Autoschediasm
By sean mcnulty
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On the Friday evening, just after the dailies were done with, Frances Buckley, at Elder’s beckoning, headed to the kitchen and got to work on a heaving vat of custard. Make it thick and memorable, he said to her, something sturdy enough to battle time and space.
And she did just that. It is not so difficult to whisk up a custard. All you need is some flour, milk, butter, egg yolk. A bit of vanilla extract might also help.
Why not custard cream biscuits too? asked Frances. Do you think he might go for them? There’s a pack in the cupboard.
No, said Elder. The voice said nothing about biscuits. Just stick to the real stuff.
And when the custard was done and taken to the attic to present to the bog man, Elder asked Frances to make a nice custard and bogberry pie for them all, which now in a move to restore serenity to the household, he invited them to partake of, setting it up as a kind of pre-meditation meal. It was rather odd to all of them how he went about offering the pie, as if he knew its properties would send them into a reverie of some sort. What was known by all was the aphrodisiacal potency of the bogberry but in a sense he was hinting at something more mind-altering with the pie. Still, their prudence was brief. They had all tasted the bogberry by now, and the men especially had been moved to stick upwards as a result, so they were acquainted with its effects and unconcerned; and the custard, well, what could Frances Buckley’s custard do – unless she had gone so far as to lace it with some psychoactive substance she had found? But she was much too square for that behaviour, honestly.
With the storm dipping outside and the bedlam abating, Elder suggested they grab a moment of sonic therapy, which they sometimes did using sound effects records issued by the BBC. They could create an artificial storm if they pleased with those recordings but such sounds were not exactly sanative; and so neither the noises of crowds and vehicles. If one was to meditate, the sounds for doing so would have to be softer. Sometimes ocean sounds, the baying of whales. Or the rainforest. A waterfall. A mountain retreat. Ecological feasts for the ear. Now it was the country garden record, sounds which in fact they could hear for real when outside in the light of day, but a recording was just as good, if conditions outside were not quite so. Little sounds grew louder forming patterns in their heads. The chip of a squirrel, the knock of a pigeon on the roof. The cheeping and cooing of a starling and dove together. Though those two didn’t sound at all happy with one another. TOOTOOTTEETTEETTEETOOOOT! TOOTOOTTEETTEETTEETOOOOT! A rather unpleasant back and forth. Like they were about to tear each other limb from limb. Or perhaps it was just Devin who could hear the warring birds, all the conflict under the melodies. The others heard only the birdsong, the sweetness and warmth.
Opening one eye, Devin stole a look at Imogen. She was at peace, once again getting into the meditation business with ease, unlike he, still headblasted with dread about the future. He attempted to insert wedding bells in the garden – foolish! The bells were on a different record. Maybe they’d get hitched in a garden, he thought. Cheaper than a church. Jesus priced. Careful with the word cheap.
And then.
Butterflies.
But he didn’t hear them.
Too quiet to hear on the record so they materialised before him as electric zigs, fluttering this way that.
He closed the one eye, and opened the other.
All around him then a garden sprung up which appeared to form out of electricity, as though Bridget Riley herself had got into his head and was scraping out a new abstract painting, but a more conventional one this time, one informed by the simple pleasures of a country garden, and rendered in blue and white lightstrokes. Florals emerging, scintillated stems, in crystal glaze. Bees feeding within humming zinnias. An electric gnome in shining sapphire dungarees. Neon-blue armyworms slinking in patches of blazed white grass. Ah, what sights, what sounds.
Yet.
The bromidrosis was strong. From someone. He still wasn’t sure who. His exceptional nose had not identified the culprit. He speculated then that a combination of odours was the cause, a meeting of smells, something terrible which occurred each time certain individuals got near to one another.
The mind alternated between peace and no peace. Such was life.
Whose illusions were they under? Elder’s? Or simply their own? These were questions that not only Devin was asking, but also others in the room whose eyes opened to witness fantastic things, including Elder himself.
It is exasperating sometimes being eccentric and affluent with a lot of time on your hands. So one is inclined to try out many things; in fact, to try and accomplish great things – in your mind first, then in reality – often without fully-formulated goals. It’s an aimless life of leisure really. One might set off on a marvellous adventure across Asia merely from glimpsing a picture of the Sand Dunes at Jaisalmer in a magazine. The power to do such a thing exists. And the appetite. So you take it. You go with it. Life. It’s easy.
The truth is, not even Elder knew if the custard would have an effect when he had Frances mix it into the pie. It was just normal custard after all. Created as a gift for the unearthed.
If Elder had a master plan at all, it was to grow the Kindred Eye into something as grand as the movement started by Prannoy Krishnappa, the supreme influencer. It was Guru Krishnappa who he recalled wrote so eloquently about autoschediasm: taking it upon yourself to act once the world acts upon you, a quality Elder put great store in. He remembered reading a thousand words by Krishnappa on the concept before realising it meant improvisation. Such pleonastic flair was most inspiring.
Both his guru and grandmother if alive today would see too that Hayes Elder was on the cusp of something, and being aimless wanderers of the world themselves, they would certainly pat him on the back and wish him well on his constantly-evolving mission to awaken the New Man.
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of course, #metoo rich
of course, #metoo rich eccentric with too much money and tme on my hands. Had to google bogberry and autoshedim (sing or plural). But, of course, custard with enough consistency to curdle time and space, is commonplace, almost.
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