good St. Emilion if they have it, Baron Chateau Phillippe de Rothschild would be too good to be true. Do you remember Paris?" They all gaped at him again in wonder and amazement. "Wine?" Annie asked. 'There are Indians here, everywhere sobriety is the biggest problem we have on the Reservations." He smiled sadly, distracted, looking at the

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sky far off. "I know. But maybe they've been drinking the wrong wine. Di onysius, you know, derived his mystic history from the spread of the vine cult all over the world. Wine is central to many of the Gospel stories of Je sus. Go ahead, get plenty of bread and fruit and cheese for everyone, and meet me up ahead at a good spot somewhere. We'll feast and camp peacefully for the night." Annie nodded, "Okay. I understand. It might be a good idea. We have a lot of good grandmothers following along and Indians in campers and old pickup trucks behind the cops; we'll get food and sleeping begs and tents from them." Mars added, "Yeah, them's a good open clearing ahead about a mile, a public park with cooking grills and picnic tables. We'll catch a ride and meet you there." Athena was holding her Daddy's hand tightly. "I'll stay with Daddy, if you're going to keep walking?" He sailed and nodded, but he was deep in thought, and his girl was happy, honored, to walk quietly with him. His apostles fanned out across the road to the stores to find sacraments for the multitude, and sustenance, provok ing a flurry of confused and near-panicked activity from the news media when they heard the biblical explanations for this odd eccentric pilgrim age, stopping Annie and Mars to interview them especially, frantically. Athena was surprised and then scared to see her Daddy crying, deeply weeping in fact, in the dusk. "Daddy, what's the matter?" He squeezed her hand tightly. "I'm so ashamed, and so happy, to be your father. That you want to be with me after all these years. I love you so much, my pre cious little Athena girl." He stopped and knelt on the soft grass and she hugged him as tight as she could, kissing and kissing his bearded cheek. The sudden emotional halt at the head of the pilgrimage kept everyone away from the father and daughter like there was an impenetrable shield around them. "I love you too Daddy. I missed you so much." "Me too," he choked through his sobs, emotional as his father, "I was so afraid I'd nev er see you again, or Mars, or that you wouldn't like me for being gone so

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long. I used to get mad at you as little children, or babies, and yell at you, angrily, when you pooped your diaper when I was trying to work. Or fighting over a toy. No, it was more than anger, I remember. I was horri fied at myself at how mean I could be, screaming like a crazy man at help less little kids. I still remember, oh, one time, it sticks in my mind, you couldn't have been much more than three years old, you spilled some koolaid in the refrigerator and cried, even before I could get mad, in a selfish rage at the interruption, "I'm so so sorry Daddy. Please be happy! I wanna be happy! I wanna be happy!" She drew her head back from his shoulder and smiled into his kind eyes, which, she had seem in the last few days, could also be fierce and terrible with great knowledge, and she kept her arms around his strong neck lovingly. He picked her up like she was a feather, or a fairy, and carried her for awhile like she was a little girl again, with her legs and arms wrapped around her Daddy, giggling. A few women frowned at their intimate embrace. Then he grunted and let her down and they laughed. "You're getting big and I'm getting old," he laughed. "No you're not. No boys I know are as strong as you." "Do you have a boyfriend? I haven't noticed." She shrugged, "A few. I'm still a vir gin though. I'll do it when it feels okay and it's safe, I guess." It was his turn to look at her, surprised and scared. They held hands and walked again along the highway which hugged the creek closely in the tight canyon. Steep rocky cliffs blotted out the sunset light and irritated cars honked at the pedestrian on the road. He thought of Dionysus and his goddess mother Semele who tried to save her son from the wrath of Hera because Zeus, the king of Crete, fucked the beautiful Semele: Hera was the co-creator of the semi-divine human race and Zeus was her wild, profligate, Herculean husband. Semele disguised Dionysus as a kid-goat to hide him from Hera, who was the equivalent of the Roman bitch Juno Isis of Egypt, original Eve, Great Goddess. Hence he was the horned ram, like Pan his uncle, Pan, a Titanic brother and equal

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of Eve. Muhammad felt with certainty that his father Zeid was the violent twin with in himself, the notorious terrorist, Hercules, the seed, the twin in every man. it was Zeid who had screamed in fury at his children. It was Hercules who drove Dionysus to violent madness that made him an outcast, like John in the wilderness eating thorns, the pariah not allowed in Olympus, and ever since despised by rational peace-loving men. "The Americans aren't wrong or evil to hate me." His phantom in the farm of himself (His Father) had been a ruthless general like Adams, in many wars. Muhammad was torn with respect and contempt for him. He knew all about Fatima and Ali too: and he knew it was up to him to get back to Mecca to soothe their burning minds and to say what it was they were. Mars and his gentle warriors were already pitching a comfortable camp ahead, in a shaded grassy clearing alongside the shores of the beautiful creek, splashing white over rocks in a shallow gorge under solemn granite rocks. The strange and ragged wandering, nomadic pilgrimage of home less souls settled in for the night around campers and vans parked by warm fires cooking hamburgers and barbecued chicken, hot dogs, char coaled and grilled on iron grills, black with soot, and people of many races gathered firewood. Annie waited for the humble man who was her husband to bless the feast and consecrate the wine, expensive French bur gundies in black bottles in wooden cases, vintages, nectars of honeyed mead worthy of the gods. Old Indians and young policemen, unfamiliar neighbors, felt uneasy about the liquor, teenagers and children too ac quainted with adults, fathers, mothers, delirious with poisoned drink and bad drugs, the sacred coca-leaf of the Andes soaked in kerosene by drug dealers, bootleggers, waited in leery anticipation for the red wines. Muhammad unscrewed a cork front a dark bottle and poured a little into a plastic blue picnic cup. "Good Lord, bless our hearts with thy great bounty, and help us to share in your intoxication modestly, happily, never

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drinking more than we need for peace." He then took a sip and smiled at everyone, tired, resting on a big flat rock, pouring cups for all. The good cheer soon relaxed everyone to eat and talk; and when they had all eaten and drunk their fill they rested on their blankets around the fires by the water, and the stars in the black night were as clear as ice. Winos with sick skin and empty eyes marveled at the goodness of the drink they had never tasted until now, stopping, satisfied, like they had never done before, the spirits of broken hearts and souls ful filled. For dessert they dipped their cheap cups in the creek and drank deeply of the pure running white water; and there was some talk of the Holy Man's ability to turn wine into water, and the blood of Winos poisoned by merchants and the false manufacturers of unnatural rotgut, polluted waters, was cleansed. Children and teenagers drank freely too, curiously slaking their appetites for adult pleasures, and escapes; and their parents felt better to be sharing this lesson with them and there was some talk about it around the campfires and about the apparent wealth of the Master to afford these lessons of privilege. Anne assured them her hus band's family was rich and that he told her his wealth and commitment to them was "Limitless," and they gasped at it, amazed. Muhammad rested benevolently sleepy- eyed, at rest by the rocks, listening contentedly to the excited talk. "Yes," Annie explained to one and all, "Muhammad and I have talked for many years about the Revolution, God's Revolution, and how to help the oppressed and poor of the world to learn to turn with Her, like the Earth. It is not for any one Tribe or Faith, we said, but for every Spirit yearning to escape this mortal reality, this physical gravity, our tem porary bodies, to be free. It is not of Nations or Wars of Liberation and Sovereignty. The being in us of the Other World knows nothing of those things." Muhammad looked at her and he knew she was the goddess, the daughter Anne who was the one universal name of the all-inclusive Moth er, God's great-grandmother as she was the womb of the blessed fruit of

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the womb of Mary, who was Semele, the mother of Dionysus; Anne was Annewen of Britain, the womb of Anne, the underworld of Rhiannon, mother of King Arthwyr; and she had many many manifestations of other powers. He saw some old friends then, huddling by the campfire drinking cold water instead of their usual black coffee; from the old days, comrades in arm, thin and old. Longing [hiraeth in Welsh, the ancient British of Arth wyr] and regret filled him for all the lost purposes, missed efforts, chances, on those fields of war. His old friend from Syria, balding and sickly, said. "I wonder what this night can tell us of your local ancestors, and spirits, and holy men." He smiled at his old comrade, General al-Psylli smiling at the speaker, Rafiq Hilawi commander of the 68th Syrian Brigade, a Druze from the sacred Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Muhammad stood awkwardly, "Rafiq, is that you? Is that you? My friends, we are honored by a great warrior." Rafiq stood shyly as well, in cheap second-hand clothes, "Caus ing trouble I see, as always, preaching heresy." The two aging Arabs em braced emotionally by the fire. Rafiq stood back, "Anshari and I were in Minneapolis in a Rescue Mission and heard about you on the Internet." Anshari stood too, a strong handsome Syrian woman, hugging him too, "So we hitch-hiked out to give you a hard time." "My friends, oh, my dear loyal friends and family." Rafiq said, "I knew you weren't dead. I knew it. Friends, this man was our inspiration in many battles, an invincible Mara bout, and I saw him work miracles. Not the least of which is that we are here tonight in the holy Black Hills of your great hero Crazy Horse. Please, can you tell us, pathetic Arabic terrorists, any stories of his remarkable deeds and holy works?" Muhammad smiled. 'Yes, yes, that would be good." The veterans of many wars eyed each other deliciously at the thought, the prospect, of sacred storytelling; Sioux and Libyans, Syrians, Cheyennes, and Americans. Old Grandma Running Fox was there, with other elders, as well as ambitious young aspirants to Medicine, and sundancers, Yuwipi

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men, ghost dreamers, women accused of witchcraft by other jealous wo men. Annie saw that Rafiq and Anshari whom she'd known, were slyly testing the loyalty and veracity there of these haphazard pilgrims, nomads of a few days. Tony Red Horse challenged him in return, wisely asking, "Are you truly terrorists, as the Americans say, friends?" Rafiq and Anshari shared a look with Muhammad, and Anshari replied, "Our brother, Muhammad ben Zeid, explained to us many times what the Prophet meant when he went to war with the idolaters of Arabia. He was the General in War in his Herculean disguise. The sacrifices to God and Goddess are al legorical, my friends, parables begat most truly by Poets. We know of Ma homet of Mecca as the Word of God in the Qu'ran, the Book of Peace, of shepherds tending to their sacrificial rams and fat ewes. The wars of heav en are the wars of the other world." She was finished, but no one was satisfied. Rafiq finished her thought, "That is why we are here, and, I daresay, our notorious Libyan brother. What is a terrorist? Please, tell us about Crazy Horse." The friendly con versation was turning, turning like the constellations in the sky, Orion and the Pleiades, Arcturus, and the planets of Jupiter and Saturn on the plane of the ecliptic following the Sun. There was a lot of good conversation and stimulating talk about the hero of the Sioux, whose most holy name, they learned, was the same for the father and the son. When the young cham pion of the Little Bighorn River was given his father's name his father be came 'Worm', known as Igluta, from a family of peaceful dreamers who were not warriors. Crazy Horse was not of the warrior class. Everyone went to sleep wearily and restfully, after awhile, but Muhammad dreamed a Mighty Dream of War.

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He was baptizing the multitudes at the Temple- Tomb where the sacred running creek comes from a cave, emerging from the source of the great underworld where the elders and relatives said Crazy Horse was born. It was a lovely sunny day where they had walked all morning in the Black Hills up, uphill along the gently rising canyons and granite gorges until the creek grew smaller, thinner, colder in the rocky ridges, where icewater came out of the ground; until they were in other extrageographical caves, under mountainous rocks shaped like men, carved, under a Sylvan Lake past the manmade mountains: under other mortal Otherness. The desper ate sinners of dishonest mankind clamored about him for help, healing, benefaction asking, "Master, do you know Mount Rushmore, the temple of the American gods, is just over there? Over there." They were not speaking familiarly, no common sense in their desperate clamor as he washed their minds of sinful Disbelief, greedy truthlessness and fear; glancing over his Shoulder beyond the cave and creek to a corner of white shining granite like marble where George Washington watched them sternly, and implacable Jefferson, Lincoln like Ahab or Daniel glowering at the killer apes of the world like Pluto darkly, in black Old Testament suits of rotten death, and the rich Roosevelt gloating from the rocky mountain. The Black Hills of South Dakota in the United States grew grayly, cloudily, from western thunderstorms until icewater came out of the spongy rocks and the faithless congregations talking in many tongues, nightmarish mankind, ran for cover from the night of unnatural day; but Muhammad stood in the rain and prayed with his arms out stretched, dangerously near the heights where electrical storms strike. He saw Zeid on the ledge over the Grotto of Pan leading into the river's source, terrifying Zeus of Banyas, the Temple-Tomb of the Goats at Caesarea Philippi where he had prayed many times in the thunderbolts. "Get out of the rain, you idiot!" his father roared. They both ducked into the damp black grotto where an old Indian introduced himself as Worm. People outside in the gray daylight of unnatural life wondered why the

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Baptizer had disappeared, and where. He saw them huddling blindly in the cold wind. He didn't know whether to embrace his father or not, who seemed aloof and relaxed like a spirit in a dream; and he was younger than he had been at the end of his life, healthier like his son remembered him. Their talk was not consecutive, or sequential. There was the Temple of Pan at the grotto on Mount Hermon exactly as he remembered it on the high Golan plateau over the hot deserts around Galilee, Iturea, and Jordan: and the images of Mount Rushmore were mixed in too with the tale the old Worm was telling them of his son as they walked deep into the black legendary cavern. Muhammad in his sleep knew he was also fully awake because he knew that exquisite blackness within blackness was all the Source of all the mir acles and eternity he would ever need to know. The words were part of it. "Do you want to die?" the voice of God asked. No'' he replied and in that answer lay his Geodesy. It was enough that a swirl and pleasing caco phony of many tongues chattered at him like water trickling, echoing off the walls all around him, like Nemesis, the goddess Echo in love with Pan. Banyas was his home, the Arabic translation of Panion of the Greeks, of great Alexander who prayed there, and Gad the eldest of the shepherd Jacob called it Baal Gad to oppose the nearby temple of Dan. It: was part of the whole labyrinth of the mythic grammar that ran from Zionai of Isaac to Baalbek and Delphi, Avalon, the Black Hills aligned to the shaft of the Arrow on earth from the belt of Orion, from Sirius, Osiris, the feather of the Sacred Arrow the universal World Mountain a configuration of stars on earth seen by the Prophets. He was flying through space westwards from Sirius across Atlantis to Orion and out to the arrowhead Hawai'i, the Pleiades in the Pacific, the sacred paradise Oceanus. 'Hawaii'' Annie cooed nakedly beside him like the doves on Oahu, on the rainbow mauka mountains green, black with lava heiau temples of the first Polynesian Brit ish, sailors, star-voyagers, astronauts steering by hokule'a the north star,

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the whole planet guided by the stars, and Annie, nakedly fragrant of plumeria and babies. "Your whole life passing before you, behind your Brah?" Worm joked, almost maliciously, horny Pan, Mobruk in a room of the palace glittering with silver crystal. Muhammad was startled again at the instant magic of the Other World and Zeid smiled at him too. "We're in jail, you know? Qathafi busted our asses." Asses and goats, clean and sleek like well-fed pets, walked on the tables and sat on the chairs like family. "Grandson," Zeid smiled happily, petting a gray jackass. "I'm down to 176 pounds, Son, don't I look good?" Muhammad nodded, leery, waiting for his father to strike, to get mad at him, to disown him and his heritage. There was a tentative dance, an approach, a reserve, in their relationship that was easier in a way than their old rivalry and political arguments about war, Arabia, Islam. Zeid was kinder than he had ever been. He did not seem to know that his death was redeemed by his son's memory, due, renewed by memory, to some better impulse freed of patriotism and money, fear, what Annie had called "this physical gravity." Their minds were better for it, and they liked each other as they had when they were younger, freer, friendlier. Worm was telling them about his own great son and how he was Crazy Horse only when the boy was safe at home, with his mother, and their family, while the warriors were out protecting them from enemies, hunting buffalo or stealing horses from the Crows and Snakes. "You call me Hercules be cause I have killed men, like Crazy Horse too, the father angrier and more violent than the son? I was the murderous general at Golan with the 68th Syrian Brigade in 1973, October 11th to be exact, a Thursday. We were facing the Israeli 7th and Barak brigades under General Eytan, after days of bloody fighting. We were with the Moroccan Brigade and remnants of the shattered 7th Infantry Division. Remember? You were there. Rafiq Hilawl commanded the 68th. Eytan opened the attack at 11 AM along our right flank at Mt. Hermon. After negotiating the thick mine fields along his

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front, Colonel Ben-Galls 7th Brigade smashed us at the Hader crossroads. Our unit broke. The 7th reached the Hader junction about 3 miles east of the Purple Line. The Barak Brigade on the south managed to penetrate sev eral miles farther, capturing the Druze village of Horfa. But the going was slow and the fighting tough for all of us. The terrain was rough, covered by broken lava boulders, but the Syrian resistance remained stiff. Our infantrymen hid among the boulders and kicked ass with Saggers while the Air Force braved the battle even though Israel had air superiority. They were bombing the shit out of us." Zeid looked hard at his son in the crystal chamber room. "Then you sucked them into a trap like you'd read about about Crazy Horse, in one of your books at school. Two hours after Eytan, General Laner attacked eastward on the heavily fortified Damascus road against us. We had the 7th, 8th, and 9th Syrian infantry divsions, from north to south. Immediately his 17th Brigades reconnaissance unit came under terrific artillery bombardment and lost 17 tanks. Syrian infantry swarmed in the area, all 3 divisions un der my command, firing RPGs and Sagger antitank weapons ferociously. As the 679th Israeli Brigade rushed to the rescue a determined effort by the 17th punched a hole in our defense and several tanks managed to reach the Khan Arnaba junction, less than 5 miles from the Purple Line. With this breakthrough General Laner urged the 2 brigades, plus the 19th, to exploit the opening by thrusting to high ground eastward and south bey ond Khan Arnaba." Muhammad nodded, dreading the memory of that battlefield. He added to his father's narrative, "Yes, that's what happened. The Israelis discovered then, too late, they had moved into a trap, and we were waiting for them. Yes. I moved my forces in, blocking the highway and isolating Laner's forces east of the junction, where he'd bypassed us. I walked out in front of the men and counted coup on Laner, taking his soul, but not killing the man. Not killing." Worm sighed deeply. "It was the same with my son.

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Somehow, I don't know, he had a power that hated power, and I always had to be the one to finish off the enemy." Zeid nodded bitterly, "Yeah, and we're the assholes, Worm, we are the killers our high and mighty chil dren hate. So, yeah, the Israelis were unable to evacuate their wounded or receive supplies." Muhammad finished, "And in the words of General Chaim Herzog it became ... 'a virtual death trap for Israeli tanks...' "Yeah. They all saw Hercules and thought it was me, Father, slaughtering most of 3 brigades. The bloody stench still haunts me, and every day in my prison cell. The men had to be rescued by a parachute battalion, which eventually succeeded in taking the vital junction, Khan Arnaba, but not without a long and bloody fight. As darkness fell, Damascus was saved from the Jews, who had penetrated only a few miles beyond the cease-fire Purple Line of 1967, but they were important miles. They are still there, and the hate is worse than ever." Zeid gave up and was gone from the dream. In the residue of the grotto Muhammad sat with Worm, old soldiers remembering losses and victories, wars, poignancy, reflection, remaining philosophically upon them. Tele pathic words of "rivalry, competition" were spoken, "of the conquests and ideas of my father, Worm, which do not survive the great leveller of death. what does it matter now who won a few miles of a road, or the sover eignty of Syria, Israel, or even Libya? I know that crazy Horse must surely feel as I do." Worm nodded, "Yes. He was a gentle boy, not a warrior. I was the one history, fiction, confused with him with the love for fast horses, battle, and Nation. That's where you are wrong about Your father, though, Muhammad, and your Judgement, condemnation; of him. Ghosts haunt him too, of those he's killed. I know. But it is an act, we thought, of survival, butchery no different than the bloody hunt to feed our families. Your Hercules is not wrong, or evil - just human, an animal somehow try ing to sacrifice his skin to his own spirit, for his own god, his own spirit. My son was born here, in this cave, on this creek, like a dream. You're a

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father so you know what I mean. He was your Dionysus, whom we call Iktomi, a Trickster too smart for his own good, unliked, a peaceful poet or prophet despised by rational men. He was not well-liked. Nor was I. Nor are you." Muhammad understood and sighed deeply of the cave air, thick and dank like a tomb, an echoing grotto. He thought of the Golan Heights and his many years there on that bare expanse of black basalt rock unmarked by trees, with miserable dust- laden hamlets, houses hewn of black stone, a scene studded with burned-out tanks, shattered vehicles, smoking ammuni tion trucks, fleeing panic-stricken villagers with donkeys laden with bed ding, women with babies, shepherds watching their flocks in the wretched pastures exploding with shells, bleak, northward from Kuneitra, nauseating flesh and decapitated corpses in piles everywhere. It could have been Wounded Knee, or the Little Bighorn, he supposed, musing in the dark underneath Mount Rushmore. He had to go hide in the caves at Banyas Falls too, there, up in the hills far away from the soldiers who had cheered his ambush tactics and victories, his absurd efforts at au thentic Jihad misunderstood. He went up and away from them all to the cold springs of the source of the Jordan River, below steep cliffs. He missed his father's company. He grieved for their loneliness, as Jesus must have grieved also, and Gad, and Abraham. His father had long long been his best friend and partner. They had dreamed of great deeds to gether, as Jesus did surely dream with Herod of his father's house, and Masada, Caesarea, Jericho, and the Gospels funded by his brother Philip the Tetrarch, the Caesars and Augusti of the imperial college St. Mark re corded, and Homer, and Merlin, of Troy; of Constantine Merlin's grand father rebuilding Troy at Constantinople, the Christian Emperor from Troy. Oh, he sighed, and stared at the icicles and stalagtites like Sirius and Ori on pointing to the Pleiades, the single continuous story of 'The Geodesy' from Troy running unbroken like a starry silver Arrow from Homer.

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Zeid loved the Holy Scriptures but he'd been a peasant, a poorly edu cated worker who rose to warriorhood in the 1930s with Omar Mukhtar, fighting Mussolini. What else could he have done? What else could he do? He hoped for his son to be better than him, wiser, braver; but he didn't know that would lead to Dionysian truths, rebellious Revolution against war. labor? hunting, Libyan or Arabic patriotism and Islamic pro priety. Zeid didn't know it meant imprisonment would mean death, de struction of the rebellions of both patriotisms, and himself synonymous, sim ultaneous, with the seeds, twins in the scriptural rewrites of their modern millenial history, symbols of Zeus and Son stalked by the vengeful Mother Goddess Eve, co-creator making the Myth possible by making the unnatur al Anti-Natural Eggs in the first place; what Worm would call Thunderbird Eggs, crystals, cavern people, underworld Aliens like Iktomi emerging in the sunlight, blinding Zeus while Hera kills Dionysus for the sins of the fath er. Only Pan or Worm could tell Zeus all about it, uncle Mobruk, and Muhammad in his mighty vision heard Fatima explain that she was God dess Libya. "But where is Gabriel?" he wondered. "Gabriel?" Gabriel [Venus] could explain to him the War between Great Eve and her equal, Mighty Libya. It was too complex and cloudy, like a long dream. The voices and tunnels swirled and swirled around him. It was a world vaster than anything of an imals. He closed his eyes and hoped that he would wake up.

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Libya, queen Fatima of the shimmering silk, wanted her son to find what happened to the other sacred chiefs killed by the enemy, Americans, mur derers and liars who buried Crazy Horse alive; and Sitting Bull too. "What happened to them?" she asked. "It's a part of the same story Ali wants to know, and needs to know, Muhammad." He could only hear Her voice rustling like silk in the soft summer night breezes in the Black Hills. She was like the dreams he had in prison. She was the orgiastic monarch of heaven. Hers was The Libyad. In bloody America the prophet looked for the bodies and lost memories of the holy warriors Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull of the last century less one, champions, heroes who failed because of their greatness. Sitting Bull of the Sioux Indians, of the Lakotaki Tatanka Iyotake was known to his Oyate, the People, as Wakan Itanscan Inyan - Big Medicine. He could make it rain and thunder at will, lightning on the vast golden buffalo plains would strike when he dreamed what Wohpe, white as doeskin, willed, an ticipating Her desires, their Fates became a kind of prophecy in which memory foresaw the gathering storm; the thunderclouds moving to Sitting Bull's songs as if a man could merely invoke a god; words moving the earth to rain and wind. Eagles followed his smoke singing from his Pipe like Pan playing music for the calves and cows, his voice visible breath like white Buffalo Woman's song, with sacred breath She was walking, walking, the first cow white like shimmering leather; silk, her hair, wrap ping around her naked body like his voice singing beautiful Lakota chants and, in that, she gave him his power of rainmaking. Sitting Bull. He was assassinated in 1890. Unspeakable sorrow filled him for all the days his people lost when the Americans massacred them, and fifty million buffalo, in his single lifetime. When he was in the 1830s the world swarmed with truth, fat bulls with horns black like shit thick and fragrant with tall prairie grass, rich, hard bone, bellowing gentle bulls like kings; their families herds of thousands each, tribes stronger than iron and kingdoms greater than Rom across the trans~Missceuri Basin to mighty Canada. The West was the direction black thunderbolts from the Ocean came, Storms, rain

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turning east so that the western skies brought water and light from the black Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Wyoming, up to the Athabascan and Columbian icefields, glaciers of the shimmering peaks where grizzlies drank, and trout. Men knew they were the Buffalo too, and wolves, coyotes, elk societies, kit fox, dog soldiers. They knew that nothing ever died out there but that the kings and chiefs went back into their crystal caves, cows and queens asleep forever in the Tetons and Big Horns and sacred Black Hills. Young Bull knew that every morning in the West was magic, and the cold air burned his nose. Ice was the name of a Cheyenne shaman, and Dark was another of the red men so burned they were black and their names were also as cold as fire. The Buffalo watched them. After awhile the boy stopped playing and sat down and watched them back. For years, the old-timers joked, stretching stories, the boy of the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux sat and stared and thought about the bulls watch ing him, and lie learned from theme the old men told historians later. Everything their Big Medicine knew he knew from buffalo, big shaggy black snorting bulls chewing grass. Meadowlarks sang and white clouds in the sky so blue it hurt their eyes, in the golden poplar groves and black ponderosa pines watched the Indians too. The air was crisp and clean like fine tender skin or soft fur of rabbits and otterso mink, white vixens. There were plenty of good white men trading beaver pelts for canoes and axes, wives, cloth and learning the Indian tongues, prayers; more than Lakotaki learning patience with each other, wisdom instead of family jealousies, bickering families, tribes always fighting with each other over imagined in sults and hunting grounds, river valleys, leadership positions, White men hated the railroaders and hateful preachers more than they did, and the progress, democracy that brought whisky dealers, gamblers, thieves, set tlers who were afraid of their own shadows and all redskins. Sitting Bull re membered it all as from a high hilltop where the US Army positioned can nons to protect the settlers and miners destroying whole mountainsides,

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creek bottoms, filth, smallpox, syphilis, money safeguarded at last by sol diers disgusted byt it all too. He had many good friends among the blue coat warriors and honest priests too, and earnest serious white women. But they all had the infectious disease of Americanism behind everything they didt a pride of Nation, blind arrogance that controlled them when they didnot want it, even when they hated it - It drove everything forward blindly, bloodily, unstoppable idea from Israel and Greece somewhere far far away no one claimed to understand; and It killed deliberately, starved and deceived consciously and carefully as National Policy from Washing ton, from London, Paris, Troy, Athens, and Jerusalem. Sitting Bull like all native Westerners had to get away from noisy, immature, treacherous mankind like they were killer apes with guns, machines, disease; out, and away into the clean quiet truth of Nature, air, water more honest and elo quent than anyone. There was no bottom to mankind's dishonesty. Did the buffalo feel the same way about each other, and the meadowlarks, the spirits of everything in the other world, he wondered? He sat and smoked and thought upon all these same questions of all men. He sat and smoked upon it and watched the smoke rise into the air and disappear into the clouds. He wondered if that was what happened to him. He wondered if his body would turn to stone and the rest of him would be smoke in the air, and if the Old ones were right that that was what the rocks of the round medicine wheels were - men. How could it be like a petrified tree? Or fossils? Petroglyphs? A hundred years after his murder after many years in Angle American jails too there were still giant stones shaped like chiefs rising out of the manmade tourist Sylvan Lake in the Black Hills, not far from Mount Rushmore. They looked like megalithic Eagle Grandmothers and Thunder Men, hawk-headed gods like the Egyp tians always claimed were pharaohs, not man -made, not Stonehenged calendars but great kings and queens immortalized like the stone rolled back from the tomb of Jesus. Muh amat ad sat with Sitting Bull too. They

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smoked and wondered upon the rocks for awhile. A light rain drizzled in the dim half-world of a memory, in a cave, in a dream of prison. Sitting Bull. He was a short battle. scarred dreamer in his 508 when the drunkards came for him before dawn under orders from the American Agent. As long as the Terrorist General of the Little Bighorn was still alive the frontier would never be safe. The President and the bankers would nev er be able to buy and sell the real estate and the farms and the mines where once savage Libyans roamed, and rivers flowed. Cowboys were already gone and so were the Trappers. So why, they reasoned in Wash ington and Athens, should one goddamn Barbarian remain alive? His own defeated relatives were sent like Judas to kill him; and not just kill him, kill the Myth, erase all memory of him and all history of the West. One man was bigger than all the men of the Race, of all h use n mediocrity and greed and fear, and they hated him for it, like they hated Jesus Caesar. "Kill the Bull." The order went out from the Academy. The smoke went up into the clouds when they shot him point-blank in the face on the porch of his cabin, and they shot him in the back, and then beat in his head with a shovel until he was unrecognizable meat. A mighty battle broke out that cold December dawn and 15 more Indians killed each other off, some drunken and some enraged by rage and the evil in justice of it and, in that, She gave him his power of rainmaking; and his family stole away his body in the night. They fought like Ghost Dancers all the way across the West to Wounded Knee, but Sitting Bull was not there, not at that last massacre of women and old men, children bayonetted in the latest of hundreds and hundreds of mass murders, babies blown up by cannons and strafed by F-84s in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq; Sitting Bull's family stole him away into caves in the West. His tomb was empty. His body's never been found. The West has never been lost, or the buffalo extin guished, for He is still a god in the monuments at Sylvan Lake. He turned into an eagle and flew away into the thunder.

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He walked out of a cave at Bear Butte 40 miles away, in the daylight, hoping the dream was over. On the undulating prairie north of the Black Hills among pine trees and eagle nests Annie and Mars and Athena waited for him below in the parking lot. it was a hot fire-scarred Mountain. There were no crowds or murmuring crystals or tunnels around him in the bright day, the sky a blinding blue. "Dad, over here!" Mars shouted, "there he is! Dad, we're down here!" His son's voice was strong but far away, echoing, and he could see them after looking for a minute down a high rocky cliff, parched on pointed needles of gray, spires like a gothic cathedral. Then, eagles in their eyries soared around him in moonwise circles. And he saw a car parked by them in a parking lot on a flat clearing below; but they were moving farther and farther away, light receding further and further away from him and he felt the Mighty Dream again tugging at him. "No!" he screamed, but it was again only an answer to God's question if he wanted to die. "No," he gasped weakly, like a newborn baby. His new step-father and -mother were married in the military Chapel on Roswell Army Air Force Base in the spring of 1946. Prometheus had given man the Fire and he had made of it murderous weapons - and so a" called him Lucifer (the burning sulfur] hurling him out of heaven upon Eve's angry command. Venus? His mother had given woman her beauty. (Could Muhammad have seen himself there somewhere with them, his heavenly parents, the sun and moon?) As a man on the ground he saw himself step ping over a few sharp boulders of white and gray lichen-covered granite, below, an Bear Butte; but, the basalt and limestone, did not steady his feet, as he tried to wave at his family below. "Not" he shouted feebly, "hey," his voice trailed off like smoke Into the clouds, like smoke into the clouds. inexplicably his Ghost carried him away, off, into the Moon's un natural Anti-Natural egg; and the Seed shot into Her like a meteor on a stormy night and his soul crashed into the rocky Earth. In that crescent sau cer-shape he was his embryo, flying in the New Moon, of rebirth - Resur

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rection - a terrifying reflection of the dragon-fetus, the mirror of a new man seeing himself, chalky, half-formed, wide- eyed, dragony Life. He was a new man conceived and born in Roswell, New Mexico, alien, in the spring of 1947. Muhammad In moon dust knew that he was another man that his father Prometheus wanted him to be: that morning of his birth day in the clean Open West. Him mother Mary was Semele the midwife protecting him from the bloody wrath of Eve; and hiding him in her surrog ate human womb. "The babe leaped in the womb." cousin Luke wrote, of Elizabeth the sister of Mary carrying the mortal John, who would carry the Holy Ghost of Jesus. Another man carried Muhammad and Dionysus in him. The flying saucers swirled like smoke and crashed all over the deserts of the Atomic Bombs in the War Dress; shooting stars crashing like semen. Muhammad sat down on the Mountain, exhausted, and had to wait for, to watch, the vision to complete itself, finish its course; Prometheus and Ven ue creating a Son out of their lust - named Eros. "Eros," Prometheus said telling him the story as he had asked for ('Sing, God'), "Dea hates you. I'll warn you. She is Eve the Dea-th monster who would kill everything, she is disease vermin, mosquitoes, offal. She is the goddess of Death who hates the gods who would live forever as Life was intended." She was his night mare of snakes. The vipers and cobras of Egypt she was Isis, murderer of Osiris, plotter who had Set blamed for the droughts of the Nile, and the wastes of the Libyan Desert: Kemet, the Black Land. She was All-Evil, he knew now, he saw in the terror of men unbelieving of Libya - the All-Life creator of eternal hope - Libya. In that insight Muhammad saw himself re born in the black center of his Eye: his alien pupil shaped like the weird saucer men and woman saw in the woods on dark nights at the new moon; the shapeless lens opening and closing instantaneously upon light, a snake's eye, shuttering opaque terror of creation; in a mirror up side-down (memory?) seeing himself born, created, conceived, inspiring first Air. It was only faithlessness (Dea) that expired the idea of Life. Mur

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derous woman, She was the ghoul howling at the dark of the moon like the bloody eggs inside little girls eating their bowels like acid, bile in the womb, bloody Eve at war with Libya for the creation of it All. Eve at war with Libya for the creation of It All: Isis battling Fatima for the soul of Muhammad Ali. She was Juno who hated Venus in 'The Aeneid' and drove Aeneas to betray Queen Dido and love. She was Hera who hated Aphrodite in 'The Iliad' and drove Zeus to fill men with hate for Pan. She has Herodias in 'Mark' who drove Eros the King to behead his only begot ten Son for daring to live forever. She drove her daughters and sisters to madness at Golgotha, Ithaka, Avalon, and Bear Butte as funereal priest esses attending to her bloody murders, Her orgy of cruelty and pain, des pair and greed, burning their minds of any memory of eternity; filling Mary with dread, and Salome, Calypso anointing the corpses of Dionysus and Crazy Horse. In those skyrockets at Roswell Muhammad saw inspiring thunderbolts defy Eve; challenging Death, ejaculating Fire raging in the roaring orgasm! He felt himself burning like the Sun forever and Space. He came back to life again and again and Death hated him for it. She hated his stepmother for bearing him for Venus and her eggs of the moon; and Eve was a foul withered ugly mean old Bitch. Her skin crawled with maggots and smelled of shit centuries old, her eyes sick gray sewers and her breath stank, her voice screeched like nails on chalkboard and she laid nakedly in bed with Adam like a green corpse In a coffin in the fog. No one could see Adam-Ra's revulsion. He was paralyzed by the venom of a thousand green adders hissing like black clouds scudding over the view of the silvery moon from womankind, and it was all a lie in 'The Bible' about Eden. [Isis told her story of Be in Hemet as a legend. Gabriel, in all fairness, would repeat it soon.] Horus was Her Son and he knew the ugly truth, whole Eros, husband of Cleopatra and father of Jesus knew that Eve was not his mother. She wasn't anybody's mother. She wasn't a wo man at all, as Libya of the shimmering silk told her aeons and aeons ago;

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and for that, for Libya's beauty and Life, Des hated the Queen of Africa, of the shimmering silk. Fatima had always been valiant, championing life, daring death to prove itself in the infinity of the universe's limitless death less dateless Space. "Where is your power, bitch?" Libya had asked. Death had snarled foully, but fearfully, in return. "It's only in fear and ignorance. You're not a god dess. Begone! Cower in the garbage you filthy Clot! You will not hurt my precious pretty little girls! God damn you!" Even Prometheus and Venus below had cowered at Libya's rage in the great canopy black and great beyond them, one, entire, and majestical above and beyond the stars and planets; and the Coward slunk away, muttering curses of revenge, jeal ousy, hate, and all-consuming Desire, of the insect larvae the Mistress of green stupidity. From that timeless day when creation drove out destruction the stars and planets worshipped Black Libya. Earth. And in their mirrors She shimmered whitely like silky Venus, the light of the galaxy shining on all the stars far far brighter than any one sun. "From where indeed," Muhammad wondered back on earth, "does the light come that lights the Milky way?" His grandmother replied, "In your eyes. in the spaceship of your dreamy vision of the night." But on the ground lesser men saw Aliens and they were terrified, and prayed to him for help. They prayed to him across light-years and called him God, in their terror of Des; and they were their own extraterrestrial memories of dragony life, their own ghoul ish dragon- fetuses reminding them of the inexplicable miracle of life: not death. Men and women recoiled from their own embryos like monsters come back to haunt them, reminders of creation, chalky black-eyed frail shad ows, ghosts, Moonsters of the silvery starry Dark Side of the moon. Muhammad saw that he was the god come down to earth on a meteor like water when it first came from the stars on a rock, a limitless water-rock in motion; and in that, in starry night* a man was born. Prometheus told him

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the story. Zeus was his stepfather - a young American lieutenant (another man) who was the son of a bomber pilot, a pilot who flew B-29s loaded with Atoms. "Why?" Dea was attacking the balance of life, nature, sus ceptible destructive adolescent America Her mutated cancer cell, the virus of a faithless generation. Dea crashed to the ground looking for him, but his stepmother had taken him to Colorado, to hide him; unknowingly, to bear him in secret like Semele hid Dionysus in a cave from Hera; like Mary and Joseph hid Jesus from Herodias; like pharaoh's daughter hid Moses from Isis; like White Buffalo Woman hid Crazy Horse from Amer ica; like Gabriel hid Muhammad from ever-searching Eve. Prometheus told the story. The boy in Colorado grew up in the Air Force as Sweet Medi cine of the Cheyennes, hidden, his skin color and voice and language changed, like William Shakespeare publishing his plays anonymously - a god like a man leading a double life so that he could survive Death for eternity - in his deeds, his poetry inspired like John Mark, and Homer. That was the meaning of the Flying Saucers. They were as real as life and death, the moon and sun. They were the source of light in the sky, in the mind's eye. America came after the boy with a vengeance worthy of powerless Dea, mean, mad, money-ridden queen of lies. But the boy grew up smart and gentle and tall. He had the genius of Libya in his brave heart. But Dea kept attacking, never letting her guard down for a moment, for a piece of dirt, fighting life in every Word of hate and immoral greed in every man, woman, and child afraid of death; for mastery of the world the green snakes hissed in every lousy swamp, snarling, savage as dogs tearing ba bies apart for food and laughing in their gore, like poison Her blood. In Japan she murdered his sister Kathleen. The boy heard the Martians in their house that night, and the next morning his mother screamed Eve's happiest victory, the blood- curdling baby girl lifeless in her mother's limp arms; and his father staggering in helpless drunken soulless turmoil down

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the hall, a man ripped of his seed, vomiting slithering Evil; Hell, the sor rowful cause Of all Hera's jealousy, Juno who hated Helen because Paris chose her an the met beautiful in the world. Hell - Helen of Troy. Fatima of Mecca. Mary of Jerusalem. in 1962 the boy moved to Tripoli and met Muhammad; Sweet Medicine in the Mediterranean Sea, brothers swim ming with girls in bikinis and drinking wine. "Now I remember!" he said on the hilltop. "We played soccer together in the streets and alleys of Tripoli, and he wanted to know all about Islam, and Berbers and Arabic, sailboats, al-Hamdila. As-salaam alaikum, the history of Carthage and Rome. I knew him. He was a friendly American boy. His father was a colonel and they drove a luxury white mercury sta tion- wagon, a handsome Christian family." Muhammad marveled at the coincidence of the place. Inhaling deeply he heard his children talking be low and descended the dry rocky slopes to the clearing among pine trees and ceremonial Indian ribbons tied on the trees, tobacco offerings, humble prayers to Wkan Inyan, the Thunderbird [Dragon], and White Buffalo Wo men, Pte San Winyan, Wohpe whose name meant The Meteor, daughter of the All-Mother. He was back on Bear Butte and She was a dragon asleep, at rest, on a manmade Crystal Mountain.

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He walked out of a cave at Bear Butte 40 miles away in the sunlight, on the undulating prairie north of the Black Hills among pine trees and eagle nests Annie and Mars and Athena waited for him in the parking lot. It was a hot fire-scarred Mountain. There were no crowds or murmuring crystals or tunnels around him in the bright day, the sky a blinding blue. "Dad, over here!" Mars shouted. "There he is!" His son's voice was strong but far away, echoing, and he could see them after looking for a minute down a high rocky cliff, perched on pointed needles of gray, spires like a gothic cathedral, eagles in their eyries soaring around him in moonwise circles, he saw a car parked on a flat clearing below. He stepped over a few sharp boulders of white and gray, lichen-covered granite, basalt, lime stone, to steady his feet, waving at his family. "Hau! Ho!" His voice echoed from the sharp eastern spires down the steep brown slopes and up the other aide to a rounder volcanic dome, the sac red Butte like a long-sleeping Dragon languidly curled over a crystal hill, a manmade Herodion or Silbury; reptilian scales as huge as sheer brown needles coming to rest on the sepulchral isle after some war in heaven long forgotten, long lost, by the dragon [Spaceship], a thunderbird, a wa ter- bearing comet from the galaxy. Muhammad looked around for his cave's opening but it was gone: the rock had closed tightly over it like his head turning peripherally had lost sight, changed his angle of vision, and it looked different. He remembered momentarily what the mystic psycholo gist Jung had said about UFOs. "We always think that the UFOs are pro jections of ours. Now it turns out that we are their projections. I am projec ted by the magic lantern as C.G. Jung. But who manipulates the apparat us?" From the point on the cliff (like a sharp spire) he could see the flat prairie in three directions around him like an ocean's floor, an ancient limestone sea-bed, and the wind was blowing wildly like the Trades; to the southwest the Black Hills were a black archipelago like Hawaii, or the Azores, or Malta and Sicily, and he was standing between the eyes of the dragon's head where it lay, its abdomen and claws, wings, resting on the small natural hill ancient god-men built over, up, a tomb like an egg from

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her vagina. The cave had been a gill, maybe, or a nostril. He hurried off the edge down the loose gravel cliff to his family, hungry, faint burning with thirst. The sunlight hurt his eyes and his akin and senses tingled famil iarly, like he'd been renewed again, reborn, or baptized, confused with life all over again. He longed for simpler stories and rest, clarification without complex ex planations, or at least mythic footnotes. He stumbled and slid down the mountain, through trees, avoiding a rounded hole nestled with coiling rattlesnakes, asking himself a hundred unanswerable questions like he was in an incoherent; illogical delirium. The snakes were a foul pit of slithering vipers (why did he feel some Witch had put them there to kill him?!) and did it suddenly become nighttime on the dirt path and he heard tiny faraway voices again, on the ledges above him as he ran down the trail, the descent, retreat, rocks rolling down to kill him, or a big square hole suddenly opening on a sharp cutback in the trail to swallow him? Practic ally sobbing he knelt to feel the hole in the darkness in front of him, gap ing, bottomless, it was all empty black air in front of him, hard ground turning surely into an empty hole. He crawled around it off the path under pine trees on sharp branches and pine cones and stickers. It seemed to get light again and he could stand up next to many beautiful colored ribbons tied to the trees with little tobacco ties by the hundreds in cloth balls. Mars grabbed his hand urgently. Daddy, C'mon, run!" He looked at his powerful son. "Evil spirits here, quick!" The young man yanked his arm and it jolted him back to the moment, where he realized he'd been sob bing on the trail on his knees, and the two men leaped down the steep in cline almost like frightened antelopes. It was a wild and nervous sprint un der tree branches and down manmade steps at the sharp u-turn cutbacks, past snow banks (what time of timeless year was it?); strange beaded moc casins on his feet, tanned buckskin leggings and a breechcloth soft doe skin strapping his genitals. "What am I wearing?" he shouted ahead to his

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son. Mars glanced back, amused, brilliantly running "God knows." They got to some opener grassy clearings, flatter slopes, and thunder boomed in the black west from huge clouds. Streaks of blue lightning cracked like cannons from Zeus and Annie yelled ahead, "Run! Run!" Athena screamed too. "What's going on, Mars?! Where am I? What's going on?" Furious slashes of cold rain suddenly flogged them. His son slowed a little to run beside him on the flat meadow, or ceremonial clearing where sweat-lodges were set up in circles of medicine stones, tobacco. "We have to get out of here, that's all I know," he shouted. "We can't let you disappear again in another storm." Annie and Athena ran up to them, across a bridge over a steep gully with a little stream at the bottom, and Muhammad couldn't help it, his feet went out from under him and he collapsed in their arms. "Oh Goddess, oh Goddess, no!" Annie screamed, "Please!" The three of them struggled to carry and drag him over the wooden foot bridge to the car in the parking lot while he gasped, trying to keep from fainting, leaving, silhouettes of somebody leering and looming in and out of his Visions his hearing, half-shadowy hallucinations? "Muhammad!" Annie yelled, slapping his face hard. "Hey! Don't do it! Give me that canteen!" she yelled again, then splashed water on his face. He yelled in agony. "Drink!" she commanded, pouring water in his mouth, choking it down his throat, while the other two twisted him and his arm painfully into the back seat of a big open Jeep. "Damn!" he swore, fight ing them off. "God damnit! That hurts, you're drowning me. What the hell?!" Annie laughed and cried wildly, "Good! Shut up! No, keep cussing, Mars get us the hell out of here! Go go go!" Gravel and exhaust smoke flew up

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and swirled all around as the Jeep roared out the parking lot and up a little road while the wind bent huge cottonwoods and box elders, blowing birds and willow bushes sideways, black clouds full of tornadoes, light ning, the Black Hills on the horizon. The rain had stopped and the wind was drying their clothes. Mars screamed past a Visitors Center of the State Park in second gear, winding the big four- wheel drive machine past graz ing buffalo, indifferent bulls, cows, calves in the rolling green and brown prairie pastureland. In the Jeep everyone was screaming in the open-top, "Give him some more water!" "Stop it, I'm gagging!" They slid sideways as Mars turned a sharp right north and speed-shifted it into third past the dome and vagina laying eggs, huge hind claws looking to come alive in the electric charges mak ing their hair stand on edge. "This is crazy!" Athena was crying, "I can't help it." She couldn't believe the horrifying illusions in the storm, or her world turned upside-down in every direction. Mars had it in high gear and was hitting 80 in another minute as they sped away from Bear Butte on the paved highway. "No need to kill us in a car wreck," Annie finally cautioned. He ignored her. The Jeep was a powerful machine. "Slow down." He frowned at her but let it ease down to 75 m.p.h. "The speed limit is 65." Athena asked "What're we running from?" Annie held Muhammad's head in her lap in the back seat, trying to breathe easier, putting her hands on the shoulders of her two kids in the front seats. "You got your seatbelts on?" They nodded, turning briefly to see their mother and father. Muhammad looked pale and almost glassy-eyed. "Is he awake?" He nod ded his head a little. "Yeah. Any more water?" Annie could have cried, but instead she laughed. "Yeah. O goddess. Oh my." He sat up and

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drank some orange juice, some color returning to his face, in the speeding vehicle, wind blowing his hair, like theirs, long black hair. "Oh yeah," he gulped, "I don't believe how good that tastes." He looked around behind him at the cone of the volcano shrinking in the distant haze, on the blue prairie. No rain fell, and even a little sunlight poked through. It felt warmer and less windy and more comfortable. Annie was looking at him. "What?" he grinned, "what?" She laughed, "'What', he says. I don't wonder that tastes good. Do you mind telling us where you've been maybe?" He frowned, "What do you mean? And what am I wearing?" Athena stared at him, "Good question. What is that beadwork?" Annie shrugged, examining his moccasins in dark brown hide. "I never saw beads like it. The dark green is definitely unusual, maybe some Shoshone chick you ran off with?" Muhammad stared at her, then he stared at the moccasins. "You really don't know?" Annie asked, frowning. Muhammad," she sighed deeply, "you've been gone forty days and forty nights. Did you know that? Take a left up here Mars, go to Devil's Tower in Wyoming on our way home to Lame Deer, Montana. Gas up and get hamburgers in Belle Fourche pretty soon." Mars nodded and slowed to take U.S. 212 west, following the shallow brown Belle Fourche River past poor farmlands, former great Buffalo Lands, routes of 100 million bison deliberately slaughtered by America's unacknowledged conquest, genocide, an unspoken conversation in every Indian's heart. Part Arab, it took a few miles to digest Annie's itinerary, chronology, Cheyenne blood mixing with the air and the dirt. "Forty days?" he repeated, whispering. She nodded, her black eyes bor ing a hole into the light. Bear Butte, Nowah'wus, the most sacred site in the Cheyenne world, the Zezestas Algonquian cosmogony older than the

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Sioux or anybody in the whole continent, faded behind them and disap peared over a rise behind a farm. The Jeep blasted due west past fancy Cadillacs and Ford pickups and fences, hog corrals, telephone poles, old ICBM missile silos. Athena said, touching his hand, "Daddy, you been gone all this time. we didn't see you after the cave. Nobody could find you. We looked every where. Everybody did. Including the cops. They got warrants out for you from the Air Force, it's scary. what's happening? We been looking for you. Mom said a spirit told her in the sweat lodge last night to come to Bear Butte today with nobody else and we did, but it was weird, it was, this is too weird. You just came out, we saw you up on the top." He could only stare at them like this was a dream. "Forty days? You're kidding." Her look said she was not. Mare spoke at the wheel; shouting over the noise, "They got warrants out for you Dad, federal, and state, and lots of propaganda all over television." Athena began talking at the same time, "Calling us Terrorists and everything else. It was gross in town." Mars continued, "So I got this new Jeep for our getaway from money Ham gave me in case you showed up..." "People were really gross about it, everywhere, white people." "...but I got it in a friend's name so they couldn't trace it, or track us, and I kept it at his garage across town so the pigs wouldn't know about it." "Everybody is supportive too." Athena con tinued, "or at least the Skins. They're all up at that cave site but we were just trying to deal with town and worried about where you were, Daddy. Mom had a big Giveaway for everybody at the house. Everything is gone. We're gone. We've got nothing." "... and I got it stocked with camping gear in the back and survival knives, kits. It's a used CJ-8 Scrambler, al most new. See? There's a whole back area that's about as big as a halfpickup so it's bigger than your standard CJ. I also got a PC with fax mo dem and a cell phone to keep in touch with Tony and Grandma Imelda at the Camp, and Mom has set up an awesome code-lock and security key

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system with your Swiss bank account to keep funding us and the Lakota Wkan Inyan Camp." "That's what they call it," Athena added, proud of her brother, "Wakan In yan the Thunderbird. Or really, to be exact, it's 'The Limitless Water- Rock in Motion'. It's cool." "... and we shoot the funding into Grandma's ac count every week when she assures us it's all going well and nobody's rip ping off or screwing up too bad." Muhammad laughed and frowned, "Whoa, Whoa, you're going too fast for me. Slow down. What camp?" Mars slowed down to 65 as they sped past a big Reservoir on the huge open hilly prairieland. "Waken Inyan a traditional camp circle," Annie said. "They've got sweat lodges and a Massaum dance arbor already, and they're putting up tipis and pre-fab cabins on Forest Service land. Where you baptized them." Muhammad looked into her sublime eyes. She gave him some dried fruit to eat, peaches and apricots. "Where's the money coming from, Dad?" Mars asked. "It's a lot more than twenty grand." He shrugged. "Probably Mecca. I'm not sure any more." Mars whistled, "Wow, Mecca. Wow." Annie shrugged, "well, it sure seems to be limitless, which I guess in appropriate for the limitless camp. Another Spirit, I don't know, told me about the Swiss account; like, I guess I dreamed it, but there it was. Did you find your way along all the caves, Hamm?" He raised his eyebrows. "What? No. What do you mean?" "There are many miles, they say, of crystal caves running all over under the Black Hills, from Wind Cave and Jewel Cave to all kinds of tour ist attractions. The old Skins always used to say lightning and thunder came up out of the ground, not down." Athena nodded thoughtfully, "They Called it Thunder Nation. Remember, Dad, when you told the elders you saw their underworld cities with space ships?" He shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. It's hard to re

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member. Are you sure I was gone that long?" Athena nodded and blew a bubble from her gum. "Five weeks and five days. I counted it. Everybody was really freaking out." Mars looked around briefly at him from the driver's seat with awe and full belief and trust in his great eyes. "You really did it didn't you, Dad? You really did it. All these bullshitters around here are always talking about spirits and visions in the Yuwipi and Sundances, but you just went up to Crazy Horse's cave and Zap!" Athena understood exactly what he meant, watching the road straight ahead in her big leather bucket seat, two Amer ican Indian teenagers prouder than hell again of their mother and father, and their great heritage. They all thought in silence for awhile as they sped past one massacre site after another, one buffalo jump after another, one abandoned Minuteman II missile silo after another behind concrete and top-security barbed wire. "America is for shit, you know that," Mars said. "Look at all this shit. Fuck these people. Just fuck ' em." "Yeah," Athena agreed, "all they're doing is lying about you. Daddy, and all of us, saying you killed people." "Good" Mars shouted in the wind, "kill the motherfuckers." "I mean, Jews are the terrorists, I think, killing Ar abs, just like Americans. I think it's pretty obvious." Mars reached up and slapped her hand in a high five. "Fucking A, little Sis. It's time for some goddamn War." Annie suddenly interrupted, "You stupid idiots. Listen. What do you think was going on back at Dragon Butte, huh? What do you think was happen ing? What were we running from, in a little wind and rain and lightning?" Athena turned around sideways to look at her, frowning, and Mars slowed the CJ-8 to 60 and glanced in the mirror. "And I'm the last one to lay some anti-war pacifism on you, as you know. Your father and I are warri

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ors. But have you heard anything he's been saying, or doing? Really listen ing to what Crazy Horse and Sweet Medicine were teaching us on Nowah'wus the Good mountain?" She stopped and let them think for themselves. The CJ cruised smoothly, effortlessly, into town, Belle Fourche South Dakota on the Wyoming border, and they stopped at a gas station and convenience store. Muhammad stayed in the back seat of the Jeep while the others went in side after pumping gas, for food, rest rooms, cigarettes, and soda pop. He wondered if the gasoline in the pumps, petroleum, came from Libya; and if Qathafi shouldn't just cut off the gas and kill the machines, and America, that way; destroy the monster at the source. A big red Dodge Ram pickup truck with two cowboys and a gun rack slung with a 30.06 rifle and 12guage shotgun pulled into the pump beside him, and a police car, a big supercharged Ford Taurus in blue racing stripes, stopped on the other side of him by the gasoline pumps. "You in the Jeep!" an ominous loudspeaker boomed, over a digital law-en forcement megaphone, "put your hands up! Step out of the vehicle imme diately and put your hands up!" Two big white cops with .357 Magnum pistols jumped out of their Cruiser, with red and blue lights circling and a siren suddenly wailing from somewhere inside it, cocking and aiming their guns at him from a squat. "Hands over your head right now, you SON OF A BITCH!" The two cow boys scrambled out of their track and gaped at the scene. "Look, Man, it's that Arab." The whole cement parking lot on the sunny edge of town seemed frozen in a light of cars and gleaming blue gas-pumps. Muhammad stared at them and didn't move. "NO." "SIR, we will open fire if you do not COMPLY!" 12-gauged shotgunned

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fire tore into them. Immediately and both policemen went down in an in stantaneous hail of blood and burning lead, thrown fatally backwards against their idling, wailing, flashing blue and white car. It all happened in a split second too unreal to believe. Mars jumped out of the back of the red Ram with the 12 Gauge and screamed at Annie, "get their pistols!'' He wasn't fast enough to stop a cowboy though, who had the 30.06 already aimed at his head when Annie slammed the driver's door on his leg and the rifle went off inside the cab in the cowboy's face. Athena got the .357a and threw them in the back of the CJ while Annie took the Wheel and the kids jumped in as she sped off in a screeching circle out of the store; Mars in the shotgun-seat with the shotgun and rifle on his lap ominously, pointing at the horrified customers cowering under cars and behind 7-11 trash cans. They sped out of town at a 100 m.p.h. towards Wyoming and no one dared to follow them or even think to re port where they'd gone, for it had all happened too fast and so violently the town was in shock. The four dark-skinned people sped away out of sight into the sunset like Crazy Horse or Sweet Medicine had done, often, when enemy spirits had tried to kill them too, evil, soul-sucking forces of daylight with faraway voices like the prophets heard on Bear Butte; rolling rocks down on them in the terrible windy rainstorms and opening bottom less holes into the bloody red Earth.

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"Had Crazy Horse felt that way too, Mother?" Mars asked, shaken, the god of war by the campfire that night profoundly questioning his shaking hands, his heart, the terrible thought of murder in his mind. It was the worst possibility any man could ever face. Annie was telling them the stor ies of their warriors who were the embodiment, the personifications, of themselves: Crazy Horse of history, and the legendary Sweet Medicine. "Some elders say Crazy Horse never killed anyone," she replied, sorrow ful, saddened beyond a mother's fear of her own worst possibilities, of an unhappy or sick child, danger in the family, blood on her creations. "I don't know if I believe it. What do the spirits say? How are we to act, or what are we to believe in if men come to kill us, and try to steal our homes? Surely he killed many buffalo and deer and elk to eat, and butchered than with blood and gore up to his elbows? I wonder at these hidden canyons where we've camped with how many other Indian fires from how many wars unseen by posses from the roads, or even heli copters? He was on the run all the rest of his life after Custer, for all the Little Bighorns. I wonder at the cost of winning, of sacrificial murder and mutilation at the hands of his own people, Lakotaki slicing him up in 1877. They shot Sitting Bull in the back too, in 1890. And one hundred million buffalo. Ten million people. But the ground and air don't stink with the stench of all that blood, unless it is in our heavy hearts, or in the moons of the women, red with sunset, prophetic, poetic dreams of squalid sordid laborers, silent orators, remembering the goddesses within them, the Black Buffalo Women riding to the chiefs' funerals. I know you feel bad Son. So do I. I killed a man today too, with anger and hate and instant animal re flex. I sip my coffee here on my bedroll by the campfire and I know, I know, this isn't, this isn't reality. I am not speaking beside Muhammad, my husband, the Poet-Chief, whose life we all saved today. Athena is not a virgin anymore after today, but you are one of the Young Wolves, truly, to night. Virginity's got nothing to do with boys and sex, Honey: it's the blood, oh, the gore of those soldiers today, and the cows and calves and

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all the bitches and whelps." She stopped talking and they all wondered in the night, sipping coffee, staring into the faces in the fire. A coyote howled and an owl hooted in the dangerous night. None of it was real. It couldn't have been. It couldn't be. Mars and Athena thought their mother was cold and mean, sitting there after dinner in Camp like nothing had happened. Their father was near emotional collapse, weakening, acting like some scared fool living with his memories of the old nostalgic days, half- crying all the time. They couldn't believe it. Their parents were so strange. Then Dad said, suddenly, his voice clear and sure, "I didn't thank you all for saving my life. Succharin. Mahalo nui loa, pilamaya, God bless you very much. I'm sorry if I've been so remote, or too quiet, I guess. What your mother has been saying is true, so eloquent, that I felt I was hearing her again as I heard her in the crystal caves, speaking of the sacred is lands. What we did today can only be called heroic. That means everything to me, Son. It was sacred." He stood and embraced his son. "Great heart, noble man." It was Mars's turn to lose it and he cried like a baby. "Yes, Yes," his father sighed, stroking his black hair, "Today you have found your manhood, and honor. Something I'm not sure I've ever found or achieved. if there are doubts here let them be mine. I am the fool who has always questioned Nature." Athena stood and embraced them. "Oh Daddy, it was so terrible! Why did they want to kill you?" Muhammad looked at Annie who was staring a black hole into the fire light, and their sorrow, her family. "I think we should let your mother an swer that." She looked at them, shocked; and jerked her head to look at them, and they all stared in horror at each other, their lives they knew no longer ordinary and sane, merely happy, surviving, half-awake, halfasleep, but Mohammad in the loins and buckskin of Sweet Medicine. An nie told the stories long into the fearful night of comfortable meaning, wo

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men in porcupine quills, of young men, bucks with headdresses of antlers, horns, wolfskins and warm black buffalo robes where people believed in their ancestral mythic dreams. First of all there had been the first Indian, Sweet Medicine, a peaceful Jesus on the High Plains whom Crazy Horse had emulated in the American Conquest of buffalo religions, hunting and gathering economics, Sweet Medicine with his violent Herculean twin too Erect Horns he was called -- the Panic body and bloody man like Herod John, like Hercules, Iktomi, conquering savage Nature. "Erect Horns was the killer of killers, Mars," Annie said, "like you today at the gas pumps, the leveler of doubts." Sweet Medicine was the aloof teacher, the wise poet who let others do the killing and hunting for him, Worm, the father of Crazy Horse making it possible for his son to be secure and rise above the fray of the battle. "Goody- goody Jesus," Athena ventured with a smile. Muhammad smiled and put his arm around her. Annie talked and prayed long into the night. "Nobody liked him, I have in mind an obscure man whose buckskins and quillwork your father is wearing, like Crazy Horse, as Black Elk once said, I read, always half in the other world and half in this one. He was poor and alone, even with all the riches of all the sisters of Wyoming, the an cient word from the first language, from which Mitakaye Oyasin is also derived, pre- Algonquian for 'All my Relatives'. Wyoming. He's been un known throughout history. Motseyoef. He was not as good or famous as Jesus Christ. He did not preach. He did not teach. He was Not. He was not a famous artist or civil rights leader. Neither was he a common man of the people, or decent, or a villain, nor was he a husband or a father. He was not particularly a good son to his foster-parents. Nor was he ordinary at all. No one could define him. He did not contribute constructively to his society. In fact he destroyed every cherished ideal and icon of men; and women had no interest in him at all. He was despised by everyone. Be was a total fool. He was the God of Wisdom. He honored the First Mother

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- Eve. And he knew it was Adam who was Death, not Eve, the 'Closer' as he was called in Temet [Egypt], the closer of day and night, Atmu, the black Night Sun. He was Sweet Medicine." Next morning at first light the four desperadoes drove on the back roads in a cloudy rainy mist with the top up on their black CJ-8 scrambler, drink ing coffee from thermoses and listening to the radio describing a massive 'manhunt' for the 'terrorists' who had shot down 'three innocent Americans in cold blood.' At the grocery store in Aladdin, Wyoming they got donuts and the newspapers blared full- paged hysteria about the 'wanton murders' in peaceful Belle Fourche. They walked through it all like they were invisible. Peoples' eyes glassed over darkly as they looked at them but didn't see them in the store or on the road, the jeep winding through the lovely pine-wooded Black Hills on its way to Devil's Tower National Monument. "Sweet Medicine was also sacrificed intentionally, ritually, by his own people - hacked to pieces, then reborn, I guess, so the seasons would con tinue, appeased, or propitiated; Nature renewing itself and mankind somehow cleansing itself along with it too in some sort of process I can only understand as a woman: the menstrual inconstant tides of the Moon. He was the oldest son of Goddess, her beloved first-born. I guess the Hebrews remembered that in the Passover, I've read in the Bible, and she was the black angel of death, the clot, black storm clouds scudding past the chilling moon on a night of sepulchral death." Muhammad nodded, in the passenger seat beside her, "Her priestesses attending to the corpse of Jesus at his tomb. Athena frowned, "But I thought you said Adam, god, was Death." Annie sighed at the wheel, slowing on a curve behind a slow logging truck with huge pine Corpses, "He did a ceremony as a boy for the primitive elders who didn't believe he was a prophet, under the robe of a buffalo cow, to prove to them, to teach them the regenerative power of a faithful man, a boy, to become a man, or a cow to become a wo

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man. He had two priests tie a calf- gut string around his neck and pull it, where, when, he was hidden under the robe, his severed head rolled out into their circle. He was dead, decapitated, his body bones with snakes crawling through them. Centuries later the Lakotas said it was White Buf falo Woman who killed him like that, Iktomi the profane Trickster, a Sav age who wanted to fuck her, for she was a beautiful virgin calf at Devil's Tower. Sweet Medicine must have gone there to find his sister who is like Venus, and the Sioux adopted the story. They said he had a good respect ful brother there with him, his twin ghost, a purified goody-goody Indian shaman, who ran back to the village and proclaimed the Virgin Mary was coming, only now, she wasn't a clean virgin anymore but a mature cow with a sacred respectful bundle; and in that bundle was Iktomi's thigh bone she smoked as the Pipe, Canumpa, and he was the first white bull, the creator with her of the first great Buffalo Nation. From them sprang the Plains ripe with mighty herds. Sweet Medicine taught it as his lesson Black Elk called the 'Sacred Hoop', the strings that had strangled him and of which his severed head spoke these sacred prophecies." Muhammad added, "John the Baptist beheaded by Herod." "It is like the Welsh story we heard in Britain too, of Bran in 'The Mabinogion'. Remember that Muhammad? He was their god whose head spoke of the future. And so it was the common people before the Prophet knew he Was different than them, an evolved Being, and they re sented his grace and power in their mediocrity, their unhappiness and growling bellies and green eyes. When they were hungry he shot an ar row through the hoop and on the other side the arrow turned into a buf falo herd and everybody was fed and clothed in warm brown robes, but still, the old man chiefs were jealous of him, resentful, and one day they were out hunting and Sweet Medicine counted coup on a two- year old bull-calf, borrowing his meat, thanking the noble lord for sharing his life, when a fat old man elder, respected as a scholar, of wealth, said, 'I want

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that calf. I want its juicy ribs.' He had his family of soldiers and courtiers with him and they took Sweet Medicine's bull-calf, just like that. He caught up to them and said, 'Great Chief, honored King, I will gladly give you the Juicy ribs and steaks of this calf, but please, allow me to keep the black robe for I wish to do a ceremony to this brother for thanksgiving.' The old chief laughed and roughly pushed aside the poor man whom everyone knew was from a weak household, and crazy. Ghost stories and fairy tales were told about him as a boy by fools lies about a talking severed head on a silver charger which nobody believed, which were lies. Sweet medicine then bowed humbly, helplessly, in his dirty rags and skulked back to the measly remains of his brother lord, while the glorious Chief and his wealthy entourage laughed, shaking their heads proudly but with some pity for their hapless countrymen like this downtrodden fool too stu pid and poor to be educated, rich, and good like them. He took up a hind hoof and tapped the Chief on top of his head. Immediately the great man fell down moaning, 'I am murdered.' He fell into a crumpled lifeless heap on the wide open prairie, and the soldiers all looked at the crazy ragged Sweet Medicine, gasping, exclaiming 'You have killed our Chief. Arrest him!' Sweet Medicine ran away though, for he was a fast runner, and they couldn't catch him no matter how much they tried, for he was always one hilltop ahead of them, it seemed; they would see him and scream 'there he is! Got him!' and they surrounded the hill, surely, cutting off all escape. They would get there but it would always be empty, always, many times this happened, and they'd see him again on another hilltop very far away, this time, again, and once he dropped his pants and waved his bare ass at them and laughed at them, and made other obscene gestures. The soldiers went crazy and put out death warrants on him, but they never could catch Motseyoef, that old Sweet Medicine. And, oh yeah, the fatass old chief finally woke up from his coma and looked around, and said 'Huh? What?' He had become a vegetable. After awhile the Prophet left that country and no one saw him again for a long time, and the buffalo

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disappeared, the rains stopped, and the people descended into terrible famine and savagery." They came around a rolling wooded rise of brown buffalo grass and saw Devil's Tower, called originally Gray Horn Pipe, and later Mato Tipila, the Bear's Lodge by the Sioux, thrusting dramatically out of red cliffs, a pipe or claw as of some ancient struggle with other mountains and volcanic rocks Pushed out of the earth's bloody red core. The fugitive jeep drove quietly to the left and to the South of the busy stores and campgrounds of the famous monument to a side gravel road in a cow pasture behind the river circling the Spire, the Belle Fourche creek green and shallow. They parked in cottonwood trees, hidden from the air and roads, beneath red sandstone cliffs where hawks and coyotes lived. Barbed wire fences cris scrossed the cattle range. "This is where he came, and to her sister, Bear Butte. This where White Buffalo Woman brought us the Pipe and all Our ceremonies, the sundance a part of the Massaum, the pre- historic Crazy Animal Dance in our Medicine Wheels. Motseyoef lined it all up with the stars., with the Pleiades the arrowhead pointing to the Hawaiian Islands, in the Ocean, and here is the belt of Orion, here in these Black Hills, and the tail feather is Sirius, Osiris [Libya and Britain]. We have always known it as long ago as our Prophet told us of it, of the World Mountain, in the creation myth. Crazy Horse studied it right here, with Her, and her son." Mars and Athens regarded the Sacred Mountain, gray, a horned pipe, or an antler, as sun set over them and they ate a cold supper under the stars, hiding too; hiding from the Old Man Chief's vengeful soldiers searching everywhere for the unlikable Prophet, who was their father.

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Gabriel was still in disguise--in Washington, D.C. She was in a taxi on her way to a gala reception at the White House speeding around Dupont Circle, past Embassy Row, and then she asked the driver to go around the Mall so she could think, first, before they got to The White House. They were speeding past the yellow-lighted Lincoln Memorial reflecting on the long flat pools of water in the Mall when she exclaimed, "Stop, please. Wait here for a minute." The driver could only nod, barely able to breathe, let alone answer the most beautiful black woman in a black lowcut gown he had ever seen in a city full of glamorous exotic women. She stepped out, revealing her upper thighs in black silk, spike heels touching the sidewalk in front of the clean temple; reflecting in the tasteful yellow floodlights her own repose, pensive regard of the American demi-god like Zeus in a black suit on his throne proclaiming "Malice Toward None". "What are ye protecting, O ye gods, A'tem and Michael - these Americ ans with their claims of Liberty and Law?" They drove around to the Jefferson Memorial and the Capitol, Washing ton's obelisk, and then the white Palace of the President who administered the Kingdom like an office, a bureaucracy, and the army, navy, and air force instruments of Business. The guards and Secret Service waved her into the grounds of the well-kept white mansion like an English estate with paintings of old warships on the 18th century walls over-decorated, richly furnished, ostentatiously of New England while Viennese waltzes played in the foyer and diamonds, crystal, chandeliers, twinkled among the hushed crowds assembled at the lavish cocktail bars with shrimp hors d'oeuvres. Men and women alike parted before her like chastened courtiers while she nodded aloofly superior, almost naked ebony as the black angel of death passing over the Party. Women and men alike were afraid to talk to her, whispering, "I hear she's with Yassar Arafat.'' "She is the new King Hus sein's mistress." "Oh no, my Dear, she is a major in the Libyan Defense Forces." Gabriel was introduced to the Madame Secretary of State, a

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gnomish society matron who had bought her way to power, as "Jasmine al-Psylli", by the Palestinian Protocol officer who was working with the First Lady as maitre d' for this reception for the Palestine National Council. "You are very lovely,' the Madame Secretary replied. Jasmine stared at her. "I suppose the Zionists hate us for being here, our first reception, after thousands for them?" Madame Secretary frowned. "At least you are here at last." The protocol officer led her away to the long reception line to shake hands with the President and the First Lady, before there were any more unpleas ant Political exchanges. Madame Secretary told her Aide, "Find out who she is and get her out of here. I don't like the looks of this at all." Jasmine was nodding politely to the fat Egyptian ambassador who was trying to see more of her tits, while overhearing a two- star Air Force general be hind her explaining to a reporter, "The Missile Theatre Defense has a pro totype x-ban tracking radar. Our deployment readiness review will be set in Alaska next year." She turned to him suddenly, "Who are you defend ing yourself from, General, North Korea which is starving to death, or the sand niggers of Iran, or perhaps ferocious Sudan, or maybe the Pakistani Empire?" She smiled radiantly at him and all within earshot waited to see what would become of this awkward unsociable moment. He stared at her. "And just who the fuck are you, may I ask?" "Your worst nightmare. You don't have an answer do you? You're just another piece of cannon fodder for the civilian shitheads." Before the waiting line or any other protocol officers could retaliate, or re act, to these undiplomatic gaucheries Jasmine reached for the First Lady's pudgy little hand. "Major Jasmine al-Psylli, Libyan Jamahiriya Defense Forces," a Syrian protocol officer quickly interjected, reading a clipboard. The First Lady tried to smile sincerely. "O, Libya? Wonderful." Jasmine turned away from her with utter contempt and disdain. Then she was intro

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duced to the President beside his wife and Jasmine asked, "How's your Im peachment litigation going?" instead of frowning he reacted quickly and laughed. "Marvelous. Thank you for asking. I won't go to jail of course, after I'm out of office, so Congress is way ahead of me." He held her hand longer, so she said, "No blow jobs yet please, you have to be in dicted by God for Genocide first." The moment in the East Room of the White House froze like the President's gloating smirk for what seemed an eternity, as Jasmine touched the top of the Commander-in- Chief's head with a feather from her wing and de clared simply, "Coup." No one who saw a terrifying Winged Demon arise from the floor with the President's supine Transparency, or Double, a phantom rising out of his comatose body could later describe or believe they saw what they thought they saw, or heard, in the rush of a terrible dark wind in the room of screaming women and the crash of broken glass, Before anyone could rush to judge the evidence of their senses the Presid ent of the United states of America lay unconscious on the floor of the East Room in the middle of a gala reception. The woman whom he'd been speaking with was gone, utterly, completely gone, as if a vision had just vanished. Everyone looked around in vain for her but it was like she had never been there and was just a sexual fantasy. The First Lady was hysterically slapping her husband's face but he was ut terly, completely unresponsive, limp, white as a ghost. "Is he dead!'' she screamed at a doctor in an Admiral's uniform. He took the man's pulse in the horrified room on the floor, and shook his head. "Not exactly. No. He has a faint pulse." Doctors and bodyguards rushed to get their Command er to safety, out of that damned room, in his black tuxedo, pushing old wo men roughly out of the way, U.S. Marines in crisp blue and white dress uniforms drawing loaded rifles to the ready at every exit and entrance, aiming them at the Arabs in the room who were especially suspicious.

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Everyone was screaming and running and knocking over tableware, French Provincial chairs, staining their evening gowns with vomit, expens ive wine, and gentlemen shitting their pants. The President was laid on a deep rich leather sofa in the study off the Oval office with doctors all around inserting an IV in his arm, sticking heart monitor leads on his bare chest, BEG and EKG pins to his head and heart, examining his dilated pu pils, flaccid reflexes, slow breathing. One neurologist shook his head. "It doesn't look good, whatever it is. Maybe he's had a stroke. Let's get him to the hospital, Stat, and do a complete CBC and prep for surgery. I want to see an MRI and Cat Scan too. Stat!" Outside, above the maximumly-secured Executive Mansion, the sky was black and the stars were mere pinpoints far above and away greater than any explanations of man; science, medicine, above and beyond mortal understanding. She thought of her prophet's dilemma as she flew west wards at the speed of thought with her prisoner, the ghoulish Double of America, Venus behind the sun and out of the sight of the earth from the ecliptic plane the instrument of Muhammad's release into deification, the amalgamation of the Messianic and Hellenistic as it were, she thought, freed from his mortal prison. She had made the phone calls and faxed the transmissions from headquarters that had effected his terror, his immortal ity, on men, in the telephone microwaves of electricity as incomprehensible as her coup of the president. It had taken all her skills and considerable shrewdness to convince A'Tem and Michael to allow Her Lady this excep tion to what they called "Eve's clottings." "What hath she wrought?" A'Tem had asked rhetorically. "She claims Woman is the creative womb of life, but all I see are six billion Clots eating and shitting. It is the seed, Venus, from which springs the flower, not the dirt or salty seawater of her barrenness. Man. The cornucopia of his seed and kinder creativity, is Gabriel's Horn - Mozart, Michelangelo, Homer. I see no women there in the company of a cleaner unbloody happier gender, despite the Atomic

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Bombs and Banks of most of them. Where are the women, Venus? Con suming 85% of the gross international Economy at the Mall and on TV, fabricating civilization, marriage, and worst of all, power. You may pur sue Eve's command to free my Prince, but her motives are greedy, jeal ous, willful desires, complaints, that even her ecstasy needs to be 'eased'." Gabriel scowled at the unpleasant recollection confrontation with God and his Archangel, the ever arrogant Michael. It was miserable to witness the Self- pity of women kept powerless by their Lady's bloody monthly cramps, desires, for an easier world, Love, bleeding their eggs away; but worst of all, she could see it hurt God's feelings. She had tried to tell him of moth ers cooing their babies to sleep, nurturing, building homes and schools but he only grew angrier. "Self-indulgence! Weakness. Undisciplined and false creation of a sense of peace instead of war, facing death, amassing true power. That's why they were created. Michael will tell you. I don't give a damn for comfort able rocking chairs and lullabies on Sunday. I want my Prophet freed! Damn Her for doing this and keeping it from me. Go, Gabriel, follow Venus, stop tormenting my Poet and get all these goddamn women off his back!" Gabriel finally had to conclude the sad truth of it: there were no female Davids that she knew of, Buddhas, Lao Tzus, Merlins, Marcus Agrippas, Quetzalcoatls. Almost all men were also greedy, jealous animals, but a few, oh, a very precious few were gods like Jesus, Dionysus, Hercules. All she knew of were Athena and Viviane. It had taken all her eloquence and skills of persuasion to change God's mind about putting America on trial, and the Pope, and the Queen, as Michael had agreed to. He knew God's Mind though and it was as open and fair as the Universe, regardless of his favoritism of the male, and God agreed reluctantly to the Millennial Tribunal.

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"I know that this is really a Trial of my Queen," he said, wisely seeing through Michael's machinations behind the scenes, the maneuvers of the angelic hierarchy (to increase the seed?), "and exculpation of Eve. We will be on Trial. Are you ready for the consequences of your actions, An gels, of that - whether Evil exists?" He had stared almightily at them, and then departed. Gabriel still shuddered at the memory, and for Muhammad, of God's de votion and union with his Goddess. She flew in the night of that burden Im mortals bear with her flaccid cargo of the human Superpower who was like an empty spiritual rag in her hands. The black death passed over the rocks of Mount Rushmore and landed like a swarm of crows at the mouth of the cave by a baptismal font (a natural pool) where Indians had set up a sacred ceremonial Medicine Wheel where they had last seen their prophets walk the earth. Tipis and sweat-lodges were silent around a Fire place that was kept burning by a lone boy, while all slept in the cold blue night high in the ridges of the Black Hills; a ceremonial Fire in a circle of consecrated Council Lodges from the confederated Buffalo Nations des troyed by Goddess and America, Christianity, and the British Common wealth. She howled like a thousand sirens shot from hell and threw the President on a makeshift throne of rocks at the mouth of the cave, like Lincoln on his marble, which was the source of the creek where Crazy Horse was born, when he was Waken Inyan. All the medicine dreamers shuddered in their sleep but only the lone Cheyenne boy saw with his eyes the demon dis charge her prize, the hostage, awake, like Sweet Medicine witnessing his stepmother at work. The boy saw a graceful god of eternal youth come out of the cave into the moonless black light, Crazy Horse, and stand as pro secutor and accuser before the President slumped in his chair, the con demned man, indicted before the angels and apostles for the Genocide of God.

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Annie felt the terrible Presence inside her tempting her to hate her husband and to leave him and her children and to go into a long dark cold isola tion of freedom and power where she would at last find Justice. She told them the story of Motseyoef's wanderings in the wilderness, and a mysteri ous blonde woman who appeared in the legend at Bear Butte suddenly, accompanying the Prophet with a dog and 4 Sacred Arrows, and the laws and societies of the first indigenous Culture. She told them about it as they ran from Devil's Tower northward to Montana and the Little Bighorn River, her Holy Family, amongst whom, perhaps, only Athena could have hoped to foil the terrible designs of their Goddess. The woman with Motseyoef was called Ehyophstah, and she was one of the central characters in the drama of the Massaum crazy animal dance, the earth-giving, that Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were re-enacting with the Cheyennes aeons later at the Little Bighorn, June 25 1876; the solstice renewal of the Chief sacrificed to the Witch, his powerful wife Ehyophs tah. Annie felt terrible telling of this story and ritual long-forgotten and ob solete, out of use, since the wolves and coyotes and buffalo had been decimated by America. They read the newspaper headlines screaming like sirens, 'President At tacked, in a Coma', 'Critical and Close to Deathl' Did the President's wife know what was happening? Annie didn't know if she knew either, or what part Ehyophstah played in the drama. Muhammad wanted to know if she had a daughter like Athena, the daughter of Zeus, terrible proud Athena, alone, from the Libyan origins. Annie didn't understand the myths as well as he did, nor did she want to, she realized, shocked at herself, resentful of his knowledge and freedom and ease of resilience. She didn't want to be caught up in his fugitive ideas. They traveled north and west across the scars and scabs of her dead people, rolling brown desert and sagebrush where once they were the thundering millions of buffalo, nations of Algonquians, Siouans, Athabas cans, and the land was lush with their ripe manure. Now she saw

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wretched alcoholics and all the children stumbling like the calves, the rem nants, of sterile cows, women raped of their households, of the economy, management stolen by Adam and his corrupt Washington bureaucracies. "Murder," she mumbled in the jeep, barely audible, as they went past her mother's shack in diseased Lame Deer, "don't stop. I don't want to smell the decay." Her family looked at her, worried, angry, saddened, but Muhammad drove on through the rolling pine hills and Mars was sending e- mails and faxes on his PC while Athena was on the cell-phone to her sisters at the Waken Inyan Medicine Wheel as they called it, with her Young Wolves, reporting their astonishing news that the President of the United States was held captive at the cave entrance of the Camp by the sacred Wheel. "He was there when you woke up this morning?" the radiant beauty asked, repeating what she was hearing and raising her eyebrows as ex planation to her family. "He ... now take it easy Marlene, you can't freak out. My Dad is here with me and maybe he can talk to you. Dad, take the phone, you gotta lay it out for these guys." Muhammad stared at the instrument the size of a croissant. "I don't want that. I hate those things," he muttered. "Dad, take the phone. This is the twenty-first century. Hold on Marlene. He's driving. He'll be right with you." Mars laughed, and clacked out on the keyboard on his laptop, "'The Prophet is on hold'." Annie frowned, "Who're you writing?" "The Bros. I'm getting our mythic shit out on the Internet. We can zap the bastards Just as much as they can. I got networks out worldwide and news agencies want to interview me about the gunfight at the OK Corral and

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I'm telling them it was self-defense, and about the connection to the Prez. They can't do shit, Mom. This e-mail could be coming from Timbuktu or East Pussywipe for all they know. They are crawling all over the camp at Mount Rushmore, the media, and their phony military-religious cohorts. I'll print out the releases from everywhere in a minute, and offers of support from Cuba, China, and South Wales. It's awesome. Dad, if it's okay with you, I'm typing a lead-in right now for the Associated Press to run and I'll transcribe verbatim what you say to the Young Wolves." Muhammad frowned and took the phone with one hand while he drove with the other, "I'm surrounded by robots. Hello Marlene. What's going on there? De scribe it for me." He listened while Athena explained to Mars, who typed "She says it's def initely the President, like he's strapped in the electric chair and about as green as a Zombie. The pigs don't know what to do either: either kill everyone or stand there and not believe it and wait for orders from the First Witch, er, I mean Lady, in Washington or Wall Street or wherever." "God," Mars whooped, screaming a war cry in the open jeep, typing furi ously, "this is awesome! Washington is going apeshit. They have the Prez in the hospital and he's in a coma on IVs and shit and barely a brain wave, so how the hell can they send in the National Guard, to attack a ghost or a hologram under Abe Lincoln's fat ass?" Muhammad spoke in the phone, "Then they'll go to war with Islam, world wide, to cover their asses. Yes. Continuing with Iraq, probably, to start with, that's where the oil is, before Ramadan at the dark of the moon, fir ing missiles from the Persian Gulf." Mars attached a jack into the phone from his PC. "This will keep them from being able to trace the call. Mom, can you get in the back seat so I can do this?"

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Annie frowned, but crawled over the seat to the back and Mars changed places with her in the front with his PC. "Marlene, put Grandma on please, and Rafiq and Tony on the conference call and hook up the video modem." Mars raised his eyebrows in surprise, "Right on, Pops." The jeep rolled westwards out of the Northern Cheyenne area and to wards the barren wild hills of the Crow Reservation. "Grandma, hello. Can you have all the people there testify, and record it? Yes. Oh, there are Mexicans too, and a family from El Salvador? Beano. Peru? Excellent. Mars, they're coming in from everywhere to the camp. Yes, Grandma, tell Rafiq and Anshari to record it all and Mars will copy it all for me out here on the road. We want every massacre' documented from columbuts up to the slow silent genocide of starvation and hate today, the lies of national ism especially and American patriotism. I'll explain it all later when I give my opening statements at the Trial, but I'll want all your video eyewit nesses from the whole hemisphere, and all the academic documentation from the beginning to neutralize the rationality- freaks; yes, the university Professors with their liberal or conservative psycho-babel, exactly, all the lawyers and philosophers sneering at us and our 'dark runic irrationality' and 'anarchy', or whatever ethnic cleansing and tribalism they love to hate while they make millions at Princeton and Now York University pub lishing history books ignoring the American Holocaust, nuclear weapons research grants making scientists rich, the whole madness of America the President personifies. By the time Crazy Horse is done with him he won't be convicted, he'll be lined up at the wall instead, in front of a firing squad. It would be the only real justice, eh, Annie?" he said. She didn't respond, but glumly watched the dry treeless hills rolling by, faintly green and rocky and terribly remote. "Can you pull over up here? At the Custer Battlefield." He nodded, disturbed to see unhappiness in her

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face: not worse than unhappiness, a wretched pain and tears he had long ago learned to fear from women, a torment their souls suffered and which was always destructive. They rolled into the National Park on a hilltop and past a crowded Visitors Center and big parking lots; Mars and Athena barely glanced up from their machines because Mom had taken them there many many times before. They were much more interested in the global crisis going on in front of them on the phone and computer screen, e-mails piling up, websites growing by the minute, the fax running off an endless roll of urgent printed messages. Annie said, "I fail to see any justice in it at all." Anger and resentment steamed out of her in the back seat? and even the kids stopped to look at her, stopped, surprised, by the violent tone in her voice that came out of nowhere. Before Muhammad could stop the car at the graveyard and memorial to the 7th U.S. Cavalry she jumped out and walked very quickly away to the other side of the road. "What's the matter with her?" Mars asked. Athena spit, "Probably on the rag. Hello, Selena? Can you tell those guys to keep working on the Young Wolves stuff, okay?" Muhammad admired his kids working hard, excitedly, but he knew their mother was under attack by spirits her own terrible struggle would have to solve, like his; he couldn't deal with it though. It made him mad too. Reluctantly, slowly, he got out of the car, thinking fast, and went over to her, where she sat on a rock on the curb looking down a tall grassy slope with a few headstones of Custer's Troop white and stark, alone, in the tall grass, a mild breeze blowing in the warm unseasonable day. He stood beside her and was afraid to look her in the face directly, saying the words he dreadede his voice unreal (to him), "Maybe we should go our separate ways if that's how you feel --" Before he could say anything else she said, "Fine with me," and glanced at him hatefully and started walking away from him. "I wouldn't want to

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be the instrument of injustice in your life--" but it was ludicrously spoken be cause she was walking away and didn't hear him. She glanced back across the road as she almost ran away, as if she didn't hear him, or didn't want to hear any more. They turned around and got away, out of each other's sight. She felt glad and free suddenly, but knowing in a minute or a second she would mostly feel like total shit for most of the time for most of the rest of her life, hating it all, hating it. Life was a lousy piece of mean pointless shit. She felt numb, like her whole body was going numb with excitement, dread, tingling, down into her bones. She hurried back over to the car and got in the driver's seat, "C'mon, let's go." The other three were standing outside. "Your father and I are breaking up. I'll take the wheel, then you can work. You kids are big enough to decide which of us, or either, you want to go with, but I think we should go to the Medicine Wheel first, and then to the buffalo herds and the wolves at Yel lowstone, where you can drop me off." They all got in and drove off past the tourist buses and luxury cars from Texas, Florida, and California; west to Interstate 90, then south on it a ways to jog back into Wyoming and the wild Big Horn Mountains west again, beautiful rich land of the powerful green Bighorn Rivers with Crow Indian hovels and wrecked old cars in its midst, pockmarked, diseased, hopeless, sick, mean, ugly people. They wound around breath-taking forests and mountain passes, camping by beautiful creeks in tourist areas of National Forests eating trout that Mars caught and cooked in fragrant frying pans, with cornbread, pinto beans, cold in their down sleeping bags apart from the white people who didn't want to see them, almost a finer relationship growing up among them as they contemplated, anticip ated, yet another break up in the family. Annie and Muhammad were able to be civil to each other again after a day or so, reticent, more re

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moved, now that they weren't sleeping together anymore, or in love, like warriors, ruthless, more mature, chastened. They climbed the steep 10,000 foot (above sea level) mountain where the rubble of white stones of the Medicine Wheel lay scattered behind the American barbed-wire fence and signs, tourists clacking photographs with their children and dogs running loose around the top of the awesome summit where, Annie pointed out, "You can see the battlefield on the Little Bighorn from here, over there, in that valley. There are 13 Pipes buried in a circle around this Wheel." It offered a profound panorama but the power was gone. She wasn't in love with Muhammad nor he with her. They drove down the steep mountain roads to the basins of other rivers below, west, beyond the isolated tombstones to the east gate of Yellowstone National Park, camping, working an their politics and strategies in the great world but all the while feeling more alone than ever - Annie sadder and more alone with every mile. The east gate was a narrow road clinging to a cliff in a cold rainstorm and it was 'Under Construction', with terrible orange road-graders and diesel bulldozers piling up rocks and machinery as if they could stop nature and master it if they had enough men and money and willpower; and the CJ-8 crawled around the stinking traffic and noise into the huge lake area of the famous Park crippled, unhappy in the gloomy gray rain and broken asphalt highway. Finally, they found tourists in grassier smoother meadows snapping, shooting, more pictures stupidly at a few buffalo trying to eat by the side of the road, mangy, hopeless Buf falo, her people who had once been a great Nation. They tried to find a campground but they were all full, closed, and Rangers and Policemen patrolled everywhere, collecting fees for admis sion, day passes, stickers on their windows authorizing people to be there, with permission to drive through and see the elk too, and the geysers of the volcanic crater that had blown as big as the Park aeons ago, "A vol cano that was our first sweat lodge," Annie explained to them while they

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parked by the side of the noisy road, "as big and hot as the whole world of the Goddess." They looked at her sadly. "Why all the glum faces? You guys go on to Branwen's in British Columbia and get 'am. I'll be fine here. I have a lot, a lot, of praying to do. I have the ATM card locked in to the security code too so I'll have enough cash flow to get a Cheyenne Camp going here and plenty of sup porters to stop the slaughters, just like Waken Inyan, our own new Nowah'wus for Ehyophstah and what the Four Sacred Arrows really are. Now get going, don't look back, I love you all, I really do. No tears." She hugged and kissed them all with all her heart. "Maybe I should stay with you, Mom," Athena sobbed. "Why, for heaven's sake? All we ever do is fight, Honey." "I know," Athena giggled, "but I just feel like I want to. Is that okay, Dad? If it's okay with you Mom?" They looked at their daughter, a miserable and confused girl. "Of course it's okay," he said. "You know we love you and want the best for you, if that's what you want. Mars and I will be fine. We have a lot of work to do. Yes, I think it would be fine, if your mother says okay." They all looked at Annie, whose heart was about to burst. She put her arm around Athena and bravely wiped away her tears. No more words had to be said. The two great women watched their men drive away in the gray cloudy dusk north, north to the Queen's Land of ice and snow, waving goodbye with their arms around each other.

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Muhammad and his Son drove north silently for a long time, following the great Yellowstone River thundering through snow-capped mountain ranges (like the Tetons, they thought? The Titans or Titonwin of the Sioux?) until they hit Interstate 90 again and turned west through more mountains, pan oramic green valleys and cattle country, coal mining and farming towns selling cars, tractors, tourism, skiing resorts; the blue sky and warm wind rushing unnaturally over them in the open jeep cruising at 75 m.p.h. with the radio blaring news bulletins of war, global Depression, mass starvation and hatred. "It's not that your mother hates me, son," Muhammad said suddenly after they'd been driving for hours, "but she's caught in a real di lemma, like all women, a cosmic paradox, if you will. A sexual conflict." That's all he said for a long time again, many miles more as they angled north again towards Canada following the Missouri River to its Rocky Mountain source. Not until they were camped for the night on theriver at sunset did they talk again after a long day of emotional reflection, long miles, big country. Dozens of frantic brown sparrows chirped and flew madly all around the cottonwood trees and through lilac bushes. Mars waited, ambiguous about his father, remembering the hard discipline and semi nomadism of his youth, always traveling, restless, rootless, torn between them, his parents. He loved his mother much more than his father. She was kinder. She had always been there for him. Dad said, "It's time I tell you everything, Son: from the creation myth on through my own life and yours, in terms of the World Mountain and prophecy. Turn on your hard disk, or floppy drive, or whatever you call it. It all begins in Africa, Black Egypt and Black Libya they called Temet; where Prometheus [Ptah; Hephaestus in Greek] fashioned the first man from the clay in defiance of all the gods and resentment of the goddesses and that is what makes him whom we today still call God. Prometheus. Forethought. Lucifer. The greatest of the Titans because he dared to think we could all be created from our own faith in a resurrected and divine life. He created A'Tem from the soil, Adam, the volcanic lava of the Rift Valley

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in Africa at the source of the Nile; and it was all the blackness of Nu his own eternal mother, Nu, who was the source word of the original Noah, Nile, as Ra-Mosis rewrote it and revised it aeons later for the Hebrew Bible, which is the Egyptian creation myth. Adam and Eve are A'Temt-Ra, and Gabriel, the original plamet. Venus, will tell it in full later from Mount zionai in Jerusalem when she steals the soul of the Pope. Adam and Eve they are the first Human Gods, our ancestors. They are what poets called the 'Closers' of life, the evening and moon, the night sun, together. Gabri el will explain it more fully. I was just a boy growing up in Misurata and Syrte and it has taken me a lifetime of study and prayer to unravel the sufferings of Prometheus. Yes. suffering. Do you know that God is still suffering as we speak right now in eternal torment because he created us? He is chained to a mountain, the World Mountain of the stars we call Sirius, Orion, and the Pleiades, and a vulture eats his liver every night in that black Space, and it grows back every day in the white light,and it is the Moon, shaped like a liver growing every month~ God's organic waxing and waning, His eternal Resurrection and Crucifixion of Immortality: the Creator deliberately sacrificing Himself for our redemption. The whole story is . . . who is eating his liver, the moon, and why the ebb-tibes of black magnetic Oceanus. "But I know for men to be able to understand this I must follow a human narration as a new way to explain the Creation, the way of Muhammadan. I could tell you the story right now in full, Son, but it will be easier to understand if I tell you my life story as a better way to discover the Geodesy of the Prince of Libya, the World Prophet, of whom I am. I don't think men could understand or believe that God is suffering in end less agony in heaven just for us. They want to think at death their sorrows are over and they will rest in peace forever in an abstract Garden where God is sublime and impervious to all our pain. No. He feels every hurt that we feel because we are his responsibility, we are the product of his labor

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for which he risked all the disapproval of the Immortals and all the loss of those very pleasures of heaven we think of - sublime, aloof, Eternity, the universe. No. I found this terrible Truth in Temet in 1967 when I first went there after my own resurrection, and I learned the hieroglyphs of Annu and Ani as the first Libyans learned these many thousands of years ago, and wrote them on the stelae and tombs and papyrii of Mother Nile from Sudan to the sea. How did I get there? How can a man learn such things which have brought me to this, here, with you, more than halfway around the world? Why, indeed, should our own family be broken up in order to return home to that far Libyan desert where only camels and jackasses shit in the sand? Abductions of heads of State in a modern Age? Women and men, goddesses and gods, at each other's throats? A blue planet with a moon hurtling pointlessly in a circle of blackness? Forethought saw it all and decided to create an idea, to save us. It came out of that limitless blackness within blackness that all the great world religions agree on - the Tao of Lao Tzu, Egypt, Sweet Medicine; not a void or vacuum as the sci entists have called it where there is only 'Nothingness', but where Nothing ness is Everything, the Not-World my people called ANNU: An-Nu, or ON in the Bible, On-Heliopolis of the Nile. Anyway, I'll try not to lose you in mythic linguistics. Suffice it to say we'll call God Prometheus for now, Forethought, who dared to bring Fire and Knowledge to Man; and for which Creation he is still suffering horribly. But I'll get to that in a clearer narrative in a while. In the Greek mythology Zeus hurls Prometheus out of heaven for being a higher Titan, less human than Zeus who is a kind of Adam, for stealing fire to give to mankind, knowledge, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as it is called in the Bible; which was later christianized by Greek Jews to create a false Moral Order in the Universe and to make it look as if the African origins were inferior to theirs, to make it look as if Lucifer was disobeying God [Adam), and wanted to challenge him, Zeus.

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Yes. I am of course relying on my relative the scribe Thoth [also known as Hermes or Mercury] to help me with that, and I'll get to that geneology an well, maybe. It's not really so complicated. Moses made it very clear. I'll just need to make him and the Greeks even clearer. It hasn't come easy, I can assure you of that, this knowledge. Buddha wasn't wrong that enlight enment requires suffering, nor that the Reincarnation is not well worth the effort. Otherwise, I'm afraid that death and rot And worms are all that await the vast legions of human Unbelievers. But I'm getting ahead of my self. My father was Zeid in Libya, a professional soldier not unlike Hercules or Zeus. He grew up in a time of terrible poverty and tyranny in the 1920S under Mussolini and technological Italy, European world war created by great new tools - tanks, radios, telephones, machine guns, airplanes. Libya as always since the Romans was a slave colony feeding Rome our wheat and olive oil and trade routes to deepest darkest richest Af-Ra-Kat the Heart of God. My father joined Omar Mukhtar to fight Mussolini, the Pope's General, Hitler's and Roosevelt's and Churchill's ally. He often told me about those days in the desert when he was scared all the time. 'A warrior is always scared, Son,' he said. 'Always. Every moment.' I often wondered how good that could really be. Was it necessary to understand God's perpetual pain by experiencing fear, incessant fear and terror, to know God's heart? The Jihad the Prophet Mahomet called the greatest act of worship was superior to all the obligatory Salat prayers, Sam fasts, Za hat tithes, or the Hajj pilgrimage to Makka. This is something of a Hajj we are performing now, Mars, a Jihad into, what I think, is the redemption of God Himself, of Allah, to save the Saviour finally from Man: that, I think, is our journey of this Libyad. I'm saying it clumsily for there is so much to say. How, I thought even as a boy, in an Islamic nation in a home that went far beyond the Shiite apostasy from orthodox Sunni Muslim practice, can we redeem the in

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justice of Disbelief, man's treachery of God: God's gifts rejected by the disbelieving legions? Adam and Eve disobeying God in Eden. Wanting a moral order In their knowledge. That is why I do not pray five times a day to mecca: for my father told me it was woman's treachery, the orthodox, civilization and cynicism and oil markets. He said to me on the battlefield in Syria one night, 'Beware of Woman. It is she who betrayed God and drove her husband to chain the Almighty to the Rock.' I didn't understand, then, other than the Jihad was a Holy War in this challenge from heaven to help Our Lord and Saviour, who was more than Allah. The Qu'ran and Ahadith are mostly more of the same Egyptian Hebrew myth of the Bible and not very helpful. It is too judgemental and ascetic for me, un-Egyptian and un-Libyan in its condemnation of art and poetry. I don't think God dis likes beautiful things of the senses, or he wouldn't have been honoured by the Pyramids and all the magnificence still unparalleled in Luxor, Thebes, Karnak, Memphis (which is Het-Kau-Ptah). My father thought so too and he was branded a heretic by my mother~ a devout Sunni Muslim like everybody else. She was very kind and I loved her much more than my father. He was a terribly strict disciplinarian, am bivalently kind in his own way, sometimes, and famous for his humour. I worshipped him, I suppose you could say, from afar. Mom made cookies for me when I came home from school. Love, in.the long run, has become a lesser emotion that devotion to God, to duty, to my own divine self my father taught me was always greater than sentiment. But I didn't know of any of those things as a kid when I was growing up, a normal boy going to school and mosque and playing football. We moved a lot because Dad was in the army and we lived in Cairo and Mecca and Damascus; I was only vaguely aware, and of course proud, that he was a tank commander in World War 11 and fought in the 1948 and 1956 wars against Israel. It was only much later I began to realize more about those events as primarily a war in heaven. When my sister Hana died in 1956 during the

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Suez War, Dad went crazy and converted back to orthodox Sunni and I went to strict Islamic schools for years, wearing uniforms, chanting the Suras, marching to class and mosque five times a day. Like Adam Zeus didn't always know what the hell he believed in, or was afraid of, rather, which is more like it. Libya was still very poor and remote and illiterate then, I remember, and I was really bored most of the time. It was a strict, isolated, insulated world I was in, except for the military assignments that took us to Mecca and Cairo especially by the 1960s. Mecca of course was very hot and religious and all that, but Cairo, oh, I couldn't believe how exciting it was. Dad loved it too. He took us everywhere. He was great. It was between wars and he loved to study history and how it re lated to the Prophet and the plan of God; and we went to every museum and climbed the Pyramids and went up the Nile to every ancient Dead City and studied all the hieroglyphs, dragging all the kids and Mom bitched most of the time because she had to change the diapers and clean up our hotel rooms and our quarters on the army base and all the house work. We boys helped her but mostly it was the tradition she espoused stronger than anyone for girls to do the work. It was strange, really. She was the big traditionalist but I learned years later she resented the hell out of Dad for never helping her with the cleaning and child-rearing. I had seven brothers and sisters and I always helped wash the dishes and clean the house because she told me too even though I was the favourite oldest son and heir and all the laws said I wasn't supposed to do those things. Most elder sons were spoiled rotten by their mothers, it's a real Arab disease. I was the same. By the time we were transferred back to Tripoli in 1962 I was the big football jock and seriously into girls; home life was mostly the typical teenager ordeal of dealing with the old Man and keeping Mom happy, no small deal, but it was still minor to all that in credible Tripoli pussy that was literally everywhere. Italian and British girls in bikinis on the beaches and Americans teasing you everywhere in short

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shorts, sneering at us too, but I was determined to get past that and go modern, European, western, join the whole pagan rock n' roll scene, orgy, rebellion that was sweeping,the Sixties. We snuck the BBC on our radios and listened to The Beatles, and I met Americans at football games, which we always won, and gradually I was almost accepted by a few of them sometimes, the few who weren't overtly racist, Christianist, Zionist, fucking pigs. Most guys my age didn't want to have anything to do with them, es pecially the Brits and Americans who were the worst, but, as I've told you, the girls were a different story. Oh, they put Arab girls to shame, except for the Tunisians. No contest. I won't go into the lurid details because that would be undignified, but let's just say that I found out about everything there is to know. I was in heaven, on the beaches, in nightclubs, casinos, restaurants, the cinema where we saw Fellini and Truffaut, Coffee House discussions of Camus, Marx, and Brigitte Bardot, all the great forces of the 20th century outside Africa. I discovered Picasso, Einstein, Mao, and Bri gitte Bardot. Then I fell in love with a gorgeous Libyan girl if you can believe it, and as cended to a higher heaven. Her name was Hewwa and she was a fashion model if you can believe it, rich, her oil family living in Rome except for one year when they thought she should go to school in Tripoli and learn more about her country. We met at a party one night and went parking on the beach, in the moonlight, the Mediterranean Sea like music, making out in the front seat of my Dad's big old Fiat. I learned everything there is to know about love in that one night, and we didn't even go all the way, ex cept symbolically, sex so much richer in meaning in the desperate touch ing and desire and taste of a girl. For fifteen years I couldn't ever really love anyone else, until your mother, because Hewwa haunted my dreams almost every night - a lonely un happy. girl wandering the streets of Tripoli; her spiritual body lost, living in a poor rooming house I've heard somewhere, in and out of mental hospit

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als, suicidal. She never could tell me what was wrong, except that it was something with her mother, jealousy or probably the willful desires D.H. Lawrence describes. Hewwa and I were happy for 7 months, though, or at least I thought she was as happy as I was. I hope she was. She said she was. She said she loved me, and went back to Rome, then back to Tripoli, and we made love in 1965 at the Libyan Palace Hotel. We made love desperately, crazily, all that summer and got drunk and went sailing and spearfishing and tried to be a Roman couple, romantic, beautiful. It's odd that I can speak of her so simply now, my feelings remote, memory as Marcel Proust says the only resurrection of the soul, a la recher che du temps perdu. For 30 years I didn't know why she left me and called up from Miami in 1966 to tell me, politely, that she was getting married, to a rich American. It was the most awful moment in my life to be rejected, abandoned, unfairly, cruelly, politely; and it is only now that I can see it was my fault, I can accept the blame because I was greedy, jealous, full of my own willful desires for pleasure at her expense, brutal in bed and demanding and selfish and worst of all, an arrogant Arab, care less with sex, telling myself how great and handsome and faultless I was. I drove her away. After that, Son, I never found love or good sex the rest of my life. I mean it. The girls turned away from me like a goddess had made me invisible to the entire female gender, while I was still handsome, a young god, intelligent, charming, talented, ambitious. I know now that Eve turned away from me completely in her anger and disappointment, and re solve to punish me by making me suffer in a better world. And maybe it was simply that her love destroyed me. It wasn't that she was Eve~El, not at all, no: but she needed me to grow up and learn about pain in order to relieve her agony and ecstasy, share, absorb, the divinity that was about to be unleashed upon me and the unsuspecting world in the year 1967."

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"In 1967 Goddess killed me; and God saved me. Eve and Michael. Isis and Lucifer. I knowt it's confusing - the human versus the cosmic Deities. I was working in the hospital where I was born, studying to be a doctor, pre-med at the University. I had no conscious thought of fate or purpose and I was living with a beautiful sexy blonde in an apartment downtown, Michelle, my first wife. I realize now that Goddess hated for me to know female pleasure or ordinary human happiness and she struck into my left temple like a knife stabbing my brain, a black invisible shock of electricity suddenly jolting me at work, one innocent morning, August 17 1967, hot, boring from left to right, slowly, surely, numbing the right side of my body; the pain in my left temple growing more and more in an hour and the right side of my tongue tingling oddly, my right hand waving apart from me like it was disassociated from the rest of my body; in another hour my right knee buckled and I fell down, the headache was raging by then, and the fear. The physical therapy doctors I was working with said I was having a stroke, or a migraine, or maybe a hematoma blood clot or a full brain tu mor. A nurse took me across town to the army hospital where I was still covered as Dad's 'dependent', and it was agony by then, the death throes. My entire body, or rather, just my left temple and the right side like I was sliced cleanly down the middle; for my left side, my left eye, the left side of my tongue and lips and nose and hair were all perfectly normal. But the rest, the whole body, was staggering, dying, I knew. I knew, Son, that it was death upon me. When you lose your body, when anything at all goes wrong you start to regret all your mistakes and foolishness, imme diately - taking it for granted. Nothing else matters anymore, the greed, desires, jealousy, willful dreams and cocky self-assurance. We got to the outpatient clinic at the emergency room and a few army orderlies were having lunch and the pretty Tunisian nurse left me there in the waiting room. By then the pain was almost blinding, disorienting, and I couldn't think

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straight, I could barely stand up, and I vomited all over the floor. That got their attention. They turned me on my stomach on an exam table and stuck needles in my back to do a spinal tap; and that's the last thing I remember, I think. I calculated that it was about eighteen hours later that I came to, the next morning, in a hospital bed in a ward overflowing with badly wounded soldiers from the disastrous Six Day War with Israel. But I didn't know any of that at the time. There was no such thing as time for me that morning, that bright tingling day in which I was buzzing literally from my fingertips to my eyes blinded, dazzling, absorbing light like a newborn baby not understanding any of it at all, nothing at all. I didn't know how to get out of bed or even move, or what anything around me meant - not the bed, or the window, or the army corpsman in whites and the talk and noise of a busy hospital ward. I actu ally had on my wristwatch, still, and couldn't tell if it was three-fifteen or a quarter to nine - 3 and 9 and 12 were all upside down or backwards or something, Mars. It was strange and wonderful and disorienting all at once, but I was relieved to realize the pain was gone, the remembered pain coming back slowly, quickly, as my brain was evolving, I realize now, infinitely faster than a newborn baby's; in a few minutes I swung my legs out of bed, wonderingly, but kicked over a stainless steel table that crashed loudly to the hard linoleum floor. No one took any notice of the crash, or me. I was thinking I should call my sexy girlfriend and I stood up on the floor barefoot, in a nightgown someone had obviously put on me yesterday or last night sometime, I didn't remember at all. Maybe they drugged me and knocked me out, I don't know, but I didn't remember get ting a shot, and I know military doctors don't like to do that. And what knocks you out like that for almost twenty-four hours? I took baby steps, slowly, shakily, feeling weird but also really good, and fresh, I guess is a good word. I felt like I was new and fresh and discovering everything all over again with added awareness or sensory alertness, electrically su

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per-charged. It must have been what Jesus felt when he walked out of the tomb, or Sweet Medicine when he put his head back on - like John the Baptist, or Bran. I was already thinking in those otherworldly terms, Son, like I had never before - never thought before. I was reading recently that neurologists now think brain cells grow the more you think, new cells, all your life, neurons like added ideas and stimulation. I think I remember the doctor saying the day before when I was face down on the table, 'his protein level is very high. I've never seen anything like it.' Proteins, or something like that, I think he said. Now, I believe God was supercharging me, epileptically shocking my brain and nervous system with new electricity. There's a scientific explana tion, and yet there isn't at all. There was no conscious desire on my part at all to make such an outlandish, agonizing thing happen. The neurologists ran tests on me for months, and over years, nine EEGS, two carotid an giograms, a pneumoencephalogram, CAT scans - nothing. They found nothing. my brain was perfectly normal. They wrote me up in the medical textbooks, and forgot it. It wasn't migraines, a stroke, tumor, or hematoma, or an injury, or 'a bad conscience' as my father said. I had more of the bizarre numbing seizures and headaches and I had to be put out with demerol a few times, but never as bad or as transcendent as that first time. God took me into his blackness and asked in a voice I'll never forget, eternal, curious, 'Do you want to die?' most dreams we forget, or nightmares, or hallucinations, especially if they only happen once, but this one stuck like an odd half-remembered experience for many years. It wasn't a dream, Mars. It wasn't a drug delusion. I thought, 'What a lousy vision. Everybody else is always talking about glorious lights and in finite tunnels, or Black Elk about nations of horses and rainbows', but I just saw blackness, nothing but total total Black. I think that's what it's really

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like on the other side; and it is fuller than all the lights and pretty ideas, fuller, deeper, infinitely richer, like a Black Hole maybe. Anyway, I lost my job, went back to college, married Michelle and moved to swinging Cairo after graduation, majoring in literature, history, instead of practical premed or Dad's looming Army, the Army, always The War. The army doc tors gave me a deferment, saying I had Epilepsy. Dad didn't know wheth er to be happy or mad about it; but when I started protesting the endless Israeli Wars in Cairo, joining the ludicrous Arab Hippie Movement, Gen eral Jihad went ape-shit and called me 'a coward'." Muhammad paused in his long rambling narration to watch the sun rise over the beautiful green valley in the high rocky cliffs hugging the Missouri River in northern Montana, near the Alberta Canada border; he had been talking all night beside the campfire, which Mars kept replenished with plenty of firewood. "Yeah, but did you call the sexy blonde girlfriend?" Muhammad laughed with his son. "Oh yeah, yeah, I figured out how to use the pay phone after awhile. Michelle freaked out. 'Where've you been?!" she cried. She said she'd been crying all night when I didn't come home, and work only told her I was sick and somebody took me somewhere, they didn't know. Typical Libyan incompetence. Everybody talks about Libyan Terrorism, but they couldn't get dinner together. She came over and I could see the horror in her eyes when she saw me, when I couldn't eat the cherry jello the order lies gave me - it wriggled off my spoon. I didn't know how to eat. I couldn't work a spoon. Michelle was gorgeous, and very kind, and I loved her, but of course I had no idea at all what Love meant. My mother came and sat by my side for weeks, and all the family, and Dad, and the whole Tribe. This was before I went to Cairo and got radical. Before that, you know, I think I've told you before, I had been groomed from birth to be the King as

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the oldest Son, for we were the al-Psylli royalty; we also lived in our an cient ancestral circle of traditional tents and temples outside al-Khums (Homs), when we weren't traveling abroad or on the Army Base in Tripoli, just at the westernmost gate to Great Lebdas which the Garamantian Canaanites built aeons ago; and the Phoenicians and Romans later mar belized; Augustus Caesar, and later Emperor Septimius Severus, the only black African Roman Emperor and general, called it Leptis Magna, the crown jewel of the Mediterranean. Many connoseurs think it was more beautiful than Caesarea Iol of King Juba II in Caesariensis (Algeria), or Ephesus, Palmyra, Petra, or even old Jerusalem. Only Roma herself, and Athens, are more graceful. There, I was trained to be the Chief Counselor to the King, my uncle Mobruk (Pan: All'ah), and later my father. I went to the best Sharia and boarding school in Tripoli and learned the classics of Africa and Arabia and Europe. When I was sixteen I was circumcised like all the boys (and all the girls too? when they were 11 or 12) with a dull spearpoint and no anaesthesia at all; and the men watched my eyes to see how I handled the seering pain, which seemed to shoot into my bones. I did not flinch, I am proud to say. I've always been that way - able to endure terrible pain, steel concen tration and stubbornness rather than strength alone, or character, more to account for my survival than virtue or any sense of responsibility or hard work. I've always been lazy, I confess, and dishonest, insofar as my will ingness ever to do my share of the hard labor, or setting an ethical stand ard. In that my father was right, and Hewwa was right to think I was ar rogant, proud, superior. I could out- concentrate or out-stubborn anybody, and that made me so cocky that I could do anything just by bullying my way through it, thinking my way through anything, including the circum ciser's bloody spear; or, I suppose, now that I think of it, any Israeli torturechamber or American prison. It was important that we learn how to be men and burn our childhoods

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away in fire and war. I have been pleased to see the same stuff in your eyes since you killed those men, sterner stuff, stoic in your manly strength. I'm sorry I have not been able to give you a better idea of our family and tribal training, and that you have not been able to live with us in those shepherd tents, and learn Psyllian Berber, and hunt uaddans, Jerboas, and catch groupers. It was a good rural upbringing I miss very much. It was a country that was once as green and lush as this, fertile, and quiet in the meadows in the morning." The Montana river valley sparkled with fresh dew on the tall buffalo grass and meadowlarks whistled a tune which the horses and squirrels listened to. They went to sleep in their wet down bags for the day, letting the fire go out, smokeless, after Mars read on the Internet the Manhunt for them had intensified, worldwide, and it wasn't safe to travel in the light of Amer ica, the daylight. They slept peacefully in the hidden mountainous shad ows under delicate pale green aspens, in a grove, and the soft long rays of the yellow sun lengthened across the land. By sunset they were up and awake and packing the jeep for a long night's escape into Canada, the Queen's Land, across what the Indians called The Medicine Line between two legal boundaries where different Anglo policemen and soldiers patrolled the same mountains and plains of North America. The CJ-8 sped stealthily like the old Assiniboine Natives hiding from their old Crow and Gros Ventre enemies when only coyote medicine and the Spirit Fences of proto-Algonquian shamans protected, petitioned, the people from the ancient ancestors for permission to pass through their graveyards; buffalo ceremonies, hawk and wolf and fox and the sacred Dog Soldiers. in the long black night they ran north around Great Falls in the empty grasslands full of owls and skunks, rattlesnakes, sagebrush growing like a nation of weeds where the domesticated cattle had dessic ated the grasses.

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Wherever men ranched there herefords or farmed poison pumped up from their polluted, salinated wells, eagles died from buckshot and insecticides sickening rabbits, flowers, scorching pine forests and sage, sweetgrass, turnips, hemp, tobacco, cedar, willow extinguished by roads, fences, pet roleum fertilizers, and plastic made from high grade Libyan Crude. They went around the border guards and Customs Inspections on a side gravel road in the cow pastures at Sweetwater USA and into Coutts Alberta Canada. They had made this run many times before, years ago, when Mars was a boy, a sub-teenager, living in British Columbia on Branwen's remote armed Camp. They sped into the flat farmlands of remote Alberta and picked up the paved highway into Lethbridge when it was safe, where a farm road ran straight past clean white ranches sleeping next to hay barns and chicken coops, horse stables, tall grain Elevators along the Milk River where Chief Joseph and Sitting Bull tried to find refuge with the Redcoats from the U.S. Army led by generals Sherman and Sheridan in the 1870s and 1880s, bloody veteran Union Armies that destroyed Confederate rights and laid waste the economies of Georgia and Montana, massacring their fellow countrymen to keep New York bankers and Boston slave-shippers rich and profitable and clean of any taints of their own slavery of their own making, hundreds of massacres, the lies of their own history. The terrorists sneaked across their last remaining Heartland on a far deserted highway in the corn and wheat fields. They drove around the side streets of the farm town to avoid the eyes and radar of the same hired killers in uniform whom the same bankers and land thieves paid Protection money, like mafia bribes, in the U.S. to impris on, tax, enslave the same poor workers legally, historically, calling it Democracy and Freedom. Muhammad explained it all night as they talked about the Pope and the Jews who made the myths who made the geno cide, propaganda, lies, possible; drinking poisoned water, afraid to eat

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the fresh fruit, corn on the stalks, sheep and hogs and cattle on the hoof diseased with the politics of the bishops who edited the Bible and the rab bis who abolished the prophets of the Torah. At dawn they had to hide again in a deep canyon along the cottonwood shade On the muddy banks of the Belly River outside of the Queen's Fort McLeod where Blackfoot and Blood confederates were imprisoned, taxed, and enslaved for opposing the cruel Black Robes, Jesuits, merchants, whisky traders, buffalo hunters and railroad men building churches on their graveyards, over their Spirit Fences, wolf medicine, the coffins of Dog Soldiers in dead missionary schools beaten out of the red children by whips and chains made of the New Testament. "Torture," Mars said, as they ate a cold breakfast in a rocky spot by the river oily with chemical spills, human waste, shivering in the rocks, lurking afraid of Comsats passing overhead 150 miles up in the sky, the atmo sphere cluttered with thousands of satellites, junk, destruction, "my genera tion has nothing of our past, or history, but torture, death, to feed on." He explained that he was glad his father was trying to invoke a greater Power in his songs to kill death, renew the bones of their millenium murdered by greed, cynicism, apathy, the lust for pleasure. They talked well into the dawn's earliest light while they heard trucks and traffic and machinery on the nearby highway and ranches and factories in the farming towns crash ing, stinking, horns angrily honking in hatred and anxiety and terror.

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"Cairo in 1968 was a sewer of hate and poverty. President Nasser had just gotten his ass royally kicked by the Israeli-Americans in the '67 Six Day War, and Islam, Egypt, all of the African heirs of Ra-Moses were lay ing in the gutters, physically and spiritually, with no hope, it seemed, of ever finding favor with God. That was the worst thing about defeat in War, Son: you thought God was against you and even worse, He was ac tually on the side of those gloating, greedy, white Jews and Christians whom we knew, we KNEW, were as dead wrong about God and the Bible as they could possibly be. It set me to thinking. I started to grow up. Partying and pleasure and fun were not as satisfying anymore as serious prayer, research, study, into the exact truth, the real nature, of God. Yes. I wanted to know what He. or She, or They were really, REALLY, about. Who or what, exactly, was God all about when he obviously sided with shit. Why? It is the same question almost everybody asks. I knew that all the social theories and all the economics had never really solved the ques tion, or the dilemna, of human misery, murder, what was called Evil for want of a better explanation of mankind's Atrocities. I knew the Qu'ran and Bible by then, of course, but I didn't really under stand them, I know now. I thought I did, like most people, and that they were teaching us mainly about love and charity and forgiveness, but I know now that's not what Moses and Mahomet were really talking about, not at the fundamental level. I was going back and forth from Cairo to Libya, but the last time I decided to sail my homemade sailboat, a 16-foot Sunfish that wasn't much more than a leaky surfboard with one nylon sail, along the thousand mile coastline to the Nile Delta alone, and think about it from the perspective of the Sea and Africa, in solitude, saltwater, sand, the Mediterranean of Homer and Virgil too. I thought I might begin with God's Earth. I had to sneak away before dawn from Homs because I was sure everybody would think I was crazy and try to stop me, or question me for explanations. I didn't want to talk to anybody for a long time. I didn't like traveling by

THE LIBYAD
airplanes and cars anyway. I wanted to hear what Goddess of Oceanus had to say. The only books I took with me were The Odyssey and a gram mar of Hieroglyphics, with the Papyrus of Ani in the glossary. It was the happiest voyage of my life, as you can imagine. I can't tell you how much I love the beaches of Africa. That's not to say the oil tankers and rusty freighters weren't already polluting the seas and beaches from the Es Sidr and al-Syrte's petroleum, terminals with globs of muck, tarballs in your toes, silver fishes floating dead in the shiny slicks of Crude, glistening black rainbows on the surface. I had to avoid the ships as I kept in sight of land outside the barrier reefs, at the black Drop-off; the bottom beneath me dark as darkest outer space into the sunken mountains below where the currents and tides, rhythm, waves, and hammerhead sharks drifted de liberately and floated to the winds, gales somehow like the moon in the black starry nights. I actually began to think like the Homeric sailors that the Sea WAS the sky. It really was the cold air. For days and long nights a seaman hallucin ates that the silvery moon's reflections on the waves are spirits shining un bearably bright and white, what Homer called 'bright-eyed Athena like a dream'; they hypnotized me as I sat shivering on the sands around the hump of Benghazi and Cyrene where Simon who carried the Cross was from, another sailor beached, boiling crabs in a bucket of brackish well water on a fire of driftwood, hard red floating palm wood from god knows where, or by whom it would be found in Greece or Italy, or Tunisia, Malta, Cyprus, Crete. I thought a long time of that Libyan whom St. Mark said was the only man who carried the Cross: not even Jesus, he says, ever really carried the Wood. And what were his constant references to fig trees, and vineyards? As I studied the Egyptian hieroglyphics I wondered at the scribe Ani's glyph that proclaimed 'the resurrection of a spiritual body'. Africa? The brown sandstone cliffs and rocky ledges, treacherous shoals that capsized

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me many times, undertows, capricious winds, drew me along like a song. I heard the Sirens of Odysseus in the noonday sun sweltering, sunstroke, doldrums and sweat, and salt, in my ears and eyes, and warm water cool ing me off the way baptism must burn on your parched skin. It was shock ing to jump in at a deserted green cove and gasp at hot clean water freez ing your hot body. I burned black like a Nubian from the Rift valley. I stud ied at the College of Annu in underwater passages like chambers in Pos eidon's fishy pyramids, reading the inscriptions on tombs and sarcophagi about the way they ('they' were not called Egyptians, then) deposited the body in a tomb accompanied by rituals recited or chanted by relatives on behalf of the dead; exactly like Joseph of Aramathea and the centurion and Magdala and Salome only appeared, suddenly, at the end, bringing alabaster (of Egypt!) and spikenard and ointments for ____, to secure his unhindered passage to God, in the next world, to enable him to overcome the ghosts: they would endow his body in the tomb with power to resist corruption, and would ensure him a new life in a glorified body in heaven. That's what Egypt said, on the stelae and ruins I began to see long before I docked, exhausted, hungry, at the Alexandria harbor. And I remembered 14:51-52, a passage so strange I thought surely, by then, so seaworthy I had become, that it was a poet's hallucination or imagination, right after Jesus was arrested in Gethsamane: 'And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him; and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.' In noisy crazy Alexandria, after the peace of the coast for a thousand nautical miles, I remembered the tale, or tradition, that the Evangelist Mark founded a church there. I read on, selling my little boat for a few pence, renting a room in a fleabag on the dock, the wharf with Lawrence Durrell's whores and drunken Europeans dancing around the lighthouse of Pharos, funereal texts of prehistoric Libyan dwellers on the banks of the Nile, mer

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chant banks I mean, pestilential money-changers, Nasser's soldiers 'etaient deja cinq Mille ans avant notre Ere', Hebrews, Communists, Assyrians, Hittites, Hyksos. I drank wine and smoked hashish and want to every cinema, mosque, Greek Orthodox church, saloon, and brothel I could af ford, looking for the oldest pre-Dynastic clue to Herutatef [Herod], the find er of the block of stone the sage Tettata in 1450 B.C. said, in his papyrus, was like the stone Salome and Mary Magdalene found rolled away from the door of the sepulchre of Jesus. Herutatef informed his father Khufu of the existence of a man 110 years old who lived in the town of Tettet-Sene feru~ he was able to join to its body again a head that had been cut off. He also possessed influence over the lion of the Sphinx, and he knew Thoth. By Khufu's command Herutatef brought the Sage to him by boat, and, on his arrival, the king ilike Herod) ordered the head to be struck off from a prisoner that Tetteta might fasten it on again (like Sweet Medicine). Having excused himself from performing this act upon a man, a goose was brought and its head was cut off and laid on one side of the room and the body was placed on the other. The sage spoke certain words of power - and here I learned the hiero glyphs, and their phonetic transliteration only after many subsequent years up and down the Nile: which was an intertwined caduceus of eternity like snakes, such as the staff of the Greek physician Aesculapius, the U of the Ka serpents, a hawk, a kneeling man, three vertical dashest and a curved Contrary Bow representing the penis of the bull-god Apis such as I have learned from your mother the Cheyennes used centuries ago for thunder and lightning medicine ~ whereupon the goose stood up and began to waddle, and the head began to move towards it; when the head had joined itself again to the body the bird stood up and cackled. More glyphs of birds and words of power. Jesus, again, best explained it, to almost no one's satisfaction, in Mark 11:24: 'Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall

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have them.' "It was all in Egypt. Africa was the key. I saw nothing but the total Belief of many millenia in resurrection, eternal life, miracles, wonders in hundreds of monuments and thousands of papyrii. All the origins of Man and God were there in Mark. The rest of the New Testament, and even the Old, I'm not so sure about, but Mark, whoever he was, 0, the purity and genius of his simple little Gospel says it all, SAID it all for the whole new expression of all the old wisdom since Africanus Australopithecus built his first stone wedgie in the Olduvai Gorge. As a Libyan I was never allowed to go to Israel. I've never been to Jerus alem. I don't know Nazareth or Bethlehem, or Caesarea, because I am a brown Arab. So I have had to know Sinai and Caesarea Philippi from TransJordania, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt; and I only know Tel Aviv from inside its dungeons. I went only by windowless prison truck across. Galilee. I cannot but conclude Jesus was right when he said the high priests and the scribes and the elders hated him, and they would kill him, and his memory would be lost. I saw it in the churches there and here and everywhere, and only by singing the entire Gospel According to Saint Mark can I answer my own question as an apprentice, lo, those decades ago, sailing to the Kingdom of God: word for word, hieroglyph for hiero glyph, one anonymous madman writing about a Risen Ghost in a lan guage we're not even sure was Aramaic Or Coptic Greek." Muhammad and Mars traveled into the high mountains of Canada, pray ing, by back roads, stealing food, hiding from the spies and the heirs to the priests and the scribes who would kill them if they could catch them; sneaking into British Columbia ten thousand miles and many lifetimes away from the Cradles of Civilization which armed the churches, syn agogues, schools and their military forts, prisons, markets, storehouses, bankers, retailers, wholesalers, advertisers, insurance agencies arming

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them with human doubt, disbelief, in God's Wonders. The truckers and teachers hated Mars and Muhammad because their Faith terrified the mor tal coil in men, the impulse, to scorn unscientific fables about decapitated Risen Ghosts from Unholy Lands who said men could do anything, and women, if only they forsook everything pleasurable about life - except Life! - and joined the empty congregations until they too could save "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death." People couldn't do it. They could only be miserable, purposelessly, transient, killer apes of the Transvaal who blamed God and Goddess for the crimes of the world. Myths were not true. Gods did not float in the air~ except as preachers and professors told them mathematically, exclusively, Jesus Christ alone and only the Son of God and nobody else could rise from the dead, no matter how many mysterious superstitious Egyptian geniuses said other wise. No, mankind replied. Crucify him. Massacre the buffalo. Breed like bloody clots to increase the consumption, radiating cancers, destroying all sacred privacies in the name of a God who didn't care about Evil. The un holy Terrorists skulked like naked savages across the good landscapes of many little lumber towns cross-cutting whole forests with diesel chainsaws, whole mountains denuded of piney life, birds, flowers, nutritous soil and loam, worms, rabbits, a million bears, countless good rainstorms raped, scalded by unnatural acids, bile, bacteria de-immunized, sterilized, until purposeless cataclysm finally proved the final powerlessness of the Creat or. Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees would finally win. Sacred Roma and Abraham would be discredited and Caligula would be the DiVi FiliUs, Pontifex: Maximus, the Vicar of Christ triumphant in his trillion-dollar Vatic an vomiting dogmas.

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TO KATA MARKON AGION EUAGGELION: The According to Mark Good-Angel-John - The Gospel according to St. Mark, St. James Bible, Chapter 1. The beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; 2. As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger be fore thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.' "Who is the 'I' spoken of here, and to whom, the 'thy' and 'thee'?" Muhammad asked, as he and his son camped in solitude in the North Woods, far from the prying eyes and noise of mankind. "Is the Son of God sending his messenger Mark, or John, or is Mark actually saying he is sending Jesus Christ before our faces, the audience, congregation, or reader? Mark is quoting Malachi, the very last prophet allowed in the Old Testament, linking the Old with the New, 'Behold, I (meaning God, it ap pears) will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts."' Mars looked Puzzled. Muhammad nodded. "Yes, there is an interesting mix of the prophet Malachi with himself as the Lord; but that is very Egyp tian, authentic Osiris theology. I can draw you the hieroglyphs from memory, see? It's from the Papyrus Of Ani, 'The Book of the Dead'. 'The place of the deceased in heaven is by the side of God (un-k ar kes Deter) in the most holy place, and he becomes God and an angel of God; he himself is triumphant, and his ka is triumphant. He sits on a great throne by the side of God. The throne is of iron ornamented with lions' faces and having the hoofs of bulls."' Muhammad drew the hieroglyphs in the ashes beside their campfire. "So it seems that God in saying he is sending Mark to prepare Mark for him self. It goes on. '3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4. John did baptize in the wilder

THE LIBYAD
ness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.' There's John appearing almost immediately at the beginning of the oldest gospel, the very first words of Mark, the origin of all the New Testament of all Christianity. John. Mark. Just exactly what are these four verses saying? It is crucial, I think, to everything of The Bible, and therefore everything of the Christian world we live in, everywhere, all these burned forests. Mark is making it very clear very close to Malachi that a messenger crying in the wilderness is the Son of God; but as with all great literature it is cleverly ambivalent about who that is. The simple traditional explanation of course is that it is Jesus Christ, for it says this is his gospel. But the pronouns make it far from clear. As an ori ginal work of genius, of the highest literary art in four sentences, and the all-important title, not only do we have five subjects - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I the Lord, and John - but also thee, ye, thy, a person or persons who are the objects of the first Person address. Mark expands it again ex ponentially in the very next sentence, 'verse 5. And there went out unto him (who?) all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all bap tized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.' In the Greek translations we have, every letter was capitalized and there was no punctuation. No one seems to know before Bishop Origen in 300 A.D. what the original source manuscripts were at all. It's bizarre, when you think about it. Was it written in Hebrew? Alexandrian Septuagint Greek, Byzantine, or even Latin? I've tried to find out, and Coptic may come closest. They were, and still are, the descendents of ancient Egyp tians practicing probably the truest form of pure Christianity. Copts. But I'll get to them in a while. For now, '6. And John (Ioannes) was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins and he did eat locusts and wild honey.' in direct Greek translation it reads 'And was John clothed in hair of a camel,

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and a girdle of leather about his loins, and eating locusts and honey wild'," "Slightly different meaning," Mars said. Muhammad nodded. '.Yeah, and it connects directly to Honi, who was always described in the Jewish books as eating only carobs, also called the locust tree, wild honey, and sleeping seventy years under a Carob Tree, and wearing camel's hair clothes; although I think that might be a mythic reference to a camel-gnd of some sort. Carob is also in the Aggadah in the Talmud as kavod, dignity. '7. And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchat of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and un loose. 8. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. 9. And It came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.' There's Jesus appearing suddenly, wholly realized, a mature adult it seems, at the very beginning of his own Testament; just like the classical epic structure in which the story begins in the middle, after much has already happened. The Iliad, Aeneid, they're all the same. Paradise Lost. Mark is the oldest gospel, because of its pure primitive style, and Matthew is only printed first now because Eusebius and the fourth century bishops thought the genealogy in Matthew would connect Jesus better.to the Old Testament. But how strange, it seems to me. John ,is the beginning. The next gospel, Luke, goes into John's and Jesus's births, and the fourth gospel is named John, and begins with John. Hanina, Honi, which is John in Hebrew, Ioannes in Greek, was from Arav in Galilee, ten miles from Nazareth. I've read some histories that said Nazareth wasn't even in existence in 1

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A.D. But I'll stick to scripture, which says in Numbers in the 4th Back of the Old, 'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite [see Lamentations 4.7, and John 13.51] to separate [or consecrate, Leviticus 22.2f Ezekiel 14.7] them selves unto the Lord: He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine (Jesus refuses vinegar on the Cross), or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried.' The whole of Chapter 6 of Numbers, of the original Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, goes on and on about the rules applying to a Nazarite." Mars grinned, "Sounds like Nazi. Is that a coincidence?" "I don't know," his father replied. "The Nazis were certainly Christians. The Lamentations of Jeremiah, a prophet in about 600 B.C., said, 'Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk.' It sounds a little like the very next verse of Mark, '10. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him.' Now, Spirit is a very difficult word for all the Greek translators, because pneuma could be a person or the spirit of a Christian referred to [see Ro mans 8.9 - 'But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his'.] In English the translators put a capital S when the holy spirit was referred to, but in some places they all admit it is really doubtful. Also, the tenses of Greek verbs, like the Aorist tense, really confuse the meaning of the english translations from future to past and the indefinite past. For example, if I say 'he HAS cleansed me'. it is more than saying 'he cleansed me'. The former expression indicates the perfect tense and

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implies a continuation of the act or its effects to the present time, whereas the latter speaks of an act at some time in the past, without anything being implied as to its continuation. In Romans 3.3, 'For I COULD WISH that my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren.' Here the word for 'I could wish' is in the imperfect. if the learned translators and Biblical Scholars ever agreed we should have kept to the same, but, while some translate 'I could wish' as a conditional present, others give 'I could have wished' as a conditional past. You see? Oh well, I'm boring you. I'll skip the subjunctive, and dative in latin, and pronouns and compound words, and certainly the epistles of Paul and the others and go to another of Mark's astonishing leaps of plot. 'Verses 11,12, 13: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my be loved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' Pure Egyptian blood connectiono the family of the gods. 'And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wil derness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered upon him.' That's one of my favorite verses, pure paganism. Satan is from Chronicles, which is from Genesis, the serpent of Eve, Isisis, Hissss, Sheitan in Hebrew, who spoke God's greatest truth, Genesis 3.4, 'Ye shall not surely die'. I think that's pretty good evidence that Mark, at least, didn't think Eve was the Death Goddess. Neither do I; but that is where your mother thinks I am unjust. Now get this huge leap of plot in Mark's fourteenth verse, 'Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.' Can you believe that? John and Jesus, John and Je sus, going and coming. One is put away, the other one comes, 'came' INTO Galilee. I thought Jesus was already in Galilee? He's from 'Naz areth of Galilee.' Oh, but, ah ha, in the same sentence you'll remember back in good old verse 9 he 'was baptized OF John IN Jordan.' It doesn't

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say necessarily the Jordan RIVER, but maybe the Country of Jordan, which back then as Transjordania ran from what is Lebanon and Syria today across Nabatea and Arabia back then. Hmm? And the prepositions OF and IN are variable and inconsistent even in the most faithful of devout Greek translators who say prepositions were always the most doubtful parts of speech in even the most ancient biblical documents. Can you ima gine the change of meaning from OF John to FROM John or IN John to TO Jordan or OUT OF Jordan? It's endless, and the parallels of John WITH Je sus are possible. Again, it's Mark's powerful ability, like Homer's and Merlin's, to make a sacred story more effective and invocative with words skillfully juxtaposing the spells of mythic grammar. I am amazed at his spellbinding skill And mastery. '15. And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.' His first words. The very first words of Jesus Christ in all history, the most famous man in history, are telling us, ye, in the second person directly to repent and believe. That's what it's all about - not love or forgiveness or all that crap the churches fill everybody with, but, goddamn it, you are screwups and you don't believe in the EUANGELION, which is the 'Good Evangelist John', more accurately translated than Gospel, Godspell, or whatever. God's spell? What's that? A spell, like a wizard's magic incant ation or conjuration or something? From German from Gott for God. Strange. 'Time is fulfilled'? Like, prophecy, which is inspired poetry? And how or what is a kingdom of God, no less, AT HAND? We hear a lot in the old Hebrew Egyptian testament of the HAND of God and FACE. Pure Egyptian theology. But enough of that, let's move the plot along again like a veteran classical playwright changing the equilibrium. ' 16. Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and An drew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.

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17. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 18. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. 19. And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. 20. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.' Well, there's some more story ambivalence that's not always too readily apparent. Another John, some guys in a ship, and some not, and hardly the working slobs like we're always told with hired Servants; and sons leaving their father. The repetition of Zebedee in the otherwise lean and spare Mark is also interesting to me, as an Arab. Zebedee is the Greek form of Zebediah, which is the full form of Zabdi, which means the gift of Jehovah in the Book of Joshua, who was the Egyptian heir to pharaoh Moses. Joshua says in Chapter 7 of his life story, verse 1, 'But the children of Is rael committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Car mi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the ac cursed thing; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel.' The accursed thing is the city of Jericho, which Joshua destroyed, and which King Herod the Great rebuilt again. The sons of Zebedee, therefore, in the time of Jesus would probably be Herodians, supporters of Herod and his New Jericho, and Mark is saying Jesus is also a Herodian by immediately recruiting the sons of Zebedee; which, I take it further, says Jesus is saying Joshua and his Israelites were and are full of shit by claiming they spoke for the Lord, and not for the tribe of Judah. Judah, as anyone knows who knows their Hebrew history, was an enemy

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of Israel until King David united them, by force of arms, admittedly (well, controversially, as I think David the poet of Bethlehem is not the same viol ent David the conqueror of Jerusalem; but I'll get to that another time). He was the first Messiah. Herod was the second because he forced Israel.and Judah to unite again, which included Jordan and Nabatea. It's still the cause of war on the West Bank of the Jordan between Jews and Arabs over where the true borders are of all those nebulous territories and dis puted Scriptures. Jews and Arabs, my son. Jews and Arabs. Joshua and the Qua-Moses of the prejudiced Torah were leaders of a breakaway fun damentalist cult from Egypt, uptight ascetics who didn't like wine, women, or song. The children of Israel, or rather, the real Canaanites, Phoenicians, opposed the assholes, and lost the battle of history in the propaganda of The Bible, the mess, that is, of the hopeless mixture of the crazy Old Testa ment. David, for instance, is a good shepherd and a pagan so he's trashed by bloodthirsty warmongers calling themselves prophets like Samuel, and Puritans like Nathan and Zadok, but, on the other hand, like Herod, the Second Great Messiah, he is revered and his Temple Walls are still worshipped. Go fish, Jesus says. As a religion Judaism doesn't make sense. '21. And they went to Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught. 22. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.' This argues again strongly for John, Hanina, the charismatic Hasid icono clast and Canaanite being Jesus, and a member of the royal Herod family to boot. Isaiah said that Galilee 'of the nations' (9.1) was beyond Jordan, by the way of the sea, and Capernaum was never listed in any map of the time; which is suspect as to Mark's arbitrary use of it as important, except as a mythic 'city of consolation' in counterpoint to Herod's cities of Tiberi as and Julias, which were later intolerable to the bishops and editors who

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couldn't stand the idea that Romans and Herodians were not only deeply religious, but that Jesus liked them. More proof of that, though, much more, as we go along. Another incredibly rich complication of plot in verse 23: 'And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24. Saying, Let us alone; What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus (NAZAREOS) of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou are, the Holy One of God.' in Greek he's a Nazarene, not OF Nazareth. Which must be the same as a Nazarite. The english translators dishonestly say Nazareth routinely in this quote, but, back at verse 9 it is accurately Nazareth (Greek). More correctly it is 'saying, Ah! what to us and to thee, Jesus, Nazarene? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy of God (Greek) Why do Christians routinely add 'Let us alone' when it is not there? And 'What have we to do with thee?' And Holy One instead of just Holy? Strange anti-Jewish hostility, making prominent this man with an un clean spirit in the synagogue defining Jesus and what they think of him. Subtle stuff. '25. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.' Literally, it is 'And rebuked him Jesus, saying, Be silent, and come forth out of him.' '26. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him'. 'And having thrown into convulsions him the spirit the unclean, and having cried with a voice loud, came forth out of him.' I already shocked the multitudes with my analysis that this is sexual Di onysian exorcism. Convulsions' that 'had torn him' could be epilepsy and John-Jesus is using shock treatment which the Egyptians had already exper imented with. You know what? I don't like the english version; I'm going to

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go straight with the original Greek, and maybe, I'm feeling, it will help me find the Aramaic or Hebrew, or not, of what Kata Markon really wrote. '27. And were astonished all, so that they questioned together among themselves, saying, What is this? what teaching new this, that with authority even the spirits the unclean he commands, and they obey him?' (Ah, see why they think we are devil-worshippers?) '28. And went out the fame of him immediately in all, the around country Galilee.' Interesting difference, eh, as they say in Canada, that a few words changed around can mean? Why was Jesus so famous so fast for one ex orcism? I submit that he was already famous as Hanina as the black sheep of the royal House of Hyr, for it is made clear throughout the New Testa ment that John was famous, infamous, a well-known nut who was preach ing the eternal life of Egypt, an anti-Saddacee (the Zadoks) who didn't be lieve in resurrection. But don't believe me, here's verse 29 from the Greek. 'And immediately out of the synagogue having gone forth they came into the house of Simon (Greek) and Andrew, with James and John. 30. And the mother-in-law of Simon was lying in a fever. And immedi ately they speak to him about her. 31. And having come to [her?] he raised up her, having taken her hand. And left her the fever (Greek) immediately, and she ministered to them. 32. Evening and being come, when went down the sun they brought to him all who ill were and those possessed by demons; 33. and the city whole gathered together was at the door (Greek). 34. and he healed many that were ill of various diseases, and demons (Greek ) many he cast out, and suffered not to speak the demons, because they knew him."'

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Muhammad paused to sip his coffee, and Mars sighed. "Wow. Demons. What's that Dad, do you know?" "I think they're bad people who once lived, or, more accurately are still liv ing and doing their same old shit. The other world upon death is a continu ance of this one. A few random phrases from The Book of The Dead stick in my head: 'Unas is a bull,in heaven ... Lake of Fire ... He that cutteth off hairy scalps ... his blazing caldrons (grails, I think) ... The mighty ones in heaven shoot out fire under the caldroAs which are heaped up with the haunches of the Firstborn ... hath shot into the caldrons the haunches of their women ... two banks of the celestial Nile ... his meat is those who live upon magical charms in their hearts.' All these practices were familiar to our Tribe before Mahomet tried to clean up the bloody feasts, the ideas of hunting, killing, roasting and eating the gods. It is retained in the sacri fice of Jesus, his body and blood of The Last Supper, and of course in the famous Grail - which is GRAS-EL, the stomach of God in our King Arthwyr myths. I will get to Merlin's great Gospel too in a while. What else can it mean when Markos pleads in verse 35, 'And very early while yet night having risen up he went out and departed into desert a place, and there was praying'.? What sadness Jesus must have felt, an immortal spirit, bat tling endless legions of demons, devils, people who did not believe in eternal life nor love anymore, but caught in The Way, and The Truth, in blackness and the desert; the Resurrection, the Rising Up of night but his own light not having yet risen up'? It's so much clearer and profounder than our Authorized Version, '35. And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.'" The North Woods were very dark. They too felt solitary and the prayerful solitude necessary among terrible and noisy mankind. And went after him Simon and those with him and having found him they

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say to him All seek thee And he says to them Let us go into the neighbor ing country towns that there also I may preach for this because have I come forth And he was preaching in their synagogues in all Galilee and the demons casting out And-comes to him a leper beseeching him and kneeling down to him and saying to him If thou wilt thou art able me to cleanse And Jesus being moved with compassion having stretched out [his?] hand he touched him and says to him I will be thou cleansed And he having spoken immediately departed from him the leprosy and he was cleansed And having strictly charged him immediately he sent him away And says to him See to no one anything [nothing] thou speak but go thyself shew to the priest and offer for thy cleansing what ordered Moses for a testimony to them But he having gone out began to proclaim [it] much and to spread abroad the matter am that no longer he was able openly into (thel city to enter but without in desert places was and they came to him from every quarter

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The journey up the Nile and down Africa led to any prophet's apotheosis from the Siwa Oasis to Memphis, Luxor, Thebes, Elephantine, and Abu Simbel; as Ramses II parted the Sahara sands to bury Hittites come to kill his people according to all the histories. Young Muhammad al-Psylli, the Prince of Libya, went that way too and read the signs in the sand etched into rocky temples, tombs, stone carved by gods, artists, the faithful of Great Tun and his mother Nu. Corrupt Alexandria by the Sea shifted in a sandstom blowing south from the Desert, a red blowing Ghibli suffocating, obscuring Cairo Airport from the train when Muhammid pulled into the de pot where On-Heliopolis, Annu, the City of the Not- Sun bustled with life; noise, the red pollution of ten million tourists and Arabs destroying any evidence of the old Holy City in the Nile. Green fields fertilized by the dirty river and palm groves waved in the hot storm winds on the flat Delta as thousands of overcrowded buses belching diesel smoke and Peugeots, Citroen cement trucks, Fords, Fiats, Buicks raced south to the city; hustlers, pimps, thieves screaming at the Americ ans, "Tours to Pyramids, best prices in Egypt, Hello Joe, see Alabaster! Alabaster!" Expensive air- conditioned tourist buses with tinted glass glided untouched by the heat and desperate squalor of Arabian Egypt, rancid, disease ridden Islamic Africa almost calm and soothing to Muhammad in his sandals and ankle-length barracan robes, sunglasses, sailor's cap, hitchhiking on a donkey cart to the excavation site of Annu. Few tourists bothered with the ugly back roads among machinery junked behind makeshift sandstone huts where black women toiled hatefully in barren patches of beans, tomatoes, glaring at rich foreigners, strangers in nice shoes taking photographs of the colorful poverty - tattooed barefooted women and children crawling with flies. They knew Mohamed already, and smiled at him, surprising smiles suddenly lighting their hopeless lives and black eyes. He'd been there many times before, looking for A'Tem-Ra when he'd been a Cairo college playboy on the periphery, a part-time ad venturer and bon vivant, fancying himself a gigolo, the James Bond of the jet set. He smiled at the recollection of his foolishness and smiled back at

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the laborers in the fields. "As salaam alaiku." He sat with them on the ground in the cool shade of a groceria and sipped tea and listened to the gossip. Archaeologists at the Site were throwing around a lot of money but paying only the usual slave wages while they, the Europeans and their kiss ass local boys, stayed in the lux urious hotels and drove big Land Rovers. An old woman told Hamad she'd found a stone shard but wasn't about to let "The infidels" see it, she said. She took him to an irrigation ditch be hind a gravel pit and uncovered an old slab hidden under some camel grass. She read it to him, slurring toothily in jumbled Arabic, "The Chapter of coming forth by day in the underworld." She showed a row of hiero glyphs carved on the other side. "An rer-na se Sexet-aru." They smiled at each other. '"I have gone round the canal of the Sekhet-Aaru'," he re peated in Arabic, and wrote it in his english notebook. She nodded hap pily and gave him a big smelly kiss. "Succharin, succharin, wa-salaamu alaikum, gifhaelic." He walked on down the dusty camel and burro trail between orchards of olive trees and reeking chicken coops, crippled dogs Playing soccer with boys in a vacant lot, two men in an old Fiat truck yelling at a mechanic in a dirty garage full of greasy old parts and trucks without wheels, . engines, up on blocks and lifts hanging from rusty chains, fingering his copy of Turin papyrii, in Italian. "Yeah, here it is. 'I have gone round the canal of Sekhet-Aaru, Hath been given to me eternity without its limits', yeah, blah blah blah, 'I am Beb son eldest of Osiris .-- he washeth god every within his eyes in Heliopolis'. No no, Annu is not Heliopolis. Shit. Totally wrong translation. Uh, let me see, Sekhfit was in Het-kau-Ptah, Memphis the wife of Ptah, and the mother of Nefer_Tmu and of I-em-het ep." He sat in the shade of a Carob to think, wishing he had EI-71afi's poems, or the 'A7wal 7aila' Epic by Muhammad Ben Zidan, and a Coke.

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Flies swarmed around the carobs rotting on the ground and the heat of the ghibli winds was almost unbearable. The sky was a pale red in the continental sandstorm. Dad had sent him twenty pounds out of pity when he called, and he could stay with Auntis Bast in Cairo if he wanted. She was a fundamentalist Muslim though. He sighed. Dad told him to get a job if he wasn't going in the Army; and 1969 had gone by, the Revolutionary Councils had taken over and he was reading Mao Tse-Tung with more interest and admiration than ever; Nasser died in 1970, Anwar Sadat held tenuous power in '71 and '72 trying to deal with the revisionist pseudo-Communists of the Soviet Union; and still Muhammad bummed his way around the slums and back roads looking to understand Osiris and Horus. He grew afraid in British Columbia that his own son would have to fulfill the Legends of Isis, his mother Annie like White Buffalo Woman too, back in Yellowstone renewing the herds. He couldn't tell Mars the terrible story. Instead, Mars joined the Maoists. ("But now Horus had grown up, and being encouraged to the use of arms by his father Osiris, who returned from the other world, he went out to do battle with Set, the brother who murdered his father. The fight lasted many days, and Set was made captive. But Isis, to whom the care of the prisoner was given, so far from aiding her son Horus, set Set at liberty. Horus in his rage tore from her head the royal diadem; but Thoth gave her a helmet in the shape of a cow's head. In another papyrus version Horns became like a panther of the south in his fury and cut off her head; which Thoth trans formed by his words of magical power and set it upon her body again in the form of a cow.") Muhammad kept to himself the terrible possibility, the knowledge, that if he were indeed a Dionysian Osiris then Mars might very well be an aven ging Horus who would have to kill his treacherous mother, Annie. Had An

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nie betrayed him? Isis didn't really betray Horus and Osiris - she was an essential player in the drama of Regeneration, necessary to the sacrificial rebirth. What would it mean, though? How would it play out? Isis was surely Eve, though, the goddess who must surely have been manipulating her daughter Athena. At Giza he read her story on the glyphs of the pyramid Mycerinus built, with his father, Seneferu to raise his body from the hot sand: "Sam ta, the union with the earth, of the pyramidal coming forth in the form of a living soul, the deceased pharaoh with his left hand touching the heart upon his breast, kneeling before a demon holding a knife." He read on the walls the Chapter of not being eaten by worms in the un derworld Tuat; of the deceased spearing a serpent which is biting the neck of an ass; of not allowing the head of a man to be cut off from him in Tuat; of the Chapter of not decaying, and of living in Tuat; the deceased ador ing three gods; the Chapter of traveling to Annu, and of receiving an abode there; Of the deceased standing before the door of a tomb; of be coming a prince among the divine powers; a Vignette of the soul visiting the body which lies on a bier; the Chapter of giving memory to a man; of making the body to germinate and of satisfying it with the water of heav en; the Chapter of raising up the body and making the eyes to see, mak ing the ears to hear, setting firm the head; the repulses Of the enemies of Osiris by Thoth; Un-nefer; the everlasting Lord; the mountain of the dead that was the Pyramids from which appears the goddess Hathor or Hetheru, Herodias's own "House of Hyr" who was also Eve the original daughter of Great Goddess of love, beauty, and happiness. She was Hera in Greece, and in Jerusalem hers was a Temple to Hera-Aphrodite that the Roman emperor Constantine uncovered in 330 A.D. over the site of what he and every other Biblical expert said was both the site of the Crucifixion AND Christ's Tomb. A pilgrim in 333 reported a basilica "of wondrous beauty" there, with reservoirs of water along the side and a baptistery be hind. Other pilgrims also reported that a shrine of Aphrodite occupied the

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site until Constantine ordered its demolition. ("Aphrodite?" he wondered. "Was she really the same as Venus as the Romans said? Gabriel?") Excav ations were made under the ruins until a tomb was discovered, which ap pears from the historical accounts to have contained not a body, but some wood, which its finders identified as the cross on which Christ was cruci fied. Constantine, and Christians in general, hailed the discovery as manifest proof of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. The emperor commis sioned the construction of a lavishly appointed church and wrote to Macari us, the bishop of Jerusalem, to bedeck the new Church of the Holy Sep ulcher with gold and Jewels, and dedicated it in September 335 by a form al council of bishops. And so it was to this day the holiest shrine in Christendom to millions of pilgrims. Venus. The Pyramids as her House of Hathor a mountain of the dead bedecked by a woman having a disk and horns upon her head, a lion's head like a Sphinx sometimes surmounted by a uraeus of the tomb of Ta-sertat, she who provides meat and drink for the deceased, like the Marys at Christ's tomb. (Was the tomb or Crucifixion Tree of Osiris under a pyramid too? The 'Stone' rolled away from Christ's tomb?) "Greece," Muhammad mumbled on the western plateaux of the Nile, still squatting in the dirt in his sandals and rough hemp robes, bearded, deep er-voiced, a familiar pilgrim to the Arabs and a holy man to them by 1973, a voice crying in the wilderness, "How they have confused Prometheus with Ptah. Hera with Isis. 0." The pyramids were mountains shimmering above the green Nile Valley below, on their dry plateaux, Mummies in the mu seums in a row aligned like stars to the vertical rows of hieroglyphs and pa pyrii, Sekhet Aaru, the Kher-Heb his uncle Mobruk in Mecca. 0. He had been to Mecca again (like it was within the alignment of the pyramids and mummies to the stars), by train to Luxor, across the Red Sea like Ramses fol lowing the megaliths to the boiling Black Rock - KA'BA. He had spoken to

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the Caliph Ali at Zem-zem and Ka'Ba of his idea to train a true Jibed Bri gade of peaceful warriors, a Libyad epic of the classical Qu'ran and Han nah ahadiths in which, after the testimony of Oneness with Allah, Jihad is regarded as the very best act of worship. It is superior to all the obligatory prayers and Zakat, fastings, and glories, he said. Ali exclaimed, "Never before has such a Jihad been described in its true colors, so heart-evoking and encouraging! May Allah bless you with all His Blessings for all times. May Allah reward the warriors who perform it with lofty dwellings in the Gardens of Paradise and as a mercy for the 'Alameen [mankind and jinns], to fight against the Al-Mushrikum and give you safe shelter. The Prophet Muhammad carried on his mission of inviting people to Allah Ta'ala and persisted in this invitation for 13 years, despite the harm and injuries he suffered, which he used to forgive the ignorant. He recited, 'And We never punish until We have a Messenger (to give warnings) (V.17:15).' The people continued in their transgression; they did not take guidance from the manifest proof of Allah Ta'ala." Ali pledged unlimited financial support for the Jihad Brigade, which he re ceived from King Aziz's unlimited Saudi oil revenues; and, when he did so, Colonel Muammar al Qathafi also pledged support and the Al-Kufra Oasis to train the Holy Warriors, across from Egypt and Chad and Sudan in the deepest deserts of Libya. A Thousand Strong came from all over an cient Annu. His father didn't know what to make of his son's fame as a peaceful jihaddim, a Marabout as they were calling him of Ramses, a Khar-Heb of Het~Ka-Ptah and Aaru. Muhammad wondered himself, at night in the desert, of the Angel who had come to him in his sleep in the Mosque of Ali and whispered, "Good Lord, Husband, holy pilgrims from heaven are here to see you."

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He heard their Voices, the Messenger and the Angel, and an old woman and a pathetic old man whispering about their worries for the Prince of Libya; and who he was, and where he had been all those years; and if he could tell them who they were, or what they had ever been, and soothe their burning minds. Then the Yom Kippur War began on Ramadhan 1393, October 6 1973, and he was already storming the Bar-Lev Line across the Suez Canal and annihilating the Israeli Army.

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"Sinai," Gabriel said, in disguise in Rome Italy, thinking about where to deposit the Pope's soul. She was dressed in the exquisite designer habits of the Holy Sisters of the Sepulcher, in navy blue and the finest white Tuscany linen and oxfords; and she was at Solemn High Mass in St. Peter' s Basilica where the Holy Father was celebrating the Holy Day of the Im maculate Conception and the Advent season. All Roma was a celebration of the Church apostolic, catholic ecclesia, Confiteor ad Altare Dei of de vout Italia; St. John Lateran and the Arch of Trajan side by side and sur rounding the Palatine Hill where Caesar divi filius built the marble ba silicas to Venus and Jupiter that became Pauline cathedrals, Hadrianic Baths monasteries, seminaries, convents converted from the Sanctuaries of the Genius of Augustus, palaestrae, caldarium baptismal baths, Herculean temples. It was a City-state and a nation rivaled only by Egypt for its universal piety and devotion to the Next Life, the artistry, sculpture, architecture lasting for millenia. Not even Greece and its imperial influence from Persia, India, and books stolen from Asia Minor and Sumer and Crete rivaled the in genuity and synthetic endurance of Rome; Michelangelo, Dante, Fellini, Francisco d'Assisi, Sophia Loren. Gabriel enjoyed her images in gorgeous Neopolitan stained glass as a pretty white boy, a fiery champion against Lucifer Beelzebub, Satan, the black Moor raping Compagna; Annunci ations to Queen Mary the Mother of God; and the morbid, curious, fascin ation with Crucifixion, martyrdoms, persecution or Inquisitions and Cru sades. It made her afraid, as she walked the Appian Way of historical Etruscia, ostia, Pompeii, Sorrento, that so many devils sank at the Last Judgement into so many great paintings of Hell and eternal Damnation; man, consumed by their desires, Purgatorio, celebrating, propagating fur ther victories of Evil. She saw the Eternal City as if it was in love with pain. She saw that her Husband was right when he said, "I think demons are bad people who once lived." She looked at the Pope in his satin robes and gold crown.

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"They are the spirits of bodies still alive who think God can create evil." She stood up and walked boldly past the Swiss Guards and scores of frowning Monseigneurs, ecumenical scribes, priests, and elders, Pharisees, up to the great pilloried Altar unto the tottering Caesar consecrating the Host of Christ, "In comics Petri, et Filii, et Spiritu Sancti, Amen." A billion Catholics watching on cable satellite uplink watched in horror as a black Nun covered the Pontiff in shadow, the golden Chalice crashing to the parquet floor (echoing all the way up the 30 flights of the Dome), and the candles blew out in their ruby and emerald candlabra forged by mas ter artisans of Firenze and Venezia. Women screamed and ran off in ter ror. Brave warriors felt ice freeze in their blood. The greatest Palace on earth with the loot of priceless paintings, the Sistine Chapel, silver and Jade from the slave mines of Bolivia, Borneo, Xikiang, a corporation worth countless trillions of untaxed lira, dollars, piastres, francs, dinars, rupees, pesos, lost its head? its Vicar, whose claim to the Mitre came from Simon Peter to whom Jesus Christ said in Mark 8:33, "Get thee behind me, Satan: for thy thoughts are not of the things of God but the things of men." A violent wind blew open the great bronze doors and broke the waterford crystals, tiffany windows, and the comatose body of Il Pape, Pontifex Max imus, collapsed on the steps to his medieval Throne. The Black Hand of God flew with his Soul like a Halo across Brindisium, Kerkira and Ithaka, Attica, Patmos, Tarsus, Antioch, Byblos, and Bethany unto Zion, Mt. Sinai, to her demolished Shrine of Venus beneath the Holy Church of the Sep ulcher in broad daylight, dropping the Ghost of Caesar onto the Rock of Jerusalem. Thousands of worshippers, Muslims, and Jews, saw it. The An gel of the Lord rose before the multitude and spoke in a voice like the thun der of Passover Friday, "Now Isis was a woman who possessed words of power. Her heart was wearied with the billions of men, and she chose the millions of the gods, but she esteemed more highly the millions of the KHUs. She meditated in

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her heart, saying, 'Cannot I by means of the sacred name of God make myself mistress of the earth and become a goddess like unto Ra in heaven and upon earth?' Now behold, each day Ra entered at the head of his holy mariners and established himself upon the throne of the two horizons. The holy one had grown old, he dribbled at the mouth, his spittle fell upon the earth, and his slobbering dropped upon the ground. And Isis kneaded it with earth in her hand, and formed thereof a sacred serpent in the form of a spear; she set it not upright before her face, but let it lie upon the ground in the path whereby the great god went forth, according to his heart's desire, into his double kingdom. Now the holy god arose, and the gods who followed him as though he were Pharaoh went with him; and he came forth accord ing to his daily wont; and the sacred serpent bit him. The flame of life de parted from him, and he who dwelt among the cedars was overcome. The holy god opened his mouth and the cry of his majesty reached into heav en. His company of gods aside 'What hath happened?' and his gods ex claimed, 'What is it?' But Ra could not answer, for his jaws trembled and all his members quaked; the poison spread swiftly through his flesh just as the Nile invade th all his land. When the great god had stablished his heart, he cried.unto those who were in his train, saying, 'Come unto me, O ye who have come into being from my body, ye gods who have come forth from me, make ye known unto Khepera that a dire calamity hath fallen upon me. My heart perceiveth it, but my eyes see it not; my hand hath not caused it, nor do I know who hath done this unto me. Never have I felt such pain, neither can sickness cause more woe than this. I am a prince, the son of a prince, a sacred essence which hath proceeded from God. I am a great one, the Son of a great one, and my father planned my name; I have multitudes of

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names and multitudes of forms, and my existence is in every god. I have been proclaimed by the heralds Tmu and Horus, and my father and my mother uttered my name; but it hath been hidden within me by him that be get me, who would not that the words of power of any seer should have dominion over me. I came forth to look upon that which I have made, I was passing through the world which I had created, when lo! something stung me, but what I know not. Is it fire? Is it water? My heart is on first my flesh quaketh, and trembling hath seized all my limbs. Let there be brought unto me the children of the gods with healing words and with lips that know, and with prayer which reacheth unto heaven.' The children of every god came unto him in tears, Isis came with her healing words and with her mouth full of the breath of life, with her enchantments which destroy sick ness, and with her words of power which make the dead to live. And she spake, saying, 'What hath come to pass, O holy father? What bath happened? A serpent bath bitten thee, and a thing which thou best cre ated bath lifted up his head against thee. Verily it shall be cast forth by my healing words of power and I will drive it away from before the sight of thy sunbeams.' The holy god opened his mouth and said, 'I was passing along my path, and I was going through the two regions of my lands ac cording to my heart's desire, to see that which I had created, when lo! I was bitten by a serpent which I saw not. Is it fire? Is it water? The orgasm of creation? I am colder than water, I am hotter than fire. All my flesh sweateth, I quake, my eye hath no strength, I cannot see the sky, and the sweat rusheth to my face even as in the time Of summer. Then said Isis unto Ra, 'O tell me thy name, holy father, whom no one has ever heard pronounced, for whosoever shall be delivered by thy name shall live.' [And Ra said], 'I have made the heavens and the earth, I have ordered the mountains [the pyramidsj, I have created all that is above them, I have made the water, I have made to come into being the great and wide sea, I have made the "Bull of his mother". from whom spring the delights of love. I have made the heavens, I have stretched out the two horizons like a cur

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tain, and I have placed the soul of the gods within them. I am he who, if he openeth his eyes, doth make the light, and, if he closeth them, darkness cometh into being. At his command the Nile riseth, and the gods know not his name. I have made the hours, I have created the days, I bring forwards the festivals of the year, I create the Nile flood. I make the fire of life, and I Provide food in the homes. I am Khepera in the morning, I am Ra at noon, and I am Tmu at even.' Meanwhile the poison was not taken away from his body, but it pierced deeper, and the great god could no longer walk. Then said Isis unto Ra, 'What thou hast said is not thy name. O tell it unto me, and the poison shall depart; for fie shall live whose name shall be re vealed.' Now the poison burned like fire, and it was fiercer than the flame and the furnace and the majesty of the god said, 'I consent that ISIS shall search into me, and that my name shall pass from me into her.' Then the god hid himself from the gods, and his place in the boat of millions of years was empty. And when the time arrived for the heart of RA [Ab-Ra-Ham] to come forth, Isis spake unto her son Horus [Herod], saying, 'The god hath bound himself by an oath to deliver up his two eyes.' Thus was the name of the great god taken from him, and Isis, the lady of enchantments, said, 'Depart, poison, go forth from Ra. O eye of Horus, go forth from the god and shine outside his mouth. It is I who work, it is I who make to fall down upon the earth the vanquished poison; for the name of the great god hath been taken away from him. May Ra live! and may the poison die, may the poison die, and may Ra live!' These are the words of Isis, the great god dess, the queen of the gods, who knew Ra by his own name."

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"The Queen is the next to be subpoenaed before the Tribunal of the 3 Archangels of God and Goddess," Muhammad explained to Branwen in her camp in Canada, far from the prying eyes and ears of the modern world. Mars was typing it all on the Internet as The Libyad.Com like a spider weaving her own worldwide Web, too; a poisonous spider, a queen, trapping flies and demons. Branwen and her royal mother the noble Arianrhod, looked at him delighted and thrilled by the plot. "Queen Isis?" Branwen asked in her clipped Canadian English, a tall and muscular, blonde, beautiful Warrior with scars of bullets from Royal Mountie Redcoats In her arm and leg, wounds of battle, elegant Branwen thirty years old breast-feeding her daughter Rhiannon. "Queen Elizabeth II," Muhammad corrected. They laughed. "Oh Her!" the tall blonde wo men shouted, Welsh royalty, the true British repressed by the Anglo-Saxon Englishwoman in their 1400-acre camp in the Kamloops Shuswap hills self-sufficient cabins, free of 'public utilities', energy, creek water from melted snow in the Moose Ranges high above Her Majesty's flags above Crown Laws from London, a Commonwealth of pine forests and 70% of the world's fresh water. Shuawap warriors patroled the far remote perimet ers of their camp, Her Land, for drunken Canadian neighbors and auspi cious ranchers, miners, hunters who might wonder at Branwen's ways and wander into her line of fire. RCMP helicopters and patrols routinely circled her private lands, concealing also the largest Medicine Wheel and natural Temple in North America under snow, in aspen groves: a huge Stone Circle half a kilometer in radius, wide concentric circles around ceremoni al burial cairns. It was what had always drawn Muhammad there, and he was not surprised Divine Nobility owned it and protected it, The Mandala, from prying demons. They had been watching Gabriel's speech on the PC, Mars's laptop Apple computer receiving the broadcast live from Rome and Jerusalem, and the worldwide shock. "Terror!" Branwen exulted joyously, bravely. "Yes," Muhammad smiled, always amazed at her power.

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"This is really shaking up the old boys, eh?" Arianrhod asked, just as bold and intelligent as her fine daughter but more cautious, cynical, wrinkled by more failures. Arianrhod always wanted to know more about the world, read more books, asked more questions than Branwen who was a leader of action, the one who bought the Camp without electricity or plumbing, telephones, 30 kilometers from any town. The old barn she lived in, a hundred years old, and renovated, insulated against the snow and icy wind, was big and bare, full of natural soybeans and coffee barrels, honey, vegetarian ham burgers in an icehouse next to the cold stinking outhouse, above the creek from where they hauled buckets for dishwashing, tub baths, ice cold miner al water better than Muhammad had ever tasted, water so sharp it was full of medicine spirits that kept them all healthy, vigorous, defiant like Bran wen. Arianrhod asked, "So it is the Archangel Gabriel, you're saying, who has kidnapped the President of the United States, and the Pope?" Muhammad nodded silently. Arianrhod looked skeptical. He said, "Do you know Sir Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur'? It is the same as the Je sus story, only with Saxon militarism. Uther Pendragon, whom Malory, a 14th century Saxon in London, said was the father of King Arthur in the English rewrite, revision, of the true British-Welsh myth, and history, fucked Igraine at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall; the wife of Duke Gorlois, thanks to an unexplained disguise the magician Merlin worked to make Uther look like Gorlois, so the stupid goddamn woman wouldn't know one from the other. Yeah, right. Anyway, Utter is the same kind of mythical archetypal villain as Herod, militaristic, corruptible, with a kind of Messiah magic around him that charms queens and persuades Caesars to help him in his bloody noble tasks of Uniting the Land. Igraine is like Mary, gorgeous, the wife of a rich Lord, Joseph, a brother of Herod, and she runs off with her

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husband's brother just like the sluttish wife in the Bible Herodias whom Herod marries, fucks, and John the Baptist denounces. Uther shows up at the Castle and looks just like Igraine's husband Gorlois thanks to Merlin (whom I'll certainly get to in awhile); ravages poor willing Igraine, con ceiving young Arthur just at the exact moment Gorlois dies in battle in town; just as Herod killed his brother Joseph in the Holy Land; just as Herod the Great supposedly died at Jericho within days of Jesus Christ be ing born in nearby Bethlehem; just as Merlin appears nine months later to claim baby Arthur in a bargain already agreed to with randy Uther; just as Jesus appeared, like Merlin at the beginning of the Gospel, whole, a mature man showing up at the River Jordan one day, to claim John (Who was born almost simultaneously, according to Luke); and Herod's real-life wife was named Mariamne, by the way. Mary. It's the exact same story. That's why Gabriel had to kipnap the Pope and she will get around to Queen Elizabeth II. Remember what she said in 'The Legend of Isis and Ra' (a direct authentic translation, by the way, from the Theban papyrii of 1400 B.C.) about the KHU as the preferable form? KHU is the Mummy Spirit, or shining intelligence around us, represented in hieroglyphs by a crane." "Sounds like COUP," Mars observed. "Yes, exactly, Gabriel counted coup on the Pope and President. It proves as late as 1400 A.D. that people still knew the connection between Herod, John and Jesus. 'Le Morte d'Arthur' is heavily Christian and mythic." Arianrhod sighed, "I don't understand a thing you just said." They all laughed and made more jasmine tea with honey. "What does any of that have to do with the fucking Queen?" Before Muhammad could go off in another phenomenal rap the warriors came in loudly, hungry, cold, laughing, big young boisterous Native man in long black hair and homemade beaded moosehide coats, canvas

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mukluks, greeting Mars and Muhammad like heroes, with awe. They all wanted to know how he kicked Israel's ass in the '73 War, and Branwen hadn't heard the story either. "I was just a little girl when you came here twenty years ago," she said. Muhammad suggested he should finish the British legend, but Mars said he hadn't finished the Egyptian legend yet. "Oh yeah," Muhammad sighed, "The Bar-Lev Line on Suez." Everybody ladled big bowls of Branwen's lentil and salmon soup, and big slabs of cornbread with fresh butter and j am, coffee, chocolate chip cook ies, the fire blazing in the Norwegian stove next to big piles of split pine and even some oak wood, (smiling at their own memories and heroic ex ploits against Redcoats and cowboys and cops in Canada, as well as Belle Fourche) in the dim amber light of the fire and a few kerosene lan terns. "It was a killing field. The Suez Canal was 155 yards wide, 55 feet deep, and on the east bank in the Sinai peninsula Israel had erected with sand and stone and steel a chain of fortresses with deep underground bunkers and stores of oil that when released would turn the hot salty waters of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean into an inferno for attackers. The Bar-Lev Line itself was a 70-foot high sand rampart that had been piled up all along the Canal from the Med to the Indian Ocean. And you never saw so many cannons, artillery, Air Force behind them, and an Army that wiped our asses in 1967. I mean, they even gave us toilet paper and flushed it. On our side the Soviet Union sold us the best antiaircraft system in the world, a maze of missiles, rapid-fire and long-range guns, radar, and we had 80,000 men fired up by the Maoists from Red China. I liked those guys, but the Russians were cold. We finally had almost as many tanks, jets, artillery, as Israel, which of course was totally supplied, lavishly, by the Americans. Nuclear world war between the US and USSR Super

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powers came to the brink there, when the Canal ran red with blood. I was there. I still don't know how or why. I just wanted to learn Coptic Scrip tures and save My Khu-soul. But God put it into my head to form a Jihad Brigade of ancient holy warriors from Annu, the eternal Black City, to count coup bloodlessly, peacefully, upon the enemy, like Crazy Horse had done, and Jesus, and Merlin. I hated violence. War is the stupidest thing we do. It takes powerlessness to its ultimate evillest conclusion. But I also knew that it was Man who was the source and cause of all evil, not God, and so like Mao Tse-Tunq we had to fight the viral infections that had be come the human race. We had to, Brothers. It is a crucial fight, Sisters. I didn't want people to die, innocent Believers anyway, so I foolishly stepped in, thinking I could teach them by example the lessons of Abra ham and the shepherd David and the poets of Troy and Anon. No. I don't know if anybody learned a goddamn thing. It was a bloodbath beyond all the unspeakable acts of animals in the trees, and the pits, of murder and decay. I have heard Crazy Horse felt the same way after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Senseless slaughter. The history books say we won, though, the Arab history books, for Allah the Bar-Lev Line was bombarded in the first minute by 10,500 shells; and in the second minute I led my Brigade in the first of one thousand assault rafts across the Canal, unarmed, terrifying the Israelis, I am told, as they saw us standing up in the rafts unhurt, invincible before their fire, our Spirit KAs bullet-proof - for we were not men of flesh, you know? To explain that, I have to go back to Annu, and our strategy, to work the medicine that made the Israelis flee in panic, much as Custer's men fled the 'Red Devilry' of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. How did we do it? What did we do? How could Arabs utterly defeat the same Jews in '73 who defeated us in '67? All it took was a lot of thought and well-directed prayer. For instance, you have the Pinantan Medicine Wheel right outside, with rocks from it in the foundation of this building; and Merlin used Stonehenge, like it, to

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beat the Anglo-Saxons. You can summon not only Brigades of holy warri ors but divisions, legions, to battle the demons of Unbelievers. That's all I did. I had Faith. That's all that Moses and Jesus did. Mahomet. Merlin. They were the gods on earth therefore, the prophets, and they were the Kings and Queens. Athena was a real woman once, and Branwen, Rhian non, Annewen, Ehyophstah. That is the lesson of Gabriel's story about Queen Isis - that we are alive eternally right now. It's all right here. At Annu I learned Markos was a Coptic monk who knew all about the true Story of Ra-Moses II, and retold it in his Gospel of the Canaanite-Egyp tians, which dominates the world now as Judeo-Cbristianity. Jesus was the God-King because he believed more than anyone else. And they all turned against him. Our whole army turned against me and my Brigade when the Israelis panicked and ran, and the Arabs butchered them as gleefully, vengefully, soullessly as the Jews killed us in 1948, and 1956, and 1967. I couldn't stop them. How could I? Five infantry divi sions? Back at Annu, a hundred miles west of the Bar Lev, I sat in a trance in the tomb of Ramses, at Sekhet-Aaru, while my father Zeid, Zeus, Set, led the battle charge." Everyone in the dim log barn stared at him. "He was impersonating me, or I was impersonating myself, like Uther Pen dragon, or Merlin disguised as the Pendragon, Jesus Christ the ghost of Hercules, King Herod the Great, Messiah~ Pharaoh, Pendragon, the Christ, King of the Jews and Arabs. My body was no longer my own but My Khu, Ramses in Mummiform; or rather, it was one with my Ka, and Sekhem, and Ba. The Copts say Mark said Jesus was one person from two persons, god and man, and he had one nature without 'commingling' his human and divine natures. In contrast, the Pope's dogma of the Roman Catholics says Jesus is one person with two natures. A fine distinction. It's called the Monophysite difference; and it tore Christendom apart back in the bad days of Constantine (the father of Merlin, who was the emperor of the western Holy Roman Empire, Aurelianus Ambrosius). It is what Michael

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will argue for, in favor of the Pope, as defense counsel for Rome. On all other dogmas the Copts agree with the Greek Orthodox. Jesus was born as a Holy Ghost the instant Herod died; or rather, the instant the sacred king rekindled his Khu in the mummification process - a conception into the flesh as John was born in the manger, Jesus and Herod, like Merlin the wizard and Uther, were the twin Father, Body and Khu, one body with multiple natures, of John the Baptist and Arthur the Saviour of the Grail, But getting back to that morning of October 6, 1973. I don't know how I did it; other than predicting my Ka'Ba, whom I'll call Osiris or Dionysus, might have been 'commingling' somehow with my physical brain and I was learning how to guess what he was going to do. Prophecy was be coming Inspired Guessing, calculating where my mind was going, the earth, or electricity, striking out of the darkness into Light. It all had to do, as Ra said in the legendary papyrus, with simply opening or closing my eyes, I needed my father, if the Copts were right if Mark was right, as a second person, so as NOT to commingle my One Nature; or rather, like Horus I was the eye of my father Ra-Osiris, the penis, Creation. It is Neter in hieroglyphs, neuter maybe, or Natura in Latin." King Zeid never liked his comparison to Herod, but when Sheikh Mobruk had summoned him to Mecca in 1973, and Colonel Qathafi gave him leave to leave Libya, he obeyed orders, like a good soldier. Zeid was a warrior. Like many others he wanted to believe the Jihad Principle of etern al life if killed in battle for Allah Ta'lat, but he didn't know if he could really truly believe it. Doubts in his bloody watery brain haunted him. The thing that happened to men and women explained it all: Creation: Mahomet recorded it in Qu'ran: Jihad. But Zeid didn't understand his son at all. Muhammad abu Zeid spoke of mystical scriptural parables in which the crossing of the Nile from west to east, from Libya to Egypt, the Hamites crossing Suez in war against the Semites from Chaldea, Iraq, was like the light of Ra in the western sunset sinking into the blackness of Sinai, Arabia

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the evening heaven in Hebrew, dust, whirlwinds the Firmament Moses spoke about when Abram and Sarai (Ausar, Apis, the poisonous serpent Serapis) wife and sister (see Genesis 12:13] seduced Pharaoh. Princess Sarah. Muhammad went on and on before his men like a mad prophet and Zeid didn't understand a word. He just wanted to kill the fucking Is raeli Zionists. At 1:55 p.m., under a clear Middle Eastern azure sky, the combined armies and air forces of Egypt and Syria, the United Arab Re public (UAR), flung themselves against Israel. Air strikes by 250 planes opened the assault at the Suez Canal by hitting radar Sites, airfields, elec tronic jamming stations and command posts in the Sinai as well as the stronghold at Sharm el Sheikh at the strategic Straits of Tiran. 4,000 men of the first assault, including in the lead 1,000 men of the top-secret elite Ji had Brigade, in 720 dinghies disappeared into the smoke screen laid down by 2,000 high trajectory mortars and artillery and another 2,OOG flat trajectory tank guns firing directly into the Bar-Lev Dine, up to 240 MM. Reconnaissance and commando teams of the Jihad paddled furiously across the Canal to neutralize the fire devices and oil spills; and to am bush tanks. At a stronghold overlooking the Firdan Bridge north of Ismail ia, an Israeli lookout named Mordecai was stationed on a high observa tion tower and saw scores of Egyptian soldiers scaling the rampart and as saulting the fort. Deafness overcame Mordecai, he reported later to his commanders Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan, from what he knew not; per haps a nearby explosion. Along with Private Saul Avitan they reported watching in horror as Egyptian troops in gray uniforms were cutting the wire fences, spraying the compound with flame throwers, bullets and bombs raking the area, "In front I saw a man kneeling and bowing in prayer, chanting 'Allahu Akhbar'. I don't know how he wasn't hit, for the fires and bombs were roaring all around him," Mordecai said. Avitan nodded, "Next to him I saw one of our own men simply explode, and vanish, before my eyes. Another of

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those in white robes like the first, not in uniform, fell across the barbed wire, twitching and jerking but not bleeding, and the others, Egyptians in gray, armed, poured across the fence. They were all shouting 'Allah!' and following the men in white." The Army Chief of Staff said he heard many other reports of these unarmed men in white all up and down the line, but especially at the central Bar-Lev. 12 more waves came across, 32,000 as sault troops. By 2:30 the first Egyptian flag was planted on Sinai. Troops swarmed around the forts and went on into the open desert beyond, leav ing the forts surrounded; by nightfall half the forts were in Egyptian hands, and Egyptians with hundreds of Sagger missiles, Snappers, and RPG-7s were blasting Israeli tanks. The ferocity and destructiveness of these in fantry weapons was a complete surprise to the Israelis. Barry Shamir, a loader-radio operator in a tank company, said, "I looked around and saw burning fireballs dancing through the air toward our tanks. I didn't know what they were. They seemed to be coming out of the sand dunes." Trapped Israelis back in the forts were screaming, pitifully, for help, but no tanks could get through the sand fireballs, and no airplanes could get past the wall of AA fire. Lt. Colonel Yomtov lost all but 3 of his 20 tanks, and whole battalions were destroyed in the dunes. General Zeid al-Psylli never forgot the bravery of his men that day, in spired by the Jibed principle. The Sagger missiles were in a carrying case like a suitcase, with a range of up to 3,000 yards. They traveled over a mile at 150 yards a second, but each one was guided by a hair-thin wire through which the operator controlled the flight: meaning an infantryman had to expose himself for a half minute or so to aim and guide his missile in the face of a tank armed with machine guns and a cannon. And he had to stand there while a roaring tank, his target, charged directly at him. Their missiles penetrated even the frontal armor of Israel's Patton and cen turion tanks, and M-60s; and they bad American computerized fire control systems that assured a high ratio of single-shot kills. While the dreaded M-

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60s and Centurions were burning his men turned to the heavens to cheer an even more miraculous sight - half of the Israeli jets in their first attack were falling out of the sky, exploding fireballs! Allahu Akhbar!" the sol diers all screamed joyfully, tears pouring down their faces in the hot mur derous smoke. UN Observers reported 4 out of every 5 Israeli planes went down. Before the day was out Israeli pilots were ordered to stay a minimum of 10 miles away from the Canal. By 5:30 p.m. the Egyptians had estab lished 5 bridgeheads each about 5 miles long and 3 miles into the Sinai. A special amphibious brigade of PT-76 light tanks crossed the Great Bitter Lake and made a dash to the important Giddi and Mitla mountain passes; but a reserve Israeli brigade of M-60s and Centurions mauled the thinly ar mored PT-76s and drove them back. As dusk fell, helicopters filled with commandos infiltrated deeper into Sinai in the center and north, and other commandos by boat intercepted Israelis on the Mediterranean coast where Ramses the Great built his cities of Tanis and Pi Raamsis in Goshen, and poured into tne battle zone over the seacoast road. At 6:30 ferries began floating tanks and artillery across the Canal, and the first bridge opened at 8:30, releasing hundreds of Egyptian tanks into the great Sinai Desert.

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While the Israelis retreated in disarray and defeat the remaining 700 war riors of the white-robed Jihad Brigade were ordered to return west to the Nile. They knew it had been part of a strategic plan ever since they re ceived blessings in Mecca a week ago from the Holy Emir to surround Is rael and all Palestine: they had crossed westwardly with the setting sun dir ectly across the Red Sea from Mecca into Egypt, ordered to lead the at tack on the Bar-Lev Line after more prayers and blessings at the Anon Mosque in the green irrigated Delta outside Cairo Airport; and then, after success, thanks to Allah al-Rahim they would encircle Israel around the Mediterranean Sea into Lebanon, attack the Golan Heights from Syria; and then complete the sacred Jhaad encirclement south through Jordan and across Sinai back to Medina and Mecca. It was a magnificent plan conceived by Muhammad and following the holy Suras of the Prophet in Qu'ran. Battle-weary and covered in soot from the fires the valiant heroes of Allah walked through their lines to the cheers and adulation of the 2nd Army's 18th Division hurrying east to fortify the crossroads at Qantara, where the Israeli Aden Division had been driven back. "Victory!" shouted the exultant soldiers, unused to it after so many humiliat ing defeats. "Praise Allah!" President Anwar Sadat's chief of staff Saad Shazly briefed the world press, correctly calling "Operation Badr one of the most memor able water crossings in the annals of warfare." The fame of the top-secret Jihad Brigade had already spread throughout the 2nd and 3rd Armies, however, and frightened boys and grizzled old veterans alike, in uniform, knelt and kissed their bare feet in the dry Egyp tian sand. Men who didn't even know each other wept and hugged each other as they hurried, terrified, courageously, to war; "on to Jerusalem," they prayed. "On to Damascus." Muhammad waited for them at On Heli opolis, and his men were shocked to see him standing there, clean, in

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plain brown robes and the kefir headdress of his noble Psylli Tribe. They looked at their General, but in the wind and sand they couldn't tell, or see, if he had been marching along with them all the time as they thought, in vincibly kneeling on the shore in a hail of Israeli gunfire, boldly out in front with enemies exploding bloodily all around them, or not. He looked at Zeid and said, "You killed men, didn't you?" in the blowing ghibli and dirt thrown in their faces by helicopters roaring by, on their way east, and tanks, they felt shame all of a sudden, for their pride and glory. "You have lost hundreds of warriors killed, for killing. Did not the Ka'Ba of the immor tal Ra-Moses, the Khu, say, 'Thou shalt not kill'? AM I the only Believer among you?" one young Coptic priest named David stepped forward. "No, my Lord. You are the God Atmu-Ra of Af-Ra-Ka." Muhammad's stern face turned from its merciless rebuke of Zeid, speechless, covered in grime, softly to young David. He touched his soft black hair and smooth unshaven cheek. "Verily, I say unto you, this day shall my prophet recite the songs of our resurrection before Their Majestys in Sekhet-Aaru, and bring the blessings of hi~ Eternal Life." He smiled and put his arm around David and led him to the waiting boats on the Nile, waiting to take them to Tawy and Port Said; then across the Sea to Tripoli in Lebanon, Moms, across the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and great Baalbek, and Golan at the foot of Panias Caesarea and Mount Hermon. For 60,000 Syrian soldiers in 3 infantry and 2 armored divisions, nearly 1,300 tanks and 600 guns waited for them to lead the attack on 3 Israeli armored brigades with 177 tanks and 70 artillery pieces, at the road to Galilee. Miraculously, they would attack simultaneously as Egypt swept like Pharaoh's Army conquer ing the Hittites, Assyrians, forever embittering the Mesopotamian Empires of Sumer, Hammurabi's Babylon, Jews in exile rewriting the Bible until Great Ramses was reduced to the lawyer-slave Moses and Ab'Ra to the He'Brew moneycounters and rabbis. Out of Ur and Nineveh, Haran, the Iranians and Iraqis joined the Africans, following the great children of Ham, Semites allying with Hamites swarming up Jebel Sheikh, 9,223 feet

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to wipe out a strong Israeli fortress there, on Hermes-On, gateway to the sources of the Jordan and Temples of Herod to Pan, Venus, Dionysus, who had once been On and Isis before the Greek Jews renamed, rewrote, the Euaggelios of John Mark of Libya, the African Evangelist whose own JahWeh was turned into Jesus Christ. The cloud-shrouded peak was covered with snow. From the ski areas they could see the Sea of Galilee. The Huleh Valley was rich with farms and kibbutzes, and all of King David's northern Israeli gardens, olive groves, fig orchards, fishing ponds and fonts Pharaoh David, Solomon, honoring Libyan Joshua, Arabian Elijah, Ishmael Isaac's twin brother-ghost (like the twins Esau and Jacob, Leah and Rachel, Meryintah the daughter and wife of Ramses II who raised Ra-Moses III); all of history and God lay at the feet of the Golan Heights. The western edge of the plateau dropped precipitously to the Jordan Valley, twisting along the Yarmuk River, and only a thin no-man's land of a mile width lay between Ur and Canaan, Shem and Ham, Palestine of the Phoenician Phil istines patroled by U.N. observers. The Shemites had placed strong fortific ations on the territory conquered in Muhammad's lifetime, since World War Two - an antitank ditch the entire length of the Purple Line, eight yards wide and six yards deep. Mine fields. Paralleling the ceasefire line since 1967, Israel had constructed 17 heavily fortified observation posts, many of them dug into volcano cones. Tanks, More mines. There was only one Syrian city, Kuneitra, on the Heights. It had been destroyed and was a curiosity for tourists who knew their Bible and wondered at King Herod's [Hrrt] omnipresence that was also well documented there. 20 Jewish settle ments had sprung up there since 1967. Syria's forces had 100 batteries of SA-2, 3, and 6 missiles with 500 antiaircraft missiles and 162 lethal ZSU23/4s. At 1:45 p.m. Israeli observers on top of Mount Hermon reported excitedly, "Syrian Army moving. Too numerous to count!" A massive hour long artillery and air bombardment began all along the Purple Line, with 100 planes, hundreds of 130 Mm and 152 mm artillery

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pieces covering flail-tanks lashing the ground and exploding mines, mak ing paths for bulldozers to fill in the antitank ditch. "It was not like an at tack, it was like a parade-ground demonstration," reported one awed U,N. observer, Australian Maior George Mayes, "Some incredible mind was at work here." In the north, Syrian tanks of the 7th Division at Kun eitra were stopped on a low hill by the crack Israeli 7th Brigade as the Ar abs were caught in a ravine and lost 60 tanks; but the AA knocked out 30 Israeli planes and massed more armor and men than had ever been seen on the Heights: the 9th Syrian Division broke through at Kudne and rolled westward across the main Trans Arabian pipeline transporting oil from Bahrain to Lebanon. The road led northward to the Israeli headquarters at Nafekh and it was there the Jihad Brigade struck before dark: they surged over the oil Tapline and took 2 Israeli forts designated A7 and A10, lead ing their tanks into Banyas and chewing up 90 tanks of the famous Barak Brigade. Abu Zeid led a daring charge on A7 and surrounded it, forcing 3 more Israeli forts to be evacuated, leading Syrian armor to within 6 miles of the Jordan River. He was up on a tank shouting commands in the noise like a wild man, smoke and bullets flying all around him, inspiring a Syrian ranger unit to take Mt. Hermon. 500 heliborne rangers charged head on with his Jibaddim into the Israeli concrete defense tunnels where 50 of them were cut down by heavy fire, They worked their way around to the west, crawling in snow, ducking behind rocks, and charged with the setting sun blinding the Israeli defenders. Scaling a high concrete wall they overran the outer positions, men dying left and right, legs blown off, eyes splattering on them as they moved to take the vital communications center. It was protected by a heavy steel door. Zeid beat a prisoner until he re vealed how to manipulate a series of electronic buttons to open the door. The rangers killed everyone inside. Only 11 of 55 Israeli defenders man aged to escape, and the Arabs were in control of a sophisticated electron ic intelligence and communication network on the Holy Mountain. The men and women rested for the night, eating rations, but, remarkable to the Syri

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an Rangers, the African Jihaddim did not bow and pray with them to Mecca and Allah. They stayed to themselves and were heard to be mutter ing strange prayers in an unfamiliar language and tongue. The Jihad Gen eral sat pensively in the dark night observing the famous sea and vine yards of Galilee below, flares and rockets, terrible explosions, murder near Gennesereth, Capernaum, Cana, and Nazareth; the Holy Land stretching from the rocky desert to the lovely sea and men killing each oth er everywhere where Elias had prayed for peace and Pharaoh Joseph. Down there, he knew, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was so distraught by Eretz Israel's perilous position that he believed only nuclear bombs could save them; rumors, never documented but widely believed, later, swept Tel Aviv and Washington that Israel had activated its atomic weapons and would use them, Sunday morning on the Golan Heights dawned to discover the defenses of the world's greatest army collapsing, their forts helpless before Syrian tanks penetrating the Tapline road after daring night fighting; Egyptian tanks also masterfully driving back the Jews in panic, confused, shocked as if God had abandoned them to 90,000 Arabs, 850 tanks, and 11,000 supply vehicles securing the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, Africa and Arabia. General Dayan, the one-eyed hero of the 1967 war, flew to Golan that morning and was appalled to see their bri gades in the southern perimeter had collapsed. He ordered the Jordan bridges destroyed and retreat from Golan. He ordered a suicidal attack of Skyhawks on Syria and every one of them was shot out of the air by mis siles, but for 2 days 30 more brave pilots died over Jordan to stem the Syr ian attack, like gods and angels on fire. At the Nafekh headquarters the Ji haddim in a scene from Hell battled Israel's 679th Reserve Armored Bri gade as dozens of tanks and armored vehicles lay smoking, dead and wounded covered the ground, ammunition was exploding everywhere, scream of horror, black burning smoke, deafening shollfire scattering leth al splinters of metal indiscriminately through the headquarters compound. The 679th's tanks opened pointblank fire at the Syrian tanks marauding in

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side the camp, setting them afire one by one. Syrian reinforcements failed to arrive and slowly the fresh troops of the 679th gained the upper hand, by nightfall, retaking Nafekh; the next day Syria's 51st Independent Tank Brigade commanded by Colonel Hassan Tourkmani stunned the Israeli command by actually descending the Heights and approaching the Arik Bridge where Jesus taught at Bethsaida. From her verandah in Tiberias on the Sea the wife of a U.N. observer could clearly see and hear the battle. "Burning aircraft falling into the Lake near Capernaum," she radioed, "and I see some crazy men in soot-blackened black robes screaming at the front of the tanks, and kneeling at the River, with green flags I've never seen. They are plain green. Israeli air strikes are continual, a never ending stream in the skies. Our army is routed. They're all running away!" Prime Minister Guide Nair looked at her rabbi back in Tel Aviv. "Libya," he said, "the green flag is Qathafi's new banner." "Damn!" the mean old wo man swore, "he's threatening a worldwide Oil Boycott with Saudi Arabia. The Americans would turn on us in a second if they do that." The mad air force assault stopped the Arab penetration into Galilee, but Nafekh fell again, and the world's nuclear powers went on full Defcon 2 red alert. Losses on both sides were horrendous. 250 Syrian tanks were already des troyed or damaged, most of them from General Ali Aslan's 5th Division and the 1st Armored led by Colonel Tewfiq Juhai. But they kept attacking. The courage of the men was phenomenal, thrilling, and in later years they could not speak of it without weeping. Since 1967 they had vowed they would never retreat again; giving them a momentum, a spirit of inevitabil ity that was difficult to stop, from private to general; but it also drove them suicidally not to regroup or maneuver when they encountered a stronger Is raeli position and they flung themselves needlessly, suffering heavy losses, into a rate of attrition and murder they could not long sustain. The Israelis were massacring the Arabs as they fell back, and, with more firepower and an endless stream of American airplanes, money, guns, pilots, ad visers, intelligence machinery and propaganda about Arabic "anti Semit

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ism" the carnage would result in the same battle lines drawn as before, stalemate, rivers of useless blood and misery. In Sinai, General Dayan de scribed the Israeli rout as "The Day of Judgement", terrifying the civilized world. In Cairo, at Tahirah Palace, Sadat met with Vlad Vinogradov, the Soviet Ambassador, telling him Syria's Hafez Assad "wants a Ceasefire. Holy men are telling him the Jihad is won, God he praised. Now, Russia and the Orthodox World should support the true armies of Allah and Jesus Christ." The Russian's face went white. "What do you mean?" Anwar Sad at, the world's only world-class African leader, who alone seemed able to understand the beauty of a mythic alliance between Islam and Maoist, smoked his pipe calmly and pointed out his window to the Nile, the Pyr amids, the Sphinx, and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. The muezzins were singing, and the bells of St. Mark's were ringing. From the cradle of man kind thousands of sacred statues to divine kings, hundreds of immemorial temples to God, and tombs of Resurrection and Prophecy greater, truer to faith and doubtlessness, Belief in more than war and death, to Sudan, Kenya, the Rift Valley and Victoria Falls remained as silent testimony of the Blessings and Origins of all that was fine and good of Man in deepest darkest Africa. On the killing fields of Assyria and Mesopotamia, on the road to Damascus, the Jihad general knew that peace was not the policy of The Bible, and Russia, and Anglo-America turned away from the unprof itable Ceasefires of the 20th Century. The Security Council of the United Nations was stalled by the US and USSR from taking a vote on a Cease fire Resolution; even though Israeli soldiers trapped in their forts on the Bar-Lev were sobbing for water, and mercy; even though Ariel Sharon was afraid to move his idle battalion into battle, despite direct orders from General Shmuel Gonen; even though the 190th Armored was destroyed in 3 minutes. The radios from Sinai to Aqaba to Qiryat Shemona were a nightmare of shouting voices, static, and jamming noises, men pleading for orders, clarity, water, reinforcements, a babel of life and death. Down from the Mount Hermon fortress a Holy Spirit saw the Colani Brigade mur

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dering the 7th Division, and the 3rd and 9th Divisions murdering Ben-Gal' s Brigade, and Raful's Forces, Obi's and Ran's and Laner's and Peled's brigades, battalions, companies, regiments, squads murdering the 20th and 5th and 1st across the DMZ at Kuneitra, Nafekh, Hushiniyah, Yebu dia, and El Al. The Syrians were out of missiles and Israel's Air Force would soon turn the tide of the war, and so at Khan Arba he walked out alone into the Road to Damascus, 5 miles from the Purple Line, and drew Israel's tanks into a deadly ambush, like the Red Indian Crazy Horse had done so many times before, far away, in America in the West, drawing the glorious 679th Israeli Brigade forward like General Custer charging after the Devil. He watched his men, his Arab Legions, massacre them; and he walked away alone from the evil, damned Jihad of betrayal, he and young David the sole survivors of 1,000 boys and girls who dreamed of Peace, a long time ago in Canaan.

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While the Israelis retreated in disarray and defeat the remaining 700 warriors of the white-robed Jihad Brigade were ordered to return west to the Nile. They knew it had been part of a strategic plan ever since they received blessings in Mecca a week ago from the Holy Emir to surround Israel and all Palestine: they had crossed westwardly with the setting sun directly across the Red Sea from Mecca into Egypt, ordered to lead the attack on the Bar-Lev Line after more prayers and blessings at the Anon Mosque in the green irrigated Delta outside Cairo Airport; and then, after success, thanks to Allah al-Rahim they would encircle Is rael around the Mediterranean Sea into Lebanon, attack the Golan Heights from Syria; and then complete the sacred Jhaad encirclement south through Jordan and across Sinai back to Medina and Mecca. It was a magnificent plan conceived by Muhammad and following the holy Suras of the Prophet in Qu'ran. Battle-weary and covered in soot from the fires the valiant heroes of Allah walked through their lines to the cheers and adulation of the 2nd Army's 18th Division hurrying east to fortify the crossroads at Qantara, where the Israeli Aden Division had been driven back. "Victory!" shouted the exultant soldiers, unused to it after so many hu miliating defeats. "Praise Allah!" President Anwar Sadat's chief of staff Saad Shazly briefed the world press, correctly calling "Operation Badr one of the most memorable water crossings in the annals of warfare." The fame of the top-secret Jihad Brigade had already spread through out the 2nd and 3rd Armies, however, and frightened boys and grizzled old veterans alike, in uniform, knelt and kissed their bare feet in the dry Egyptian sand. Men who didn't even know each other wept and hugged each other as they hurried, terrified, courageously, to war; "on to Jerusalem," they prayed. "On to Damascus." Muhammad waited for them at On Heliopolis, and his men were shocked to see him standing there, clean, in plain brown robes and the kefir head dress of his noble Psylli Tribe. They looked at their General, but in the wind and sand they couldn't tell, or see, if he had been marching

along with them all the time as they thought, invincibly kneeling on the shore in a hail of Israeli gunfire, boldly out in front with enemies ex ploding bloodily all around them, or not. He looked at Zeid and said, "You killed men, didn't you?" in the blow ing ghibli and dirt thrown in their faces by helicopters roaring by, on their way east, and tanks, they felt shame all of a sudden, for their pride and glory. "You have lost hundreds of warriors killed, for killing. Did not the Ka'Ba of the immortal Ra-Moses, the Khu, say, 'Thou shalt not kill'? AM I the only Believer among you?" One young Coptic priest named David stepped forward. "No, my Lord. You are the God Atmu-Ra of Af-Ra-Ka." Muhammad's stern face turned from its merciless rebuke of Zeid, speechless, covered in grime, softly to young David. He touched his soft black hair and smooth unshaven cheek. "Verily, I say unto you, this day shall my prophet recite the songs of our resurrection before Their Majestys in Sekhet-Aaru, and bring the blessings of hi~ Eternal Life." He smiled and put his arm around David and led him to the waiting boats on the Nile, waiting to take them to Tawy and Port Said; then across the Sea to Tripoli in Lebanon, Moms, across the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and great Baalbek, and Golan at the foot of Panias Caesarea and Mount Hermon. For 60,000 Syrian soldiers in 3 infantry and 2 armored divisions, nearly 1,300 tanks and 600 guns waited for them to lead the attack on 3 Israeli armored brigades with 177 tanks and 70 artillery pieces, at the road to Galilee. Miraculously, they would attack simultaneously as Egypt swept like Pharaoh's Army con quering the Hittites, Assyrians, forever embittering the Mesopotamian Empires of Sumer, Hammurabi's Babylon, Jews in exile rewriting the Bible until Great Ramses was reduced to the lawyer-slave Moses and Ab'Ra to the He'Brew moneycounters and rabbis. Out of Ur and Nineveh, Haran, the Iranians and Iraqis joined the Africans, following the great children of Ham, Semites allying with Hamites swarming up Jebel Sheikh, 9,223 feet to wipe out a strong Israeli fortress there, on Hermes-On, gateway to the sources of the Jordan and Temples of

Herod to Pan, Venus, Dionysus, who had once been On and Isis be fore the Greek Jews renamed, rewrote, the Euaggelios of John Mark of Libya, the African Evangelist whose own Jah-Weh was turned into Je sus Christ. The cloud-shrouded peak was covered with snow. From the ski areas they could see the Sea of Galilee. The Huleh Valley was rich with farms and kibbutzes, and all of King David's northern Israeli gardens, olive groves, fig orchards, fishing ponds and fonts - Pharaoh David, Solomon, honoring Libyan Joshua, Arabian Elijah, Ishmael Isaac's twin brother-ghost (like the twins Esau and Jacob, Leah and Rachel, Meryin tah the daughter and wife of Ramses II who raised Ra-Moses III); all of history and God lay at the feet of the Golan Heights. The western edge of the plateau dropped precipitously to the Jordan Valley, twisting along the Yarmuk River, and only a thin no-man's land of a mile width lay between Ur and Canaan, Shem and Ham, Palestine of the Phoeni cian Philistines patroled by U.N. observers. The Shemites had placed strong fortifications on the territory conquered in Muhammad's lifetime, since World War Two - an antitank ditch the entire length of the Purple Line, eight yards wide and six yards deep. Mine fields. Paralleling the ceasefire line since 1967, Israel had constructed 17 heavily fortified observation posts, many of them dug into volcano cones. Tanks, More mines. There was only one Syrian city, Kuneitra, on the Heights. It had been destroyed and was a curiosity for tourists who knew their Bible and wondered at King Herod's [Hrrt] omnipresence that was also well doc umented there. 20 Jewish settlements had sprung up there since 1967. Syria's forces had 100 batteries of SA-2, 3, and 6 missiles with 500 antiaircraft missiles and 162 lethal ZSU-23/4s. At 1:45 p.m. Israeli observers on top of Mount Hermon reported excitedly, "Syrian Army moving. Too numerous to count!" A massive hour long artillery and air bombardment began all along the Purple Line, with 100 planes, hundreds of 130 Mm and 152 mm artillery pieces covering flail-tanks lashing the ground and exploding mines, making paths for bulldozers to fill in the antitank ditch. "It was

not like an attack, it was like a parade-ground demonstration," repor ted one awed U,N. observer, Australian Maior George Mayes, "Some incredible mind was at work here." In the north, Syrian tanks of the 7th Division at Kuneitra were stopped on a low hill by the crack Israeli 7th Brigade as the Arabs were caught in a ravine and lost 60 tanks; but the AA knocked out 30 Israeli planes and massed more armor and men than had ever been seen on the Heights: the 9th Syrian Division broke through at Kudne and rolled westward across the main Trans Arabian pipeline transporting oil from Bahrain to Lebanon. The road led northward to the Israeli headquarters at Nafekh and it was there the Jihad Brigade struck before dark: they surged over the oil Tapline and took 2 Israeli forts designated A7 and A10, leading their tanks into Banyas and chewing up 90 tanks of the famous Barak Brigade. Abu Zeid led a daring charge on A7 and surrounded it, for cing 3 more Israeli forts to be evacuated, leading Syrian armor to with in 6 miles of the Jordan River. He was up on a tank shouting com mands in the noise like a wild man, smoke and bullets flying all around him, inspiring a Syrian ranger unit to take Mt. Hermon. 500 heliborne rangers charged head on with his Jibaddim into the Israeli concrete de fense tunnels where 50 of them were cut down by heavy fire, They worked their way around to the west, crawling in snow, ducking be hind rocks, and charged with the setting sun blinding the Israeli de fenders. Scaling a high concrete wall they overran the outer positions, men dying left and right, legs blown off, eyes splattering on them as they moved to take the vital communications center. It was protected by a heavy steel door. Zeid beat a prisoner until he revealed how to manipulate a series of electronic buttons to open the door. The rangers killed everyone inside. Only 11 of 55 Israeli defenders managed to escape, and the Arabs were in control of a sophisticated electronic intelligence and commu nication network on the Holy Mountain. The men and women rested for the night, eating rations, but, remarkable to the Syrian Rangers, the African Jihaddim did not bow and pray with them to Mecca and Allah.

They stayed to themselves and were heard to be muttering strange prayers in an unfamiliar language and tongue. The Jihad General sat pensively in the dark night observing the famous sea and vineyards of Galilee below, flares and rockets, terrible explosions, murder near Gennesereth, Capernaum, Cana, and Nazareth; the Holy Land stretch ing from the rocky desert to the lovely sea and men killing each other everywhere where Elias had prayed for peace and Pharaoh Joseph. Down there, he knew, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was so dis traught by Eretz Israel's perilous position that he believed only nuclear bombs could save them; rumors, never documented but widely be lieved, later, swept Tel Aviv and Washington that Israel had activated its atomic weapons and would use them, Sunday morning on the Golan Heights dawned to discover the defenses of the world's greatest army collapsing, their forts helpless before Syrian tanks penetrating the Tapline road after daring night fighting; Egyptian tanks also masterfully driving back the Jews in panic, confused, shocked as if God had aban doned them to 90,000 Arabs, 850 tanks, and 11,000 supply vehicles securing the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, Africa and Arabia. General Dayan, the one-eyed hero of the 1967 war, flew to Golan that morn ing and was appalled to see their brigades in the southern perimeter had collapsed. He ordered the Jordan bridges destroyed and retreat from Golan. He ordered a suicidal attack of Skyhawks on Syria and every one of them was shot out of the air by missiles, but for 2 days 30 more brave pilots died over Jordan to stem the Syrian attack, like gods and angels on fire. At the Nafekh headquarters the Jihaddim in a scene from Hell battled Israel's 679th Reserve Armored Brigade as dozens of tanks and ar mored vehicles lay smoking, dead and wounded covered the ground, ammunition was exploding everywhere, scream of horror, black burn ing smoke, deafening shollfire scattering lethal splinters of metal indis criminately through the headquarters compound. The 679th's tanks opened pointblank fire at the Syrian tanks marauding inside the camp, setting them afire one by one. Syrian reinforcements failed to arrive and slowly the fresh troops of the 679th gained the upper hand, by nightfall, retaking Nafekh; the next day Syria's 51st Independent Tank

Brigade commanded by Colonel Hassan Tourkmani stunned the Israeli command by actually descending the Heights and approaching the Arik Bridge where Jesus taught at Bethsaida. From her verandah in Tiberias on the Sea the wife of a U.N. observer could clearly see and hear the battle. "Burning aircraft falling into the Lake near Capernaum," she radioed, "and I see some crazy men in soot-blackened black robes screaming at the front of the tanks, and kneeling at the River, with green flags I've never seen. They are plain green. Israeli air strikes are continual, a never ending stream in the skies. Our army is routed. They're all run ning away!" Prime Minister Guide Nair looked at her rabbi back in Tel Aviv. "Libya," he said, "the green flag is Qathafi's new banner." "Damn!" the mean old woman swore, "he's threatening a worldwide Oil Boycott with Saudi Arabia. The Americans would turn on us in a second if they do that." The mad air force assault stopped the Arab penetration into Galilee, but Nafekh fell again, and the world's nuclear powers went on full Def con 2 red alert. Losses on both sides were horrendous. 250 Syrian tanks were already destroyed or damaged, most of them from General Ali Aslan's 5th Division and the 1st Armored led by Colonel Tewfiq Juhai. But they kept attacking. The courage of the men was phenomen al, thrilling, and in later years they could not speak of it without weep ing. Since 1967 they had vowed they would never retreat again; giving them a momentum, a spirit of inevitability that was difficult to stop, from private to general; but it also drove them suicidally not to regroup or maneuver when they encountered a stronger Israeli position and they flung themselves needlessly, suffering heavy losses, into a rate of attrition and murder they could not long sustain. The Israelis were mas sacring the Arabs as they fell back, and, with more firepower and an endless stream of American airplanes, money, guns, pilots, advisers, intelligence machinery and propaganda about Arabic "anti Semitism"

the carnage would result in the same battle lines drawn as before, stalemate, rivers of useless blood and misery. In Sinai, General Dayan described the Israeli rout as "The Day of Judgement", terrifying the civ ilized world. In Cairo, at Tahirah Palace, Sadat met with Vlad Vino gradov, the Soviet Ambassador, telling him Syria's Hafez Assad "wants a Ceasefire. Holy men are telling him the Jihad is won, God he praised. Now, Russia and the Orthodox World should support the true armies of Allah and Jesus Christ." The Russian's face went white. "What do you mean?" Anwar Sadat, the world's only world-class African leader, who alone seemed able to understand the beauty of a mythic alliance between Islam and Maoist, smoked his pipe calmly and pointed out his window to the Nile, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali. The muezzins were singing, and the bells of St. Mark's were ringing. From the cradle of mankind thousands of sacred statues to divine kings, hundreds of immemorial temples to God, and tombs of Resurrec tion and Prophecy greater, truer to faith and doubtlessness, Belief in more than war and death, to Sudan, Kenya, the Rift Valley and Victor ia Falls remained as silent testimony of the Blessings and Origins of all that was fine and good of Man in deepest darkest Africa. On the killing fields of Assyria and Mesopotamia, on the road to Damascus, the Jihad general knew that peace was not the policy of The Bible, and Russia, and Anglo-America turned away from the unprofitable Cease fires of the 20th Century. The Security Council of the United Nations was stalled by the US and USSR from taking a vote on a Ceasefire Res olution; even though Israeli soldiers trapped in their forts on the Bar-Lev were sobbing for water, and mercy; even though Ariel Sharon was afraid to move his idle battalion into battle, despite direct orders from General Shmuel Gonen; even though the 190th Armored was des troyed in 3 minutes. The radios from Sinai to Aqaba to Qiryat Shemona were a nightmare of shouting voices, static, and jamming noises, men pleading for or ders, clarity, water, reinforcements, a babel of life and death. Down from the Mount Hermon fortress a Holy Spirit saw the Colani Brigade

murdering the 7th Division, and the 3rd and 9th Divisions murdering Ben-Gal's Brigade, and Raful's Forces, Obi's and Ran's and Laner's and Peled's brigades, battalions, companies, regiments, squads mur dering the 20th and 5th and 1st across the DMZ at Kuneitra, Nafekh, Hushiniyah, Yebudia, and El Al. The Syrians were out of missiles and Israel's Air Force would soon turn the tide of the war, and so at Khan Arba he walked out alone into the Road to Damascus, 5 miles from the Purple Line, and drew Israel's tanks into a deadly ambush, like the Red Indian Crazy Horse had done so many times before, far away, in America in the West, drawing the glorious 679th Israeli Brigade for ward like General Custer charging after the Devil. He watched his men, his Arab Legions, massacre them; and he walked away alone from the evil, damned Jihad of betrayal, he and young David the sole survivors of 1,000 boys and girls who dreamed of Peace, a long time ago in Canaan.

Book 35
Mars was in town having a beer, alone, reading. He wasn't afraid of be ing seen or caught for some reason; of the Secret Police. He was reading about Mao Tsetung and Marx at the Internet Saloon, downtown, in the middle of the day. He felt good, but strange. Tingling. He looked up 'Mars' in the greek mythology by Robert Graves: "ARES. Thracian Ares loves battle for its own sake, and his sister Eris is always stirring up occa sions for war by the spread of rumour and the inculcation of jealousy. Like her, he never favours one city or party more than another, but fights on this side or that, as inclination prompts him, delighting in the slaughter of men and the sacking of towns. All his fellow immortals hate him, from Zeus and Hera downwards, except Eris, and Aphrodite who nurses a perverse passion for him, and greedy Hades who welcomes the bold young fighting men slain in cruel wars." He looked up from the computer screen to the bright dull light outside, through a window. Paintings of Mars from Rome showed a glorious armorclad hero, and a Shakespearean soldier, and an Arthurian Knight. What was it his father had said? "A spring-Dionysus." He quickly scanned past the website paintings for more fragments: "... Ares had not been consist ently victorious. Athena, a much more skillful fighter than he, has twice worsted him in battle ... of sacred kings ... at Rome red dye from the ivy vine was used to colour the faces of male fertility images [Pausanias ii,2.51 ... this custom survived in the reddening of the triumphant general's face. The general represented the god Mars, who was a Spring-Dionysus before he specialized as the Roman God of War, and who gave his name to the month of March." The Red Indians often wore red paint, and Mao's flag was pure blood red. He looked around the bright crowded computer-bar with noisy drink ers and young adults like him, in the middle of the day. He stared at a book cover on his table, with the silhouette of a black bayonet on a black background, a flaming red flag flying from the bayonet and 'RCP' inside a white star, Revolutionary Communist Party. It had electrified him with

THE LIBYAD
hope; the promise of action, an organized army of brave warriors driven by their compassion for the suffering and misery of mankind, intellectuals, rare idealists trying to save the world through a clear science, a philo sophy, that said it will: "change the face of the world ... The capital ist-bourgeois class systematically terrorizes especially those from whom it most fears rebellion ... imperialists must repeatedly hurl the entire world into military conflict in the battle to redivide it. How can reforms or 'peace ful change' bring an end to all this? Where or when have they ever done so?" Science. It has shown, he thought, drinking another pint, that Marx ism is a science, both objective and partisan, corresponding both to the actual development of nature and society. A Manifesto rupturing the mad anarchy of capitalism. Logic. "It's the same with Muhammad," he mumbled to himself, the only Indian in the bar. "Jihad, what is that, if not proletarian revolution? Only it is Crazy Horse style, around here." Mars could not comprehend why he felt so good, or what it was - or who he was - or had ever been. He still felt young and very strong, but now he was filled with his father's knowledge; he was, in the town in the middle of the day, in Canada, Jihaddim, clear about killing. The anger and determination and certainty of armed victory filled him as surely as the hope that never in history had nonviolent protest changed anything for the better. Jesus died alone. It was only the armies of Marcus Agrippa that saved his memory, and their prophet Marcus who wrote his story. It was only when Muhammad became his war-caliphs Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Ali, that his Word ever prevailed. It was only upon war that the Red Indians ever hoped to stem the bloody tide of the Cross that drove Columbus and Custer. "War." It was a terrible Word. His father hated it and loved it; he was fas cinated by it; but old Zeid was right - Muhammad was a coward. He had too much of the bourgeoisie in him, the fear. It was a terrible feeling to look outside at the street as a police car sped past with its siren wailing,

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screaming, a Nazi air-raid warning like images of Berlin razed to the ground by Russian and American bombs; images on the Internet video screen of murder in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Chechnya, of Arabs dead in the Hezbollah gutters in Lebanon, Israel bombing them, children beaten by soldiers in the Congo. The animal horror was in the street in Kamloops Canada in the nice white happy pedestrians. He wanted to kill them all for killing Africa. "The fucking rage," he snarled aloud right there, rolling his head and his eyes like a Libyan panther, "...disintegrating the bour geoisie's armed forces. . . ." He flipped back to another website, "A hero, as the word indicates, was a sacred king who had been sacrificed to Hera, whose body was safely un der the earth, and whose soul had gone to enjoy her paradise at the back of the North Wind. His golden apples in Greek and Celtic myth were passports to this paradise." He saw Branwen at the front door. Mars smiled and waved at her. "Enter the Celtic myth. Right on, Dad. Hey, beautiful." Branwen walked like a man grimly to his table, almost bouncing like a prize-fighter on her toes with energy. She never wore any makeup and her blonde hair was cut short and straight, and she was very tall and well-built. "Hey," she clipped quickly in her practical Canadian accent. She remained standing, impa tient, alert to the noise and drunks in the clean white bar. "I loaded up on sacks of coffee beans and whole wheat flour. You need a ride back to camp?" He looked hard at her, and he knew she could not resist his eyes. "Yeah, in a minute, but I got something to show you. Sit down. Relax. Have some wine." She frowned and sat impatiently. "No thanks. what?" He punched up a Welsh website to 'The Mabinogion', and read aloud to

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her, "Branwen Daughter of Llyr. The plot represents a variant of the early Welsh poem 'The Booty of Annewen' in which Arthwyr and the men of Bri tain raid the underworld and attempt to carry off a magic cauldron - The Grail. The poem does not say if the prize is obtained, but it does tell us that only seven men return." Branwen frowned, "Annewen? Annie?" Mars nodded. "Yeah, you should read this. It's great. Annewen was the underworld, literally, 'the womb of Anne', and it's also etymologically con nected to Rhiannon, the mother of King Arthwyr of your British ancestors. Rhea-Annewen, from the greek Titaness too. Rhiannon. Arthwyr is called Pryderi here, the origin of Prydain - Britain. Branwen is the sister of Bran, and she is called 'one of the three great queens of the island'. Britain. 'The most beautiful girl in the world'." He stopped reading, and kissed her. She was amazed but didn't pull away, "What do you think you're doing? Do you think I am booty?" He smiled, darkly handsome and charming, "Maybe. The Booty of Annewen." She softened and sighed, "Well, who was Branwen's husband supposed to be on your computer, the father of my daughter Rhiannon?" He shrugged, feeling her thigh exposed under her short skirt, under the table. "Don't know. Where is her father?" "Don't know." She opened her legs to him and she wasn't wearing panties. "Do you have anything on there about Che Guevara, or the Zapatistas?" she asked, looking him directly in the eye. He grinned, touching her vagina between her white legs, "Che? Of course. 'The most complete human being of our Age', Jean-Paul Sartre said. Che Guevara. And now the Zapatistas in Chiapas state, Mexico are re-defining the socialist revolution in terms of indigenous nationalism, or the land, to be more exact. Sections of the working class and petty bour

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geoisie in Cuba, Mexico, and here in Canada are, as always, tossed a share of the spoils to corrupt them into becoming watchdogs of imperial ism, those running dogs who would violently oppose any communist aboli tion of private property." Branwen was sopping wet in his hands. "You mean public property don't you, in the Marxist sense, factories, wage-labour, the means of production? It doesn't apply to us out here, on the land." They got up to go. "Yes," he replied, "that's where Mao and Che come in, and their rural guerrilla brand of Marxism-Leninism." She smiled and they walked out in the street in the hot sun, in the loud traffic, with pop music playing from doorways and luxury cars; with their arms around each other's waists, a beautiful sexual couple. She said, "We'll have the new shipment of guns tonight at the Medicine Wheel. Three warrior societies will be there." He stopped on the sidewalk, looking up the block where Arianrhod waited for them in her black Toyota kingcab pickup truck with baby Rhiannon. "Good. But not a word of any of this around your mother." Branwen was shocked. "What? She's totally with us." Mars shook his head. "No. She made a deal with the RCMP to keep you out of jail. Branwen, how do you think you only got four months in the wo men's prison in Vancouver for shooting at cops? Police helicopters? Run ning semi-automatics for Indians? They showed it all at your Trial, right? Wolverine is still in the Joint for the exact same thing - four years and counting, already. And a lot of others. I know what I'm talking about; don't ask me how. Dad has been investigating it. Your mother made a deal with the Pigs that she'd keep them informed about what we're doing, in exchange for you being home. Having a baby. The good life, eh? Free dom? She loves you Honey, like I do; but ... you'd better look up Arian rhod on the mythological channel. Why do you think she keeps pumping

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me about the shootout and all the events down in the States, and where Mom is and Athena? The boys. We're all funding the arming of the Re volution, you know that." Branwen was almost crying on the sidewalk, ashamed, or too hurt, to look at her mother holding her beautiful daughter and smiling at them.

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Yellowstone Park was achingly beautiful. Nature was good all around her, Annie felt. It was often her first and most surprising realization whenever she went outside, especially in the morning - the sheer quiet strong Good ness of the air and trees and silence and the deep black creek. It was strong. The oak and pine groves around their cabin, the perfect blue sky, ice and snow, in the shadows on the north slope of hills, dried brown hard chokecherries, daisies, were silent like rock. Buffalo grazed on the brown grass across the thin cold mountain Spring; animals more beautiful than the willows to her; dark human grass-eaters like men, powerful, serious men who weren't afraid to be mature and calm. Elk and vixens also roamed in their remote canyon far from any town or any other habitation, and lions. Even the cold nights cut sharply through any weakness or pretense of fool ishness, noise, or ideas. Magpies. Bluejays. The bright Sun. But it was cold in the late afternoon shadows on the snowy north side of the wooded hills so she hurried to the cabin in the rocks, ice breaking under her heavy boots on the top of the deep snow, hard crust holding her from sinking down a foot, two feet, into soft snow. The blue shadows were cold in the black trees. Smoke was coming from both chimneys of the cabin in the protected glen, almost hidden by huge Ponderosas and hundreds of yards from their pickup parked on the side trail so that no one could find them even if they found the truck; it was in a secure Indian camp for Cheyenne relatives maintained as part of the work to stop the slaughter of buffalo, which they were doing with some non-Indi ans from California and Oregon, "eco-terrorists" the newspapers called them. It was a good camp. Cowboys and snow-mobilers got drunk and tried to come around and confront them, stupid Americans, supported by the Montana state government and Department Of Livestock killing buffalo if they escaped the Park, buffalo threatening cattle ranges, profits, fatty rancid beef. The cabin looked cosy among huge snow-covered boulders, weathered

THE LIBYAD
reddish barn wood and big modern windows on the a-frame, with snow shoes and split pine logs piled around the outside, and the tall shiny steel chimneys efficiently filtering the white wood-smoke invisibly into the tall trees. She loved the sound of her boots crunching on the sub-zero crust and then stomping on the wooden porch. Feminine lace curtains hung over the window on the well-made front door. Her fingertips and nose were freezing in the high altitude as she opened the door quickly, stiffly, and felt, with relief almost like a deep breathing panic, the warm air and bright amber lights inside and the cheery fires in the Norweqian stove and the cook-stove burning red logs. Athena was typing on her laptop at the kitchen table, "Oh! close the door," she complained, "it's cold!" Annie smiled and had the door shut in a moment but her fingers almost hurt even in heavy thermal insulated gloves. "You call this cold?" she joked, her breath still smoking in one or two last lingering puffs from her chilled lungs, until she warmed her butt at the fine black stove in a corner of the living room, smelling of pine as the heat went out evenly and the smoke went up in the solid round stainless steel pipes to the roof. "Soup's hot," her daughter said without missing a word on the gray bat tery-charqed computer keyboard. Oh, good," Annie sighed, smelling the food simmering on the woodburn ing stove. "The guys have the indictments against the President listed on their website and Crazy Horse has everybody freaked. Nobody can figure it out, but there it is, thousands of crimes against humanity by the United States controlling almost the whole world's economy through the Interna tional Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and arming dictators everywhere. Everyone. Affidavits, documents, totaling trillions these criminals control in Third World debt, plutonium merchants, videos of them backing Mobutu killing millions of people in Zaire, Congo; Somoza in Nicaragua, the

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Shah of Iran, Marcos in the Philippines, Chiang Kai-shek, Batista in Cuba before Castro and Che Guevara threw him out. Mars is on the instant mes sage to me now over the Webs. He says hi." Annie ladled herself some buffalo stew with turnips and carrots. "How is he?" she asked looking at the screen. Athena stopped reading and typing for a minute and grinned. "I think he's got a thing going with Branwen." Annie stopped in the middle of a bite and sat at the big wooden table in the more closed kitchen area under their loft where they slept. "No? She's ten years older than him." Athena smiled again and took a bite of her mom's soup. "So, wasn't Dad older than you? He says they're monitoring the stuff of the President at Mount Rushmore too, and he heard the Israelis had quadrupled the secur ity around the Pope at Jerusalem." She began typing again. "I told him what those Montana Militia guys told you and the Elders Council the other day, about how they support us and want to see the President strung up too for betraying the American Revolution. Isn't that what they said, 'be traying the Revolution'?" Annie nodded, clearing a space among the dirty dishes on the table to butter some homemade banana bread. "Yeah, The Minuteman fought for Liberty, they said, the right to bear arms and sovereign state republics, not the Constitution and the big banks of the federal government. They were amazing. Totally supportive of indigenous sovereignty." Athena nodded, her lovely auburn hair tangled and unbrushed, wearing no makeup, or smacking gum, in a heavy wool sweater she crocheted, typing away furiously. "Yeah." Annie was proud of her. "You want some tea? I'm going to make

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some Earl Gray." Athena nodded, "with honey." It was wonderful. "They don't know where the Pope will be taken next, or the President, though. The charges are more than enough to bring them to Trial, the lawyers say. The Feds have declared Mar tial Law and called out the National Guard so we better be careful. Ha! They don't know how to get the President out of the Black Hills, because, he's still in a coma in Washington too! Nobody can figure it out. Mars says he's read the Catholic Church is up for millions murdered too in the Crusades and In quisition. God." Annie poured hot water from a teapot simmering on a side corner of the stove, tamped down the ventilation on it because the room and the water were getting too hot, and spooned fresh black tea leaves from an airtight canister into dippers for their cups. She checked the water barrel and it was almost full. Athena had kept it filled from the creek fifty yards down the hill. "All right, you got water. You know you're really becoming a wo man." Athena smiled slightly but kept typing very fast. Annie put the honey pot on the tea tray with their cups on a little side table in front of the stove and curled up on the little sofa in front, wrapping her legs in an old afghan and tucking her feet in heavy socks warmly underneath her. The window on the closed airtight gate of the stove flickered red and yellow from the roaring fire inside it, and candles and kerosene lanterns positioned around the one big A-frame room, with a half loft above the kitchen, made it all glow dimly as dark descended outside in the woods. Glass gallon jars of coffee beans, flour, whole-wheat germ, brown sugar, brown rice, and gar lic, thyme, dried mushrooms and red peppers were stacked neatly on wooden shelves all around the kitchen. A side door by the cook stove led outside to an outhouse with a compost toilet. Dirty dishes soaked on the stove in warm water in big ceramic basins, and towels and underwear

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dried on a line hanging behind the stove in a corner. It was free of the tingle of electricity in the air and quiet except for Athena's typing and the wood crackling inside the heavy iron stoves. Isolated. The world of people was in upheaval outside. Athena sat beside her and covered her feet in the afghan too, and spooned big balls of honey in her hot cup. "Tell me how you met Dad."

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The Tetons loomed in the west like Titans from God, snow-capped moun tains in Wyoming that Prometheus might have been able to see from the stars. From the heavens the earth below looked white with snow and clouds, gray rock and brown fields, green, and the blue seas far to the edges of the continents spun imperceptibly where Rhea and Atlas might have marveled in the total blackness. Light was an infinitesimal speck, from there. Muhammad might have been the son of a god watching Orion and Sirius pointing to the arrowhead of the Pleiades, and there was no such thing as Time except in the spinning balls of light, worlds, solar cycles. The moon. The Archangel Gabriel. She guided him out of Isra-El to Annewen. He was heartsick with war when he met her in London in 1974, at a reception in Soho for the Palestinian National Council. "I didn't know who he was," Annie said, "other than he was the most handsome and tormented man I had ever seen. He was the buzz of the party even with Yassar Arafat there, and famous Arab playboys in colorful tribal robes. Muhammad looked like a lot of other Arab men, I thought at first, and it wasn't until I got to know him better in Cardiff that his mind, his spirit, slowly began to sink into me; that it, he, was a genius. Most of us look at a few things at a time, Athena, but your father can look at it all. He is able to put things together like no one I can imagine. I knew he was special because they all said he was a holy warrior, a hero of the Yom Kippur, but I had no idea. Who could? I had no idea." Michael spun them away from ordinary Space too, and eternity. He wanted his son to learn more about death and what it would be like for him afterwards. "That, after all, is what I really want to know," he told An nie in bed after they made love the first time, in a quaint Welsh inn on the Irish Sea. "What I can do after death, as a god walking the earth. What my Belief can really accomplish." She lit a cigarette. "I don't understand." He kissed her beautiful breast. "Belief is what makes it happen. Belief. Higher knowledge. You can think of something if you know it, and that's what memory is. Prophecy. It's what Mahomet did and Saint Mark and

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Merlin right around here. That's why I came to Wales, on assignment from my father Michael to study resurrection. I can make myself live forever." She had stated at him in disbelief and disdain. "What an ego!" she laughed, over a quarter of a century later in the cabin in the shadow of the Tetons. "I couldn't believe it." Athena frowned, "Isn't it funny how we always say we can't believe something? Incredible! we say. Unbeliev able." Annie sighed deeply and nodded agreement, remembering. In Britain she followed him around and thought of it like a roller coaster, holding on for dear life as he swooped across the landscapes of mysteries from Shakespeare to Camelot. "What is it that was happening, besides love?" she asked her daughter. "We fell in love, and lust, and it was great, we were a beautiful couple; but I was in bed with a genius beyond my know ing. Belief, faith, was another thing despite what he said and I had faith in Muhammad, I really did. Despite his ego. He wasn't vain and he didn't want fame or any of that, but he was very self-confident; very very sure of himself. Some people, especially women, thought he was arrogant. Preten tious. I thought he had a power, a Spirit, capable of doing what he said, anything he said beyond even death. Death was all around him but it wasn't bad. He was frightening, yes, scary in what he said because he really meant it. I've never known anyone like that, before or since." She didn't want to tell her daughter something else about her father that Annie didn't understand; her husband had so much physical power that a kind of terrible rage also occasionally exploded out of him, in his voice, in his terrible eyes. Passion beyond belief. He never turned it on her because he said, and she knew also in her heart, that he loved and respected her; but she saw him lash out savagely several times, many times actually, at li ars and hypocrites. "I don't turn the other cheek," he would say, "except when it is truly the course of wisdom to obey the Tao vow of silence, of do ing~nothing, which Castaneda also described, as the best way to get

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something done. People appreciate it when you get out of their faces." Athena had a question, "Liars and hypocrites? They're everywhere though, it's like fighting the world to fight every asshole that comes along. No, I know, Mom, that's not what Dad did. But you know what I mean. Tao and Mao. And then he could be so full of love and that was really what he was all about, mostly, I think. Yeah, I don't know him as well as you, and I saw that he kind of got impatient with love and the way it's overused all the time. Yeah." Annie smiled, "Very good, You're right. Even with his violent side he was really basically a very very spiritual otherworldly man, mostly. Mostly, I think Hammed was full of love." Athena nodded, "Because he was full of life." Annie nodded, yeah, his sense of happiness stemmed from that love of life, a genuine enjoyment, a passion, that she remembered fondly especially in the sex, in, the way he could make love for a long time without climaxing, erect as a deer horn, considerate of her pleasure to the point of maddening desire. He had no doubts at all about his masculinity. Confidence. Strength. It was the surest sign of his unhumanness. She saw in Britain and everywhere else they went that people started to hate him for his confidence and happiness, their jealousy threatened, their criminality exposed by his eloquence and fearlessness and maddening impeccability. "It's always shocking to me," he said, "how people can let others suffer and die and starve while they know, they know, they are stealing the money and lying to themselves that they are not the thieves, they are not criminals running red lights, embezz ling, foreclosing mortgages, handcuffing children, but it is the others who are fools in the way of opportunity, career, nation, the victims destroying decency and progress. A child knows he's lying or stealing candy and so does an adult. People know when they're doing something wrong and they just want to get away with it. That's all. They don't care who it hurts, there is something in all of us that wants to be free of all constraints."

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Athena and Annewen both felt right then that this was a 'deja-vu' of great significance, suddenly. They felt that Muhammad was evolving, and TheLibyad.com was, by electric currents, adding, rewriting, subtle differ ences in the historical evolution of Spiritual Men like him. They suddenly remembered other conversations like theirs, only, between a father and his son, Michael like Prometheus explaining the rest of the Titans as well as Je sus, and his son, and the Queen of England on Trial too, Hercules or Zeus questioning the contradictions. The confusion of the Bible leading up to the Emperor Constantine in Britain. "The connections," Dionysius said. "The explanations of God." Lines in the screen leaped out: lovely yellow garlands for Venus, bronze statues of Pan and Isis, honored ancestors, evangelic How can a man become his daughter? Athena wondered. Then she knew that she had become a god dess.

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After the battle of the Golan was lost, Muhammad was in the spirit world all the time. When he was caught years later in the lands of his enemies, in Israel and America, tortured in jail and put to death in solitary isolation, the black tomb, forgotten, alive only in his memory of the days when he was a prophet where God passed judgment on the Pope, the President, and the Queen; at the Wadi Lebda he was Dionysus again praying in pure Berber - "Tafsout n' Imazighen!" Berber Spring. At the Tribunal of the Age he was Osiris again, and he was Iesous of the Grace too. He went from Caesarea Philippi to Chalcis as Marcus Agrippa did, the King Herod whose father Agrippa I was crucified by Caligula, Ag rippa, the Juba Ptolemy son of Eros Caesarion. He went from Caesar to Rome to Constantine the emperor and grandfather of Merlin: his son Mars was Arthwyr who was Horus, who beheaded his mother Isis like Iesous the Christ full of Grace like On the Baptist; and she was Annewen - Rhiannon, the horse goddess of Rhea the Titaness. He was in the spirit world, the land after death of the gods all the time. Red Athena was his daughter Viviane of Avalon too. Like Marcus Iulius Agrippa II, the angel Mark of the Gospel, he was his own angel dictating his own Qu'ran to himself. He was his own Guardian Angel. Evangelist. The King of Libya. Sharif. Pro metheus his father was still nailed to the World Tree in the stars like Iesous Osiris; and like Hercules he had to free the Atlantean Titan from his bur den imposed by Zeus, Set, the new religion weighing down on his father like all the knowledge of the gods he had given mankind. It was a war in Heaven. Zeus led the legions of Eve, the dea-eve-el, Devils who cham pioned ignorance as the faith that would redeem helpless mankind; anim als, armies, who would kill the Khu life-force of the eternal resurrected Mummiform. Annie didn't understand any of it, in bed. "I understand Spirit," she said, "the life breath I guess, that, what we breathe in can not be breathed out, expired, except at our peril." He breathed into her open wet mouth. "In the Bible the correct Greek

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word is 'expired' when the english translators say Jesus 'gave up the ghost'. Expired. Breathed out. Blew forth a great wind to rent the Temple. St. Mark was saying Isos was rising from the dead when he breathed. That was the Evangelist's inspiration." He went from Lebanon after the War in 1973 to Greece and then Rome, like Agrippa did, like Herod Antipas and Herodias exiled to Lyon at the same time, 40 A.D., that Caligula executed Juba in Lyon, Lugdunensis, the Roman province of Gaul that included Brittany, Armorica, where Joseph of Aramathea took the Grail, to Enez Aval, Avalon, retracing his route. He and Annie weren't talking in any kind of normal way that she could under stand as fucking or procreation. He couldn't tell her yet that Mars was like her son Horus and that he may have to behead her for her betrayal of him, like the white buffalo cow, like Herodias betraying On-Eros; or rather, Herodias was Mary Magadelene performing the crucial sacrifical Dionysi an ritual, Ceremony defying Death, exiled with Jesus to France, in the great oral traditions. What he couldn't understand either was that it was necessary for Isis (as Dionysus Jesus, the androgynous deity) to butcher Osiris, for his own good, His apotheosis or Anastasia. "How can a man turn into a god?" Air. Clouds. "Is Venus an ally of Zeus?" she asked. He sighed. "Gabriel goes back and forth, insisting there is no Evil, it is only men who murder and hate the truth. Killer apes." She sat up in bed, naked, smoking a cigarette. "Venus would say your Herod was not a peaceful ruler. Or Caesar. And so, the Pope is truer to that kind of Christ than what you say." He nodded and breathed deeply. "Yes. It's the dilemna of war." Air. "Religion is an Imperial Cult." Cre ation. "What does 'Divi Filius' really mean? The Pope's prayer 'In the

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name of the father, and of the son', and why the Jews, and Nazareth? Ta citus probably had it right that the Jews were the liars and thieves of his tory, stealing Egypt as their own, and Moses was just a lawyer in 750 b.c. who was thrown out of the Nile with his fellow criminals. That was it. The human race is still full of unbelievable idiocy. And they wrote it all up in Babylon Iraq in 500 b.c. as some big holy goddamn deal. No. No. No. No. No. Jesus said as much so they had him murdered too, defamed throughout history without any facts as the evil Herod; and everybody but Arabs falls for that shit. Even when they worship at the walls of Herod's Temple. The criminals of history. Destroyers of their own Temple, and of Pan's. Venus, blaming it maliciously as usual on the Romans or Africans or anybody but themselves, right up to today. Terrorists. Christ-killers, Herodkillers. Jews. Anti- Hamites. Queen Berenice (Benghazi) ruled and the Em peror Titus loved her, like Cleopatra. He would never have destroyed her brother Agrippa's exquisite Temple, heirs of Zerubbabel." Acts of the Apostles 26:28 - And Agrippa to Paul said, In a little me thou persuadest a Christian to become. To attain janna in the inshallah (afterlife) Muhammad traveled from then on, from now on, warring to attain Azul Fellaween (peace); and it was time to leave the lovely blue Mediterranean Sea and al-Qathafi's US-sup ported military dictatorship, anti-Paganist capitalism, for Paris and holy Brittany - ARMORICA (part 2). HEROD (part 3). Europe was just as lovely green and white and mountainous, lush with water, gardens, food. Starving Africa. He traveled alone with a forged Cypriot passport the Hezbollah gave him, in European sports clothes as a tourist, wellgroomed, an innocent Poet fluent in Italian and British English. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes wide open because he knew the Jews had con vinced everyone Arabs were the terrorists, haters, ignorant dogs, Islamic ultra-nationalists; and Europe didn't much like the Jews either. More and

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more he immersed himself only in the few good men whom they had hated when they were alive, and safely revered when dead. He read books in cafes. Music. It all seemed to come from Africa. He went on across the Ocean and they conceived Mars. Athena. From Canada across another Oceanus to Hawai'i, Japan, Lao Tzu, Central Asia, to Mecca the young god finally journeyed home; and morning arose like his soul over Libya.

THE END

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Seals was born in Denver, Colorado, was a member of the Americ an Indian Movement, and is founder of the Bear Butte Council. He is the author of The Seven Council Fires of Sweet Medicine: Seven Acts in Five Volumes of Indigenous Mythology (Sky and Sage, 1997); Crazy Horse: The Book and Screenplay (Sky and Sage, 1996); Sweet Medicine (Crown, 1994); and Powwow Highway (Sky and Sage, 1983/Plume, 1990; also a motion picture). 'The Libyad' is one of the ten anagogic works of the 'Herodeia Decalogue', after 40 years of writing and filmmaking since almost being kicked out of Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, living in Libya before that for 3 years in high school, and many bouts with cops and publishers and theatrical producers who don't understand there are still a lot of GODS in this world!