Chapter III - 'Sow the Wind'

Work in progress: excerpt from Sow the Wind - a novel.

Chapter III

I gave the opening address of my lecture series in the main auditorium of the Society, the day I returned from Aegina. Demetrios had brought me back to Athens that morning, to give me time to put the finishing touches to my lecture. Iris had refused to come with us; she had a migraine and had slept badly.  I promised myself that as soon as my lectures were over, I would return to Aegina and try to persuade her to change her mind about touring Greece with me. Before I left, Demetrios and I had returned to the temple of Aphaia, for I wanted to see if I could find a natural explanation for the apparition I had seen. I soon located a track leading up the hill to the rear of the temple, as well as a gap in the fence that would have made climbing over it unnecessary. Desperate for reassurance that all was well with consensus reality, I concluded that my hypothetical tourist could well have come in that way. My doubts laid to rest by this feeble rationalization, I went back to Athens with Andreas the next morning to prepare for my Monday night lecture.  I know now that I was suffering from cognitive dissonance, the emotional turmoil we experience when we try to reconcile the actual with the seemingly impossible.

I dislike giving public lectures, especially full-dress affairs. Ceremony irritates me; I am at my best in a university lecture theatre, with an audience of students, or in a seminar with my colleagues. I was dismayed to see that this auditorium was packed to capacity; there were even people sitting on the broad windowsills. I was also surprised to have learnt from Andreas that this lecture was being broadcast throughout Greece. Why are people so often interested in history? Perhaps because they look to it for answers to those questions which used to be provided by religion and metaphysics. History, said Joyce, is a shout in the street – a meaningless cry in the dark. I could not agree with that nihilistic view. But faced with an educated audience like this one, hot for certainties and eager for answers to the perennial questions, I was tempted to warn them that history gave, at the best, only partial answers. If history was a mirror, it was a clouded and distorting one, bronze rather than glass.

I began by quoting Auden’s dictum: ‘Had Greek civilisation never existed we would never have become fully conscious, which is to say that we would never have become, for better or for worse, fully human.’ So Hellas had humanized us all. Yet that very morning, in Athens, cradle of western civilisation, a terrorist bomb had been hurled into yet another hotel swimming pool, exploding among a group of frolicking deaf-mutes children. They had mimed their agony, dying silently in dumb crambo. What had such violence to do with Athens, ‘Mother of Hellas, violet-crowned’, to quote Pindar? Perhaps more than most of us would care to admit, given the city’s growing reputation as a safe haven for terrorists.

Why did civilisations collapse? Many attempts had been made to answer this question, none of them wholly successful. One might begin by defining ‘collapse’, with Joseph A. Tainter, as ‘a rapid, significant loss of socio-political complexity’. Such collapse was not limited to civilisations; it could occur even among tribes, as Colin Turnbull had demonstrated in his harrowing study of the hapless Ik of Uganda. But it was the collapse of high cultures that aroused the most interest, perhaps because their end reflected our deepest fears for the continued existence of our own society. As Wilamowitz said, with reference to the fall of the Roman Empire: [We know now that] ‘civilisation can die, because it already died once.’ Or as Christopher Dawson had put it in The Dynamics of World History (1956): ‘Of all the changes the twentieth century has brought, none goes deeper than the disappearance of that unquestioning faith in the future and the absolute values of our civilisation which was the dominant note of the nineteenth century.’

The fall of Rome was perhaps the example that came most readily to mind when we thought of the collapse of a civilisation. For some years I had been devoting my research to the question of why the Western Roman Empire succumbed when the Eastern Empire did not. Explanations of the coming fall were being given by historians long before the collapse actually occurred. In his Rise of the Roman Empire, the Greek historian, Polybius, inspired by Plato, had argued as early as the second century BCE that Rome, like all states, must pass through a natural cycle of growth, maturity and decay. Later, Sallust, Seneca the Elder, Cyprian, Vegetius and Bishop Ambrose of Milan had developed this argument, contending that Rome must perish because everything that is born dies. Only the fourth-century historian, Emperor Julian’s officer, Ammianus Marcellinus, disagreed, asserting confidently, on the very eve of Rome’s downfall, that it was immortal. Later writers, ranging from the early Renaissance historian, Flavio Biondo, to Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Gibbon, Herder, Hegel, Bruckhardt, Spengler, Toynbee, Borkenau, Sorokin, Kroeber, Dawson, Charles Gray and many others had all put forward similarly unconvincing and often ludicrous idealist explanations for the collapse of Rome. None of these theories could claim any scientific validity, for none of them were, to use Isaiah Berlin’s term, falsifiable. Of more interest were materialist theories ascribing the collapse of the Western Empire to resource depletion, barbarian invasion, catastrophe, class conflict, mismanagement, poor leadership, overtaxation, disease, social dysfunction, pure chance, climactic change or economic factors. The economic theories were both logically and structurally superior to the others, since they could identify characteristics of Roman society – rampant inflation, chief among them - that led to its downfall. Moreover, these characteristics could be found in other societies that had collapsed, thereby paving the way for a universally applicable theory explaining the demise of civilisations.

At this juncture I cited Ester Boserup’s thesis that growth of population led inevitably to a decline in marginal returns from agriculture. Boserup’s arguments had been extended by Clark and Haswell (I displayed their graphs), who had proven that in any subsistence regime marginal returns on agriculture declined with increasing labour. Declining marginal returns, therefore, held the key to the collapse of complex social organisations. What were the implications for us, with a population headed for seven billion by 2012, only twenty-seven years from now?

As Tainter, had ably demonstrated, a consistent pattern of declining marginal returns could be observed not only in all historical collapses, but also in our own society, world-wide, in fields as diverse as agriculture, education, information processing and government. It was costing us more and more to produce less and less. Sooner or later, we should be testifying to the truth of the Queen of Hearts’ dictum that one had to run very hard to stay in the same place. We had around thirty more years to go, if we were to believe a contemporary Greek economist, Xenophon Zolotas, who had asserted that shortly after the year 2000, Western society would enter a phase where the returns on its whole gamut of investments would decline sharply, leading to a collapse of the financial system in the West. I was prepared to go further and assert that this decline would be greatly exacerbated by the world’s reaching peak oil around 2015 after which the rising costs of all oil-based products would bring about a sharp decline in living standards worldwide, with the worst of the burden being borne by the poorer countries, who depended on oil-based fertilizers to support their swollen populations. The huge, ever-widening gap between rich and poor would place intolerable strains on our precariously balanced polity system. The result would be escalating conflict, in the form of both conventional welfare and terrorism. The car bomb, not the atom bomb, would initially be the preferred weapon, along with virtually unstoppable suicidal terrorists, most of whom would be Muslims, since Islam was already awakening after its centuries long sleep.   By that time the Soviet Union and its whole brutally ramshackle Communist empire would have disintegrated, for the reasons I have just outlined, probably no later than the mid-nineties, leaving the United States and a rapidly developing totalitarian China as the only super-powers in an increasingly anarchistic global order. We could therefore expect to find nuclear, bacteriological and chemical weapons freely available to anyone with the money to pay for them. Since terrorism was traditionally the warfare of the weak, and the weak would proliferate, the opening decades of the twenty-first century could well witness the destruction of millions of people through the acts of international terrorism, culminating in the obliteration of one or more cities of a leading developed nation – almost certainly the United States – by hand-delivered nuclear ‘suitcase’ bombs, probably supplied by one of the nations in the present Communist bloc, which by 2000 or even earlier would have ceased to exist, or else by a rogue Stalinist state like North Korea or a fanatical theocracy like Iran. The type of savage terrorism we were witnessing around us at the moment, of which the example I had quoted in my peroration was typical, was therefore to be seen as but the pale precursor of the terrorism to come, which could well end in the complete destruction of Athens and its four million people, through the use of chemical, bacteriological or nuclear weapons. The violet crown that Pindar had ascribed to Athens could assume the form of the Medusa glare of a twenty-kiloton terrorist suitcase bomb.

These remarks provoked a considerable stir within the auditorium. It is one thing to be told that civilisation is threatened; it is quite another to be told you yourself are at risk. Clearly, my audience, which had come to be enlightened and entertained with comforting platitudes, had not been prepared for this unpleasant development. Furthermore, my remarks about the forthcoming demise of the Communist bloc had not gone down well with a largish section of the audience, though greeted with enthusiasm by the Establishment in the front rows. I suspected the left-wing papers would handle me roughly the next day. In the meantime, I pressed on with the final paragraphs of my lecture.

Though we could now point to the mechanism which brought about the downfall of our societies, I went on, we should not rest content with this. Ultimately, the historian was forced to explain why the fall of these societies, whether simple or complex, was preceded and accompanied by such appalling slaughter. This was equally as true of the disintegration of the Ik of Uganda as of the fall of Rome. To understand this, one had to turn to psychoanalysis, which alone gave us the insight necessary to comprehend why social disintegration brought with it such universally bloody consequences. 

In every human being an incessant battle went on between forces that Freud had dubbed Agape or Love, and Thanatos, or Death. All the great Traditions had warned us that, if we did not embrace Love, we should have to embrace Death. Our civilisations seemed already to have made its choice. Death was the primary problem that confronted us all. Within each of us there were two conflicting opposites, namely the conviction that we were immortal and the certainty that we would die. From this collision of warring polarities, our lifeless life, our deathless death, sprang the synthesis we call civilisation. All our cultures were essentially what Ken Wilber had called “Atman Projects”, or attempts to deny death. And the deaths that we inflicted upon others, whether in the form of murders, ritual sacrifices, or slaughter in battle, were simply attempts to deny our own feared mortality by dealing out death to our fellows.

From this followed certain, ineluctable conclusions. If the struggle between death and immortality was at the core of every human being, then it must also be at the core of every culture. We could therefore classify civilisations, as Borkenau had suggested, on the basis of their attitudes to death. Highest were the death-transcending cultures, like India, or pre-modern Europe, with their insistence that the human being could not be identified with the body; next came the death-accepting cultures, like the Hellenic, or the early Hebraic, which stressed the necessity of living life to the utmost; lastly came the death-embracing cultures, from the Assyrians and Aztecs to the contemporary totalitarian states and a recrudescent Wahabi Islam. Was it not a Spanish, fascist general who had cried out Viva la muerte! (Long live death!)? And were not the Islamic “martyrs”, the youthful suicide-bombers, the child soldiers sacrificed by the thousand in the bloody conflict between Iraq and Iran, where, among other atrocities, they had been used to clear mine-fields by running through them, each bearing a cheap, plastic Key to Paradise - were they and their commanders the mullahs not equally in love with death?

Our own civilisation stood at a crossroads, uncertain whether to embrace death or life. Warfare and its half-brother, terrorism, were examples of our culture’s blind urge towards extinction. The twentieth century had well been named ‘The Age of Death’. Modern civilisation was the barbarous, scientistic ‘reign of quantity’ that Rene Guénon had foreseen; desperate for reassurance that all was well with consensus reality, it had become materialistic, reductionist, violent and nihilistic. It had even resurrected – and on a grand scale – torture, a practice which the nineteenth century had thought it had banished for ever. Militarists and terrorists throve in those conditions. However they might disguise their motives with high-sounding rhetoric, their real war cry was the fascists’Viva la muerte! Unless we were prepared to act decisively against terrorism, we should be acquiescing in our civilisation’s shift from accepting death to embracing death, and so paving the way for our own extinction. Ultimately, all these death-embracing creeds, whether communist, fascist, religious or purely nihilistic, were founded on Thanatos, not Agape. Essentially necrophiliac, they manifested a cold hatred of life and a contempt for humanity which one might well call Satanic.  They could only be opposed by the perennial philosophy, the sānatana dharma, which emphasised love and compassion. For only love and compassion were stronger than our ancient Adversary, Thanatos.

When I lecture, it is my custom to pick out certain people in the audience and address my remarks to them. I look directly into their eyes and so make contact with them, before moving on to someone else. So as I was speaking, I had gradually been letting my gaze travel further back in the auditorium. As it reached the corner of the left-hand side aisle at the very rear of the hall, I suddenly realised I was looking directly at Alethea.

The shock of encountering this apparition in a public place was so great that my heart lurched within me, and my voice faltered. For a moment, I felt the platform shift beneath my feet, then, like a circus acrobat who keeps on performing after he has almost missed the trapeze, I went on with my address. Yet even though my voice continued to pronounce the words, my whole attention was riveted on Alethea. Once again, she was clad in white. Once again, her black hair fell loosely about her shoulder. But this time, I could see her eyes, unshaded by dark glasses. She sat there watching me, unmoving, a ghost of a smile on her lips, the exquisite oval of her face uplifted whitely in the gloom. Once or twice, I fancied I saw her change position slightly, and even nod as though in agreement with what I was saying. But under the balcony at the back of the hall, the light was so dim that I could be by no means sure of what I was seeing, yet it did seem as though this figment of my deluded cortex, this lovely aberration from consensus reality, this right-hemispherical divagation, was actually responding to my words. In the end, I gave up the struggle and abandoned myself to this sensual hallucination.

Alethea, untouched by the harsh years that were aging me, freed from the tyranny of time, as young and beautiful as she was when I had said goodbye to her for the last time, was sitting in that gloomy hall, drinking in my words, as though we had never been parted. The rest of the world receded in a haze; I had eyes only for her. It was to her I spoke of love and death. To her I appealed for compassion, wisdom and love, as the only way out of the labyrinth where the Minotaur was waiting. As in a dream, I heard myself delivering the peroration without taking my eyes off her. The moment my speech ended, I was tempted to leap down from the platform, sprint up the aisle, and see if I could clasp her in my arms. But I envisaged the newspaper headlines (‘Deranged Professor Sexually Harasses Hallucination’) and thought better of it.  By the time I had made my way to the back of the hall, after listening to the usual speech of thanks from the President of the Society and having my photograph taken, Alethea – or rather her hallucinatory image – had vanished again.

I returned to the hotel, exhausted and deeply shaken by the vision I had seen. Unable to sleep, I poured myself a glass of Glennfidich from the mini-bar and sat down to brood on the events of the past few days. Was I destined to be haunted by this phantom, this aberration of my cortex throughout my stay in Greece? Her continual reappearance was sapping my strength, drawing me ineluctably into a past I had struggled to forget for over two decades. Iris had been right to compare me to Orestes, whose words in the Choephoroi of Aeschylus kept running through my mind: ‘You cannot see them you cannot, but I see them. They are hunting me down!’

They were indeed hunting him down. The Erinyes! These terrible Furies had appeared to him in the guise of two beautiful women with blood-red eyes and snake-wreathed hair, like that of Medusa. Only the intervention of Athene and Apollo had saved him from being driven insane, like Hercules or Lycurgus, persecutor of Dionysus. The Furies were obeying the law of revenge, for Orestes had slain his mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover Aegisthus, to avenge the murder of his father, Agamemnon, as he later slew Helen of Troy to requite Menelaus for his ingratitude. I felt I had willingly and unwittingly become part of this terrifying world of the ancient Greek myths that so haunted Iris. I too had blood on my hands – the blood of Chloe as well as that of Alethea. Were these now materializing as two Furies who were finally to drive me insane? To rend every nerve in my body with guilt, as they had vowed to do to Orestes? Unlike Orestes, I could find no Delphic temple of Pythian Apollo, no shrine of Athene on the Acropolis in which to seek refuge, clinging to a pillar. The gods did not intercede for unbelievers. Neither pagan nor Christian, I was caught between two opposing creeds, stranded in a ravaged No-man’s-land of barren, rationalistic scepticism.

My ruminations were cut short by the shrill ringing of the phone. It was Andreas, sounding very flustered and apologetic. I had provoked a greater reaction from my audience than I had intended. The President had just received several anonymous phone calls, threatening to kill me and the leading members of the Committee, as well as blow up the auditorium building, unless my next lecture was promptly cancelled. Athenians had resurrected an ancient tradition going back to Socrates: Kill those who disagree with you. Under the circumstances, the Society had reluctantly decided to postpone my lecture until the hue and cry died down. Nevertheless, I would receive the agreed lecture-fees, and have all my hotel expenses paid.

It took him some considerable time to deliver this message. He kept apologising, now in Greek, now in French, now in English. Had he known a dozen other languages he would doubtless have apologized in them too. I felt sorry for him. This was a task that the President himself should have performed, instead of leaving it to the hapless Andreas. Eventually, I managed to interrupt his apologies and stammered explanations long enough to tell him that I was not at all put out by what had happened.  I was going to hire a car, tour all the major archaeological sites, and have a long overdue holiday. He was so relieved at my reaction – I think he had expected me to threaten legal action for breach of contract – that he even offered to chauffeur me himself. I declined his offer politely; it was Iris I had in mind as a companion, not him. I told him I would be grateful if he could hire a sports car for me and make a hotel booking in Nauplia, which would be my first stop. Then I said good night, and turned in, after informing the management to tell all callers besides Dr Yiannouri that I had already left. I did not want to spend the night listening to the local lunatics breathing death threats into my ears. Viva la muerte!  

Twenty minutes later I got a triumphant call from Andreas. The car would be at the hotel at eight the next morning. He had even managed to wring a fifteen per cent discount out of the hire-car firm, thanks to his connections. He has also booked me into a suite at the Sparta Palace in Nauplia, the best xenodochia in town. With my plans thus in order, I drifted off to sleep, only to find myself once more caught up in the nightmare world of the Dream.

Andreas was not one to stint when it came to spending someone else’s money. A gleaming, white Mercedes 350 SL, current model, was waiting for me outside the hotel the next morning. I winced a little, signed away a small fortune, had the porter put my bags in the boot, slid behind the wheel, and a few seconds later was picking my way through the rush-hour traffic on my way to the Corinth, Nauplia, and the Southern Peloponnese. I felt a sense of relief at escaping from Athens, as well as at leaving the hotel with its disquieting memories. My only regret was that I was going to be alone on my holiday. I had rung Iris, pleading her to come with me, only to have her refuse. She was still too frightened even to want to talk to me for long. She had made up her mind that I was unlucky, perhaps that I had the evil eye. And once a Greek decides that someone is unlucky, they keep well away from him

In spite of this, I was in high spirits. The weather was sunny, with a gentle southerly breeze, and a forecast maximum of only thirty centigrade. Not a cloud was in the sky, which soon took on that iridescent blue for which the Aegean is famous, once I had left the smog of Athens behind me. The new corniche to Corinth ran high above the Mediterranean, cut into the mountainside which in places dropped sheer away into the sea far below. Above me on my right, stark hillsides, long ago stripped of their trees and strewn with gaunt boulders, lay shimmering in the fierce September sun. The car purred smoothly, like a sleek, white cat, effortlessly licking up the miles. Like many men, I had a weakness for expensive cars. I could afford to indulge it, since I had never married. Luxury cars are far less costly than wives and children.

I switched on the radio, expecting to hear Greek music, and found to my delight that I was listening to Vivaldi’s Magnificat in its final version. As the moving Et Misericordia bathed me in its rich harmonies, I found myself relaxing for the first time since I had left Canberra to embark on my lecture tour, three weeks earlier. I was at last escaping from the Furies who had haunted me so relentlessly both in my dreams and in reality – the two were beginning to blend into each other – ever since my arrival in Greece. On the open road I felt free; and I resolved that for the next couple of weeks I would try to enjoy myself, for once. A pity Iris had let me down. Halfway to Corinth, I noticed a red Škoda tailgating me, though he had plenty of room to pass.

Well I was in no hurry, even if he was. I slowed down a little to let him pass, but he still persisted in hanging stubbornly onto my tail. In exasperation, I put my foot hard down on the accelerator, and felt the car leap ahead until the needle reached the two hundred-kilometre mark. There were few traffic policemen on these roads, and no radar traps. When I next glanced in the mirror, the Škoda was a dwindling spot of red in the distance; Czech communist engineering was no match for German capitalist ingenuity. This car was as smooth and steady at high speeds as it was when ambling around Athens. Had there been an autobahn to Nauplia, I could have been there in well under an hour. As it was, my journey was going to take over twice that long, counting the stop at Epidaurus. At the Corinth canal, I stopped for a sketos, a small cup of sugarless, Greek coffee (never call it ‘Turkish’ in Greece!) It was now well after nine, and the sun was beating down with an intensity reminiscent of Australia, where I normally spend six months of the year. I found a table next to the window, overlooking the canal, which links the Saronic Gulf with the Gulf of Corinth. Far below me, a freighter was making its way through the great cleft in the rocks. Ancient Corinth, Homer’s Epyre, where King Polybus and Queen Merope had raised Oedipus, had been a by-word for luxury and the sins of the flesh. No wonder that the cult of Aphrodite had erected its chief shrine here in Corinth. I sipped my coffee meditatively, and wondered what I had done to offend the goddess of lust and love; she had given me a hard time for years.

The sudden, violent slamming of a car door startled me from my reverie. A pretty young woman, tall, blonde, and slim, fashionably clad in ragged, blue denim shorts and a white cheesecloth blouse, and carrying a haversack, was walking quickly towards the zakharoplasteion. The driver of the BMW she had just left, a middle-aged, heavily-jowled man with horn-rimmed glasses, rolled down his window and shouted a curse after her in Greek. In summer, the country was swarming with hitchhikers, called “snails” because of their bulging haversacks.. It was dangerous for such women to travel in Greece; men assumed they were freely available. Many a hapless female hitchhiker ended up in a police station, sobbing out a story of sexual assault and rape to unsympathetic ears. From the scene I had just witnessed, this one had fallen victim to something of the sort. I shrugged, and opened my copy of Procopius’s scandalous Anekdota. This Byzantine historian’s frank account of the riotous sex-life of the Empress Theodora, written in a style modelled on Thucydides, never ceased to amuse me. Fifteen minutes later, I decided it was time to go. I was paying my bill when my over-friendly Škoda came chugging into the parking lot. I had certainly outrun that Czech contraption! I had just strolled back from the loo and was about to start my engine, when I was startled by a sharp rap at the driver’s window. The blonde woman I had seen earlier was smiling at me, somewhat nervously. I rolled down the window and smiled back.

“Hi! Could you like, possibly give me a lift to Argos?” she asked.

She had a pleasantly musical voice, with a marked American accent. I didn’t hesitate. Why not? She was far safer with me than out on the road. Come to think of it, she might provide me with the companionship I was seeking; I badly needed some distraction from my own obsessive thoughts.

“I’d be delighted to do so,” I told her warmly, leaning across to open the passenger-seat door for her. “You can stow your rucksack on the back seat.”

I took stock of her approvingly as she settled herself gracefully into the car. Her eyes were her most striking feature. Long and narrow, of a brilliant green, they were reminiscent of a Byzantine icon. She wore her short, platinum blonde hair cut in a fringe across her forehead. Her nose was straight, though rather overlong, and her mouth a shade too generous for real beauty. Though she had tanned herself to a fashionable shade of brown, the summer sun had reddened her nose and coarsened her skin which should never really have been exposed to it

 “Yo! I'm Helen Moore,” she said, as she slid deftly into the seat, with a sigh of contentment. “Omigod! Am I glad to be out of that heat! I swear to God, it was like, killing me.”

She glanced around her approvingly. “Cowabunga! I like your wheels. Really cool! Mondo stylish! Totally tubular.”

(Cowabunga? Tubular?  Mondo? I reproduce her dialect as I remember it, though as I write today this 80’s Californian surfing slang has a quaint, dated feel about it. Totally retro!)

“It’s just a hire car. Have you come far this morning?”

“Only from Athens. I had like mondo hassle getting a lift.”

I raised my eyebrows at this. “You astonish me. I’d have thought drivers would be queuing up to take you anywhere you wanted to go,”

She grimaced. “Oh, sure. They were. But I wasn’t too jazzed about any of them. I didn’t want to get pawed all the way to Argos. I wanted a lift, not a lay. You know, as soon as I saw you in the café, I knew you’d be cool. You looked like for real.”

I smiled. “You mean I look harmless.”

She laughed. “I guess that’s what I mean. I always go by my gut feelings about people. You have to when you’re hitching lifts like this.”

I smiled. “Forgive my saying so, but you seem to have made an error of judgement with that last character. You didn’t seem too pleased with him.”

“I swear to God, I wish I’d never met him. You think people like him are for real, but they turn out to be sleazebags. I was clueless!  I just walked right into it. He picked me up at Piraeus. As soon we got out of Athens he started trying to nail me. Couldn’t keep his paws off me.  I waited until I got a chance to split, and then told him to like, fuck off!”

She paused, shook her head in disbelief at the unfathomable depravity of men, and looked at me disconsolately with those fascinating, emerald eyes No wonder men found her irresistible; I could feel my own head swim slightly when she looked at me like that, especially since she was clearly naked under her thin blouse. Was she really surprised that Greek men made passes at her? I took a deep breath and concentrated on the road ahead of me, shimmering in the summer heat.

“This is only my third day by myself, and I’ve already had like, mondo hassle,” she went on. “First on the Mykonos ferry, then at Kantheros, and after that with that scumbag in the Beamer. You see, my boyfriend like, backed out on me three days ago. He went to Paradise and fell for some gorgeous Greek dude.”

 “Paradise? Is he dead then?”

She laughed again, displaying splendid, white teeth. “Dead? Oh! Don’t I wish! No such luck! Paradise is like, the bi nudist beach on Mykonos. Super Paradise is like, the gay nudist beach. They’re happening places on Mykonos. Jason is like bi, you see, and totally horny. So when he met Ajax, he lost his cool. Thought he was to die for. He threw me over and took off with his new boyfriend. He also took off with like ninety-nine percent of my money. Sleazebag!”

“A modern version of Jason and the Golden Fleece in fact.”

I had translated the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius when I was a graduate student, largely to make money. Alethea had proofread the book with her usual patient industriousness, sitting up late night after night to meet deadlines. I had taken all this for granted at the time. No wonder she had grown bitter as Medea when she thought I betrayed her. And her revenge had been almost as deadly.

The classical allusion was lost on Helen. “Fleeced me? You betcha! He’s like grody to the max. Just gruesome! The night before we’d had one hell of a bust up over Ajax, and ice, and stuff. He was like ‘Ajax is my ace buddy now, so get lost, you bitch!  You’re in Dumpsville right here and now.’  So I went really postal.  I was like, “Hello Jason! So I’m a bitch, am I?  And in Dumpsville?  Well, I swear to God you’re just trash. A doober. A creepazoid. A Dudley!  And so’s that dung stabber of yours. Go get some duke! Some more brown sugar! You’re a duo of dumpers. Crankers.  Pure, unadulterated shit. You dudes are both just nada. A couple of mincing cream puffs. And deep down, you both know it. You make me puke!”

She paused, dramatically, after this rhetorical tirade to show me the small bruise on her chin. “So he decked me. Hit me right on the jaw, the skuzzball. Coulda knocked my teeth out.  Now I’ve got to get back to Rome with under fifty dollars. My parents are living there. I’m too freaked out to call them and tell them what’s happened. They’d be mondo mad at me.”

“Rome? Then what on earth are you doing in Corinth? You’re heading quite the wrong way for Rome. You should be going north, not south-west.”

She looked at me in dismay. “Omigod! The scuzzbucket who gave me a lift told me this was the best route to take. He said I had to go through Argos. Said we could have lunch at his house there. Lunch! I can guess what he had in mind for lunch. Me! The sleazeball! I should have decked him. Like I said, that dude  couldn’t keep his greasy hands off me.”

“Argos is south-west of Athens. You should have been heading up north through Volos and Larisa, to Thessaloniki, and then made your way through Yugoslavia as far as the Italian frontier. I’ve done the trip myself from Skopje, taking the coast road through Titograd, Split and Rijeka. It’s quite rough going. Frankly, I don’t advise you even to try it, especially with as little money as you appear to have. You’d better call your parents, and tell them what has happened.”

She shook her head, and wrinkled up her sunburnt nose. “Eek! No way! But you’re right about no bread.. That sleazeball, Jason, ran off with well over two thousand dollars. He cleaned out the lining of my haversack when I was sleeping. He even lifted my traveller’s cheques.”

“Have you told the police?”

“No way! I don’t want any publicity. My parents would like, kill me if they found out. I’ll be O.K. I’ll like, give them a ring when I get to Venice.”

I shook my head doubtfully. “If you ever get to Venice. You’ve got close on two thousand kilometres to cover to the Italian border. And then a long trip to Rome. It’s a hell of a journey, especially for a woman on her own…”

Her pretty face was now such a mask of misery that I thought she was going to burst into tears. The events of the last three days must have been traumatic for her. Having your boyfriend knock you down, steal your money, and leave you stranded two thousand five hundred kilometres from home would unsettle anyone. And her troubles were only just beginning. Clearly, she had no idea of the perils of what she was attempting. Her knowledge of geography must have been rudimentary, to say the least.

“You’d better stop the car,” she said despairingly, uncrossing her shapely legs. Her eyes had filled with unshed tears. “I guess I’ll just have to start heading north.”

I had already made up my mind to help her. It would be madness for her to try to make her way through the Balkans alone.

“Look, I’m touring Greece for the next couple of weeks. I’d be delighted to run you up to the Yugoslav border. But first I want to look at some archaeological sites in the Peloponnese. If you’re not in a hurry, you’re very welcome to ride with me.”

She was staring at me in delighted disbelief. “Do you really mean that?”

“Of course.  I’d be more than glad of your company.”

She looked at me, pursing her lips suspiciously and narrowing her Byzantine green  eyes “What’s the catch, dude?”

“There isn’t one.”

She put her head on one side, knowingly. “Like when we stop for the night. You and I share a room, right?  So what then?”

“You and I don’t share a room. You have your own room. And you can keep your door barred and bolted all night. In fact, I’d strongly advise you to do so, anyway.”

She looked puzzled. “I don’t get it. Then what’s in this for you?”

“The pleasure of your company.  I don’t want to spend two weeks by myself.”

Not with my memories.

She hesitated, and then gave me a sudden dazzling smile. “Totally awesome!  I swear to God, my luck’s really changed. I knew when I saw you that you were for real. I’m like, quite psychic, you know.”

I groaned, silently. Not another psychic, surely! Was there no escape from the blasted New Age?

Typically, her mood changed with bewildering rapidity lightning.. She had already forgotten her earlier despair. She settled back in her seat with a contented sigh, rocking her blonde head from side to side with pleasure, as though listening to unheard music.

“Rare! Like this is really cool! You know, when that scuzzball, Jason, like stole me blind, I was mondo mad at him. He was hooked on basuco, you know, and totally gross.”

I was finding it hard to follow her.

“What’s basuco?”

“Basuco? You don’t know basuco? Far out! Basuco’s like, coca paste mixed with marijuana, tobacco and stuff. Sometimes the dealers mix ether, gasoline and sawdust in it too.  Crack’s wack and so’s basuco.  Totally wack.”

Her world was absolutely foreign to me, as was much of her vocabulary.

“Are you into basuco?”

She shook her head. “No way, Jose! Do I look like it? I never touch drugs. I’m only sorry I touched Jason. He and his sleezeball ace buddy were into ice too. And rocket fuel when they could get it. Not to mention dogfood. They were like, gruesome. Totally scuzzy.”

Ice, formerly known as crystal meth, or glass, was a crystalline form of methylamphetamine, and on of the very newest drugs. I had read about it in the International Herald Tribune only a few days earlier. It was then largely confined to Hawaii, was extremely addictive, and had devastating effects on the idiots who smoked it through so-called ‘incense burners’ or ‘crack pipes.’ Rocket fuel, however, was beyond me.  Did Jason work at Cape Caneverall?

Helen was amused at my ignorance. “Rocket fuel’s like, loopy dust. You know. Cornflakes.  Goon.  Angel dust.  Gorilla biscuits. Ace.  Pig Killer. White horizon. Wobble. Black whack.  PCP.”

PCP.  That I did know. Phencyclidine hydrochloride. A very dangerous street drug based on pig tranquilizer. And the dogfood? Were Jason and Spyros really that hungry?

She shook her head in silent amazement. “Where’ve you been hiding? Dogfood’s just gumball, candy, tootsie roll, bugger, peanut butter, Mexican mud. You know, black tar. It’s like, heroin from south of the border.”

She was clearly well rid of Jason and his ace-cool Argonaut..

‘If it’s any consolation, the Elizabethans called their lavatories Ajax,” I told her.

She was amused. “Get out!  That’s like, the perfect name for that shiuthook!”

The road to Argos, where we were now heading, en route to Nafplion via Epidaurus, was quite new and almost entirely free of traffic. It ran alongside the Saronic Gulf for some thirty kilometres or more, winding through picturesque villages, each with its own small hotel and beach, before rising steeply as it climbed into the mountains. The hillsides were covered with feathery Attic pines that formed an unbroken canopy of green, stretching down to the tranquil Prussian-blue of the Gulf.

“So, are you like gay?” Helen asked suddenly. She had now put one slim, brown leg up on the dashboard and was tapping her white sneaker against the windscreen in time to that unseen music which had earlier set her head rocking. Her other foot was firmly on the seat.

“No. why do you ask?”

“Well, you’ve got like – no offence! - this weird British accent. And you don’t seem interested in fooling around. Not with me, anyway. And you’re well-built, like so many gay guys. They’re always working out in gyms, you know, looking over the younger boys. I guess they like to see what they’re getting.”

“When I work out I keep my mind strictly on the weights. That way I avoid nasty accidents.”

She laughed. “Like Aids. That’s a nasty accident. I told Jason that with all those needles he’d end up with HIV. That’s why I’d like, never let him screw me. Not even if he wore two dozen condoms. Guess that’s why he ran off with Ajax.”

Unexpectedly, she reached over and felt my biceps. “Omigod!  You an all-in wrestler or something? Like the Honolulu Turk or the Maui Mauler?”

“In a way. I’m what you might call an intellectual all-in wrestler. No holds barred.”

She looked puzzled. “What’s that?”

“I’m a university professor.”

Her hand flew to her mouth in amazement. “Get out!  Totally awesome! I swear to God, man, you don’t look like any of my professors. Don’t I just wish! They’re all dweebs.”

So she was a university student. “Which school are you attending?”

“Suntan U. University of Hawaii. I picked it because I like surfing. I’m majoring in art, English, philosophy and history.”

English?  Cowabunga!  Now that I would never have guessed.

“I teach history myself. Perhaps you’ve used one of my books for an assignment.”

I didn’t say “read”.

“Could be. What’s your name?”

“I beg your pardon. I should have introduced myself earlier. My name’s Hector Terries. How do you do?”

“Hector Terries! You mean you’re the one who writes all those books and stuff?”

I wasn’t too sure about the “stuff” part of it, but admitted to the rest. Perhaps she meant my articles and reviews. Probably  not. Stuff’s just stuff, man!

“Hector Terries! Totally awesome! We had to read chunks and chunks of your Meaning of History last semester. It was really rad.”

Again, I wasn’t sure what “rad” meant. If it was short for “radical”, however, she was spot on. Ask the New York Review of Books.

“Thank you. I’m glad you liked it.”

“Liked it! I was just rapt. I should have guessed you wouldn’t be a dweeb, just from reading your book.”

“What’s a dweeb?”

“A dweeb is like – well, a nerd. You know. They wear running shoes with tailored trousers and think they’re cool. They’ve got thick horn-rimmed glasses, twenty-eight inch chests, and two-inch penises. I guess they have to nail their computers when they’re feeling horny.”

“I gather you don’t care much for dweebs.”

She laughed gaily, and squeezed my arm again. “No way!  Dweebs are grody to the max!  Like gross!”

We were now running alongside a particularly beautiful stretch of coastline, where far below us, water the colour of jade met trees the colour of emerald, with a long beach of yellow sand tantalizingly visible through the foliage.

“Rare! It reminds me of Oahu,” said Helen, almost wistfully. “I’d love a swim!”

“It’s lunchtime,” I reminded her. “Are you hungry?”

“Hungry! Omigod! Am I hungry? Ooooh! Only had Greek coffee for breakfast.  Just one tiny metrios. Then zilch! Trying to economise.”

Since she had discovered I was an academic, her language seemed to have mercifully diverged somewhat from Moon Unit Zappa’s. Obviously, she could speak English intelligibly when she wanted to. I suspected that much of her modified Valspeak was only protective coloration. Doubtless, it had survival value among the sophomores of Suntan U.

I swung the car into a side road and headed for the beach, a thousand feet below. The road ended in a dirt track, which eventually brought us out onto a deserted beach. I parked under the shade of the pines and took a picnic hamper from the boot. The hotel had packed it for me that morning. Helen exclaimed with incredulous delight when she saw the contents. The chef had given us a pork and veal terrine, kalamata, olives,, horiatiki, crusty French bread, fresh black figs, graviera (the Greek version of gruyere), Cretan mizithra (goat’s milk cheese) mineral water, and a bottle of red Porto Carras.  Helen was clearly famished.

“I’ve been living on bread and tomatoes since that scuzball Jason took my money,” she confided, as she wolfed down the terrine. “Cowabunga! This is delicious. I didn’t know how hungry I was until I smelt this! I guess my belly was just about meeting my backbone.”

She had pulled up her cheesecloth blouse to show me how much weight she had lost.

“Another forty-eight hours and I’d have been like, totally anorexic,” she confided, sticking out her bottom lip and nodding her head seriously.

A moment later, she forgot her woes when she caught me looking approvingly at her flat, tanned stomach. “Go on! Poke my belly muscles. Surfing and boogie-boarding. That’s what’s made ‘em like that.”

I probed them, hesitantly. They were hard as iron.

She looked at me proudly, “Good, huh? Like a boxer’s.”

She hesitated. “Mind if I take my top off? I  just love to feel the sun all over.”

“Not at all.  I’m used to European beaches.”

“They’re like great, huh? Totally enlightened! Not like back home. They won’t let me go topless in Hawaii.  No way!”

She peeled off her blouse and tossed it carelessly onto a branch of the tree under which we were sitting. She had small, well-formed breasts, rather like Iris’s, with delicate pink tips.

“You look good in jeans and a tee-shirt,” she told me, “But you must be like, totally sizzling in this heat. Why don’t you just strip off?”

A sensible suggestion.  It was hot, even under the aromatic shade of the pines.  I peeled off my shirt and felt the sea-breeze cool on my skin.

She reached over, and ran her hands appraisingly over my back. “Hey! You’re a real granola!  I used to work out at Muscle Beach myself. You saw some real hunks there.  Mostly like gays, of course. But built like Schwarzenegger. You know, he used to work out till he like fainted. He’d do six sets of twelve reps of everything. And he used totally awesome poundages. Like six hundred for the squat! He said he didn’t mind the pain, as long as it was like helping him grow.”

I could have told her a thing or two about pain. It doesn’t always help you grow.

“You married or something?” she asked. She had taken my left hand in her own and was examining my ring cautiously.

“No. that’s a signet ring. A family heirloom. It’s antique.”

She was intrigued at this. “Awesome! How old?”

“Early fifteenth century. An ancestor of mine was wearing this when he was beheaded in the market place for being on the wrong side in the Wars of the Roses.”

She was aghast. “Get out! Beheaded! Omigod! In like, a market! Fighting over roses! Roses!  I’ve like, gone goose bumps all over!”

She was turning the ring round on my finger, fascinated by its intricate workmanship. “Hey! What’s this?  A dragon or something?”

“It’s a stylized scorpion. Centruroides sculpturatus. It’s on the family coat-of-arms.  Dates from the sixth Crusade, led by Frederick II.  Another of my misguided ancestors must have run into one in Syria. Hence our motto:  Cave ictum! ‘Beware its sting!’”

She shuddered, prettily. “They’ve got one hell of a sting!  Seen them in Acapulco. Wouldn’t want that thing on my pinkie. Thought it was like a wedding ring. So I guess you’re not married, are you?”

“No.”

“Ever been married?”

“No. Not even once or twice for fun. How about you?”

She shook her head, vehemently. “Married? You’ve gotta be joking? You think I’m from like Alabama or somewhere? I’m like, only twenty-three. Shacked up with a few guys. You know. But nothing serious.”

Living with someone wasn’t serious? They do but jest, copulate in jest? The generational abyss between Helen and myself –a full quarter of a century – echoed with unanswered questions.

After lunch, she wandered off for a swim, clad in what she called her “floss” – a minute, ‘thong’ bikini bottom. I declined to accompany her. I had reached the late forties, when one begins to appreciate the good sense of a siesta in the heat of the afternoon. All Greece slumbers from one o’clock till four or five in the summer and God help anyone who disturbs those sacred hours. I was damned if I was going to be the exception. I changed into my swimming trunks, and lay down gratefully in the shade of the feathery pines, through which the sun came dancing in a myriad, sparkling, ever-shifting diamonds of light. A gentle breeze was blowing, rustling the pines and abating the fierce heat of the day, for it was now past noon. I noticed a lemon tree, hung with small, green fruit, a few yards away. Goethe’s poem came immediately into my head. Kenst du das Land wo die Citronen bluhen? The high-pitched, incessant shrilling of the cicadas, a sound I have always loved, harmonized with the incessant murmur of the waves to lull me into a doze.

I was awakened by cold water dripping on my face. I opened my eyes with a start, to find Helen standing above me, dripping damply. She had her floss in her hand and was naked as Aphrodite rising from the sea-foam, a nymph au naturel, a knickerless nixie. Das Ewig-Wiebliche zieht uns hinan, I said to myself. What would Goethe have done, confronted with this manifestation of the beckoning Eternal Feminine?

“The water was just totally tubular! It was like, far out.” she exclaimed, throwing herself down beside me.

She lay supine on her beach towel, eyes closed, hands behind her head, drinking in the shadow-dappled sun. We were, after all, miles from anywhere. I tried to resume my sleep, but could not. The proximity of her statuesque nakedness had dispelled my former drowsiness completely. Her breasts were so firm they could have been silicone. At her age? Why not? Anything is possible in Hawaii or California. They stood out like small, pointed mounds even when she was lying down. She smelled faintly of the sea, like foam-born Aphrodite.

After a while, restless as a child, she rolled over and began idly scooping up handfuls of coarse, yellow sand and trickling them over my chest. She seemed incapable of sitting still without fidgeting. Watching her was entertaining but exhausting. In a few minutes, her face would run through a whole gamut of expressions, like an over-indulged little girl’s, to increase the effect of her words.

“You’re quite a hunk considering your age,” she told me, running her hand appreciatively over my pectorals.

“Thanks. Remind me to tell you some time of how I fought in the Boer War.”

She was not interested in my legendary wartime experiences.  Her own pectorals were brushing my arm.  They were too soft to be silicone.

“Hey, you’re not bad for an old dude. Keep yourself in shape, don’t you?”

“I think and write better when I’m fit. The brain thrives on oxygen.”

“Are you sure you’re not like, gay?”

“Not even like bi. I am boringly, heterosexually melancholy. Quite the opposite of gay.  Always have been.”

“You don’t bore me, dude. I even liked your history book. Made me think you’d really been there. Especially the Egyptian bits. Now they were really cool.”

She paused, leant over me until her mouth was only a few inches from mine, opened her emerald eyes wide, and smiled mischievously. “Hey! Wanna fool around?”

I tried to sound casual. “On a public beach? We’d both end up incarcerated in some Greek jail.”

“There’s like, no one for miles. Everyone sleeps in the afternoon here.”

“I thought you were going to bolt and bar your door when we reached the hotel, like a pensive nun in retreat. What made you change your mind?”

“You playing hard to get. Plus I told you that you were a hunk. Besides, I’m really horny.” She added with a smile. “Of course, might just be the sun and the wine.”

So I was a hunk, as well as a dude, albeit superannuated. Hunk?  The word made me think of raw beef, or something equally inchoate. But she was right about the sun and the wine; they were having an effect on me too. Her blonde nakedness, pressed up warmly against my side, had set my ancient pulses racing like an over-revved engine. Now I knew why golden-haired Aphrodite sprang from the sea. Goethe might have resisted das Ewig Weicliche. Like Byron, another aficionado of Greek love-affairs, I did not even bother to try.

Unlike the maenad, Iris, Helen was no sexual Bacchante; like Charles II, she was in no hurry to die. Eventually, she gasped slightly, moaned, and raked my back fiercely with her nails. Then she went to sleep, still curled up against me, with her arms round my neck. I gently disengaged myself, covered her with a towel, and went off for a swim.

When she woke up, she stretched luxuriously, yawned like a contented cat, and asked me to pour her a glass of red wine.

“Cowabunga! That was totally awesome,” she told me, nuzzling against me contentedly.  “Far out!  Cranking!”

She drained the wine at a gulp, closed her eyes appreciatively, and asked for another glass.

“What did you like, think of my technique?” she demanded.

“Totally awesome. You really like, among other things, blew my mind.”

I was rapidly learning her idiolect.

She had a radiant smile, displaying slightly irregular but dazzling white teeth.. “Cowabunga! You’re not kidding?”

“No way. You were really cool. Totally rad.”

She gave me a playful push.  “Get out! I was afraid you’d think I was like, inexperienced. I’ll bet you’ve like, nailed a whole lot of Penelope Pitstops..”

I refused to admit ignorance of this character.  “Penelope Pitstops? Naturally. Hundreds of them.  But never one with your pristine freshness and wanton charm.”

She giggled. “Hey! Wanton charm!  I really go for that! No wonder you’re a great writer.”

I had like made her day.  It was worth the lie just to see her face light up. In fact, as with Iris, I had felt nothing beyond physical pleasure. The aching hollowness remained.

We stayed on that deserted beach throughout the heat of the afternoon, chatting amiably. I had expected her to bore me; much to my surprise, she did not. Her Valley girl veneer masked an agile mind. She had a surprisingly wide-ranging knowledge of history, was reasonably well read in English and American literature, and quite at home with modern philosophy.. She had, of course, been made to genuflect before the sacred texts of Marx, Marcuse, Althusser, Derrida, Gadamer, Habermas, Heidigger, Sartre and Gramsci. I was amused to hear her dismiss them all as “totally dweeby”. She like, preferred Whitehead and stuff!  Especially Science and the Modern World, which was, ‘I swear to God, totally rad.’

In fact, without knowing it, she herself was philosophically a pure Cyrenaicist, believing with Aristippus of Cyrene that the pursuit of sensual pleasure was the chief aim of life. Similarly, her views on death were purely Epicurean, for Epicurus had maintained that ‘when we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not.’  Helen had said exactly the same thing to me, that afternoon under the pines, as I was rubbing suntan lotion onto her warm, golden nakedness.

“I want to like live, really live before they like, nail me up in that big box. I want to do my own thing, let it all hang out. When you’re dead, man, you’re like, long gone and nowhere. Es nada y pues nada. That’s what Carlos, my boyfriend in L.A., used to say before he got wasted in a neighbourhood drive-by shooting.”

Carlos had clearly been reading that old suicidal nihilist, Hemingway. But who was I to criticize her? Both of us were victims of an era that defined sanity as the gratification of every impulse and the dissolution of every inhibition, while demanding submission to arbitrary rules which it refused to link to any code of moral absolutes. Like Hemingway, our culture, led by a hubristic, vacuous academia, had blown out its own brains.  Cowabunga!  Cranking!  Totally awesome! And like, totally insane.

COPYRIGHT (C) 2010 J D FRODSHAM

The Abduction of Sabrina

 
The Abduction of Sabrina

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” 

                                         Sherlock Holmes to Watson, in Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890), chapter 6.

In 1995, I published an article in Flying Saucer Review [1] later republished in the Journal of Alternative Realities, in which I gave a transcript, with commentary, of a hypnotic session with a young lady called Sabrina (pseudonym), an alleged long-term abductee.  Since Sabrina was reluctant to allow me to publish more of these transcripts, for fear of exciting ridicule, I put them aside.  Now, ten years later, thanks to the work of eminent researchers like Budd Hopkins, Dr John Mack, Dr David Jacobs and many others, abduction has become much less of a social stigma and is far more widely known and discussed.  Sabrina has therefore kindly consented to allow me to make public the rest of the transcripts of these numerous and lengthy hypnotic sessions.  I am grateful to her for the service she has graciously rendered to science in agreeing to their publication.

In my earlier articles, I stated that Sabrina, then aged twenty-nine, had been a close friend of my daughter-in-law’s since primary school, thus allowing me to gain a close insight into her character from one who had known her for twenty-three years.  Psychological testing (CAQ), carried out by a distinguished academic psychologist, Professor Douglas Savage, established that Sabrina was psychologically normal in every respect.  Furthermore, Sabrina not only had conscious recollection of her abductions, but also had kept diaries, notes and drawings in which she had noted as much of her experiences as she could remember.  These lengthy hypnotic sessions, which ran from January to June 1990, merely served to bring to light details which Sabrina had relegated to her unconscious.

Transcript of Tape 9:

My questions are in bold, Sabrina’s answers are in normal script.

Go back to the time when you and Z are in a car and you are driving along [2].  You are actually there.  You are in the car now.  You are driving along and Z sees a light behind you.  What next?  What happens then?

He is looking at the light in the rear vision mirror.

Do you see the light too?

Yes.  It just looks like truck lights, lights of large objects.  It seems to be coming down the hill with lights on the horizon behind it.

Are you worried at all?

No.

How are you feeling?

Quite normal.  A bit curious, I suppose.  I feel very alert.

What’s happening now?

Well, it’s slowly getting closer.

What colour are the lights?  Can you see?

They’re white.

Are they very bright?

Yes, very bright.

What’s Z doing?

He’s driving and he’s starting to speed.  He’s saying something.

What’s he saying?  Can you hear?

I think he’s saying he doesn’t want them to catch up.

Right.  And how do you feel?

I feel worried about his speeding.  I am sure it’s a truck light. 

I want you to go back right to that time now.  You’re not seeing it in the past.  You’re there.  You’re actually there.  You’re watching it.  Where’s the light now?

It’s getting very quiet.

How do you feel about the lights?

I feel rather strange.  There were two, now there’s only one, a very large one behind.  And I’m sure it was just normal headlights of a truck, and that there was another set of headlights behind it, like that of a car.  Now there’s just one big light.

What is that light doing now?

It’s right behind us, very close, tailing us.

And Z, is he still going fast?

Yes.  He’s not saying anything, but he’s really going very fast.

Is he a bit frightened do you think?

No.  He’s a very quiet sort of person, doesn’t show his emotions very much.  He seems to be very much in control.  To me he doesn’t seem frightened.

What’s happening now?

I’m turning to look at Z.  He seems to be saying something again.

Can you hear what Z is saying?

He’s saying it’s going up, I think.  I turn around and see it moving up and I’m just seeing the bottom half of it, or third of it going up.

Where is it going now?  Now it’s gone up?

I don’t know.  I think it’s gone.  I’m not sure.  I just got a flash of it going in front of us!  Speeding in front of us!  I never remembered exactly before or ... (She becomes very tense and agitated.)

(Calms her, then continues). Now you’re in the car with Z.  What’s happening now?

Well, I’m now looking and seeing it flash a bit to the right of the car, in front of us, and disappear off to our right ...  I can’t see it now, because the top of the car is in the way.

And what is Z doing now?

I don’t know.  He’s sitting there.

Is he driving the car?

No, it’s gone very dark.

What’s outside?  When you look outside the car, what can you see?

Darkness.  Just darkness.  There are no shrubs, there’s no lights.

Any lights from the car?

No lights from the car.  Just dark all around.

Where are you now?

I’m still in the car.

Where’s the car?

(Startled) It’s in the sky!  There are no bushes around.

What is around you?

Just blackness.

Just keep on going.  Go with the car.  You’re safe in the car.  What’s happening now?

It’s getting lighter, a mist is starting up and we’re passing through a large entrance.  We’re going up to the entrance.  It’s like an opening on the bottom of something.

Right.  And where are you now?  You’ve passed the entrance.  The mist is there.  Where are you now?

We’re on a platform, or lowered platform.

Can you describe the platform for me?  What colour is it?

Gray, a very dull gray.  It’s like dull metal.  It’s very dull.  But the area is well lit and cloudy, very misty, and it’s hard to see through the gray mist to what is actually around.  The clouds are all around the car.  And Z is gone.  He’s not there.

Where is Z?

He seemed to slide out.

Slide out?  By himself?

I can’t see anything through the mist.

Now what are you doing?

I’m floating up above the car.

Is it a nice sensation?

Yes.  I can see everything down below.

What can you see when you look down below?

I can see the car in the centre and the two raised platforms on either side of the car.  I can see what looks like the end of the lower platform we were on.  It’s a very short distance between the sides of the edge and the end of that platform that we’re on.

When you wake up, I want you to draw this for me.  You’re a good artist.  Will you? [3]

Yes.  (Agitated again).

(Calms her).  What’s going on now?

Floating up.  It looks huge.  It’s much bigger than I thought.  But when I was in the car it seemed a short distance to the wall and it went curving back.  But looking down it seems very large.

The craft is very big?

Very big.  Like a football field. [4]

Can you see anything else around in the bay you’re in?  Is there anything there?  Look around.  Take your time.

But where we are, where the car is and the raised platform, seems narrower than the distance between the two.  Much narrower.

You’re floating out.  What happens now?

I don’t know.  I never ever remembered looking behind the car but now I’m sort of vaguely, I don’t know, vaguely, seeing ... I can’t see how they could be there!  It’s like a circular object behind it.

There’s a circular object behind the car?

Yes.  Like we’re all parked one behind the other. 

Is it small?  The circular object behind the car?  Is it the size of the car?

No, it’s bigger than the car.

Bigger than the car?  Can you describe the circular object behind the car?

It comes down and it’s circular, very low.  Then there’s a thin black ridge, I don’t know, maybe they’re windows.  Then there’s another.  And it comes down again, and then there’s another black ridge.

What does it look like?

Like metal.  It’s all dull gray, very gray. (Tenses visibly again).

Now you’re above this, you can see the car, and you can see this other object behind the car.  (Deepens trance).  Now where are you?

I’m in front of the car.

You’re in front of the car.  But above the car, is that right?

No, down. Down level with it now.

You’ve gone down?

Yes.

What’s happening now?

I’m looking along the platform, the raised platform. I always thought it extended the whole length beside the car, but now this time it has a bend in it.

There’s a bend in the platform?

Yes, a curve in the wall, the wall that is about four foot, five foot, in from the edge of the raised platform, bends with it all along the curved side.  It’s darker around the corner.  What I’m seeing now I haven’t seen before.

Just tell me what you see.

There’s a huge doorway.

Are you going through that doorway?

It’s opening up.  I’m standing on the bend.

Is there anyone with you?

I can’t see anyone.  I sense there is but I can’t see anyone.

Now what you’re telling us now must only be what actually happened.  See if you can go up to the doorway.

I don’t know if this has really happened before or not, because I’ve never seen it before.

It’s been very deep inside you.  Just let it come out.

There’s two people standing at the doorway.

What are they like?

I can’t tell how tall they are.  They’re slim, they’re human looking.

Can you see their clothes?  Can you see how they’re dressed?

They’re wearing overalls.

What colour?

Pale blue, but they’re dark on my side.  Like it’s brightly lit behind them. The doorway is huge.  It’s so high and it’s sort of like they’re not pushing it, they’re just standing there and walking along with it.  Watching us as the huge doorway recedes into the wall.  (Her voice trails off).

Just approach them.  What’s happening now?  Can you see anything?

One has his back to me and is just pale blue.

Pale blue.  Like the man in Brussels? [5]

Yes.  He doesn’t have black stripes down his back.  He has like a thick, black belt round his waist.

Can you look at his shoes?  Do you see his shoes?

Yes.  They’re just black boots.

Go closer to them and see what you can see.  Go right up to the doorway.

There are huge objects.  Through the gap in the doorway, looks like the nose of a plane.  Looks like the nose of a very slim jet.  It must be an airplane.

There’s an airplane in there?

I can see the nose of it as they’re opening the door.  The nose of it at the ceiling, at the top.

Can you describe the plane?

It’s very slim and white.  It has a black nose tip.  It has normal cockpit windows, except the windows seem to be higher up and slimmer than normal windows.

Are there any numbers on the plane, any letters or numbers? Are there any markings on the plane, any insignia?  Anything to identify it?

Nothing clear. [6]

Where are you going now?

I’m just inside the doorway looking up at the side of the nose of the plane.  It looks very slim and slender.

Where are you going after that?

I don’t know.  There’s a doorway just inside the large door.

Another doorway?

A normal sized doorway.

Do you want to go through that door?

No, I don’t think so because I think I’ve seen enough.

You can see a bit can you?

It’s shining.  The white, circular light illuminates only the middle area of their arms, on the other side of the table.

What’s going on now?

Nothing.  It’s just so black.  Everything is so black.  It’s fading.

Is anybody coming to you?  Is anybody with you?

I can’t tell.  I know there’s someone inside.  I just don’t know.  It’s so far away.  It’s floating.  It’s something.  I’m just not sure.  I think their arms are supporting me, but I’m not sure.  I don’t really know.  I can’t even feel my arms.  I can’t really see beside me.  I can see ahead of me, but not beside me.

Where are you now?

I’m in the room with Z.  He’s on the couch with the torch light on him.

Is he asleep?  What are you doing?

I seem to be standing at the head of the table, a bit away from it.

Who else is there in the room with you?

There’s someone on my right.  I can see the shoulder and down.

Look at his face.  Try hard to see his face.  What can you see?

I can’t see anything.

Can you see anybody else besides Z?  Anyone at all?

It’s hard to see.

Move on from that room now.  What happens after that? 

I think they’re saying it’s my turn and I don’t want to go on the table.  I’m refusing.

Then what happens?

I’m just getting very tired.

What happens then?

I seem to be drifting or floating.  I can’t really see anyone put­ting me on the table or placing me on the table.

You’re suddenly tired and then you’re floating.  Are you on the table now?

Yes.

What happens now?

I don’t really know.  I’m just lying there.  All I can see is my feet.  Just lying there.

Is there a light?

A very dull light.  It’s very dimly lit.

Is there anybody round the table with you?

It looks like they are there, but I can’t see them very clearly.  There’s one at the foot of the table, and he has a small table next to him.

Who are they?

Blues.  He’s wearing pale blue.  They’re all wearing pale blue.

Are you lying on the table itself, or floating above it?

I’m lying on it. 

Is it cold or hot?

Neither.  I can’t feel.

What next?

There’s two to the right of me standing next to the table.  There’s two there and one at the foot of the table.

Mostly Blues?

All Blues.

Can you see any insignia on their uniforms?

Yes, just the normal black stripes.

Are they saying anything to you?

No.

Can you smell anything?

Just a slight ammonia smell.  Very, very slight.

Now what’s happening?

I think one’s putting his hand on my forehead.  The one at the foot of the table has turned to the small table beside him and he’s doing something and placing an object at my feet.  There’s space beyond the table at my feet.  He’s placing something there.

Do you have your shoes on?

No.

Are you dressed or undressed?

Dressed.

Except for your shoes?

Yes.

What can you see now?

Just the one at the foot of the table.

What’s he doing?

He still seems to be mucking around with something at the foot of the table.  He’s turning sideways to his left side to me. He seems very interested in what he is doing at the foot of the table.

What’s he got in his hand?

It looks like a panel that is lit by a torchlight.

It’s quite dark is it?

Yes.  It’s going dark again.  Another table on the other side of him.  Another raised like a machine.  It’s like a mini computer or something on the other side of the table.

Just describe what you see.  Take your time.  Relax.  Let yourself drift.

A box, shaped with a curved top and underneath the curve there’s like a screen.

Anything else?

No.  It’s bright.  Something white, big and white.  What comes to my mind is like a cricket match, like in a cricket match they’re all in white.

Big and white as on a screen?

Yes.  It’s funny.  (Laughs.)

Are you watching the screen?

No.  I’m looking at it but I don’t think I can really see what’s on it.

What now?

He’s tapping something into the machine.  Buttons - round, tiny (unintelligible) flattish buttons.

And now, what’s happening?

He’s looking at me and now back at the screen.  That’s all he seems to be doing.

Go ahead a little further in time, two or three minutes perhaps in time, move forward a few minutes.  What’s happening now?

My skirt is being pulled down.  Just around my navel, just down slightly, and my top is being pulled up slightly, and the light is shining on that.  It’s funny because I feel as if I’m floating up and looking down on the floor.

What are they doing now?

There’s a couple of them on either side, with a needle or something. (Agitated).

Just relax, relax.  You’re perfectly safe, you’re in control.  What’s happening now?

It’s a funny looking thing.  It’s very thick.  It’s like a very thick needle.  It just doesn’t seem to be a needle.  I can’t tell whether he is inserting anything or if he’s just resting there.  It’s very narrow but then there’s a part attached to it, above it, that’s a lot thicker, on top. 

When you wake up, I want you to draw this needle.  Can you do that for me?  Is the needle in you now?

No, they’re withdrawing it.

They’ve put the needle in already?

Yes.

Where did they put it in?

In my navel.

Right into the navel?

Yes. And at an upwards angle, at that angle.  (Gestures, indicating about a 45 degree angle).  They’re withdrawing it now and there’s a fine needle at the end of it. It’s a bit like a gun, I suppose, with a needle at the end of it. [7]

What’s happening now?

Now it’s sort of the end of it is curving up.  It seems that the end of it is curved.

The needle is curved?

There’s the needle, then there’s the thicker bit and another thicker bit and then it curves out.

When you wake up, I would like you to draw this for me.  Can you see it very clearly?

Sort of.  I can’t see how they’re holding it.  It seems to be like a gun. (Tenses.)

(Calms her).  Now move forward a minute or so in time.  What do you see now?

They’ve moved away.

And where are you?

I’m still lying on the table.

How are you feeling?

I’m feeling O.K.  I’m not really feeling anything.

Move forward a few minutes more.  What’s happening now?

Someone’s saying it’s all over.  It’s someone I can’t see to my right who’s saying it’s all over and I can get up now.

Do you get up?

I sit up on the table.

What happens now?

My legs are down and I’ve slid off the table.

And then?

There’s some instruments on that table next to mine, long shining gray, similar to the needle that I remember, or instrument.  The table is circular, very shiny, metallic, almost like glass, it’s so shiny.  On the end there’s a white cloth underneath. 

A white cloth?

Yes.  That’s on the right hand side which is shiny, highly polished.

You can see this very clearly.

There’s a little rail around the edge of the table, about an inch high above the surface of the table.  It’s a solid table.  There seem to be drawers underneath it.

Is it made of metal?

It seems to be.  It’s a bit whiter.

What are you doing now?

I’m standing up and walking away.  They’re leading me away.  There’s two on either side of me.

(Surprised).  Two on either side?

Two on either side.  And as I’m walking away I’m looking at the table.  The one (Blue) I saw at the foot of the table is there standing over the instrument.  He seems to be looking down at them or something as I’m walking away.

Are they Blues all of them?

Yes.

And where are they taking you to now.

They’re taking me towards the door.  To where the car is on the other side.

And do you go back into the car?

No.  I’m walking towards the doorway towards the right.

What can you see?

I can see the car’s there.  I can see the top of it, part of the car.  It’s very cool in the room.  I feel very cool now.

Not cold, just cool?

No, just cool, there’s a breeze, like a draft.

Just keep on walking.  Where are you going now?

The one next to me on my left is saying something as I’m going towards the door.

Can you hear what he’s saying?

No.  He’s saying something.

Is he speaking to you?

Yes.  And the other perhaps.

Is he moving his lips when he speaks or is he speaking in your head?

He seems to be moving his lips.

Is he speaking a language you know?

Yes, English.  But I can’t quite hear what’s he saying.  All I can see is he’s moving his mouth like he’s talking.  He may be saying, ‘Remember what we said.’

Can you remember anything they said to you this whole time?

The first thing they said, when I was up on the platform before we went in the large room, was I would remember all this but it would be from a distance, from up high.  And when I was in the room they were saying, well they seem to be saying, I don’t know if they actually said it, but they were saying ‘to stay away’.

To stay away from what, from somebody or something, or somewhere? 

There’re dials behind me.  I don’t know if I’m standing too close.

Too close to the dials?

I didn’t realise the dials were there when I went through the doorway.  A yellow and red dial.

Where were they?

In the room.  On the bench against the wall to the right of the doorway into the room.

In the room where the table was?

Yes.

Can you see those dials now?

They’re big fat dials with serrated edges, must be some sort of machine.  Just dials on a machine in the bench.

They told you to stay away from the dials before they put you on the table.

Yes.

Did they say anything else to you?

They’re saying they want me on the table, that it’s my turn to go on the table.

Do they say anything to you while you’re on the table.

There’re two tables.  And I go on the other one.

Z is on the other one is he?

Yes.

Is he asleep or awake?

He’s asleep I think.  I can’t really see him.  It’s quite a distance away.

But you’re awake, aren’t you?

Just.  I’m awake but sleepy.  Very sleepy.  I don’t remember them saying much.  I just fell asleep as soon as I got on the table.  I remember not wanting to, not wanting to get on the table or do any­thing.

Do you remember the needle going in or just the needle coming out?

Just coming out.

Was there any pain?

No.

No pain?

I can’t recall any at the moment.  If there was, it was bearable.

Let’s go back to where you’re walking towards the door.  There’s two on either side.  You can see the car.  Are you getting into the car yet?

I’m walking towards it.

Now here’s the car.  Is Z in the car already?  Or are you in the car first?

I don’t really know.  I can see a figure in the car.

Do you think that’s Z?

I don’t know.  It could be.  I moved towards the car.

Now what happens? 

I don’t recall steps or anything. (Agitated)

Just relax, relax. (Calms her)

Now I can see plainly.  He’s not there. [8]

Where now?

I’m in the car. 

By yourself? 

Yes.

What happens now? 

He’s coming in now.

Z is coming in now.  Is he awake or is he asleep?

He’s awake.

They’ve put him in the driver’s seat?

He’s getting in there, I think, on his own.

On his own?  And what happens now?  Describe your surroundings.  What do you see?

We’re just there.  What I’m seeing now is like the car’s just float­ing on air.  I don’t remember anything like this.

The car’s floating on air. 

It’s like a hatch that’s opened underneath the car and it’s just there above the opening.  Everything’s dark.  It’s like seeing the sky again.  I’m seeing the night sky.

How do you feel?

I remember going up.  I was terrified.  I was so scared I felt so hot and so cold and prickly.  I felt that I’d never come back again.

But now how’d you feel?

Tired.  Very tired.

Are you frightened?

No.

Are you floating down now?  What happens next?

We’re on the road.

Is the car moving?

No.  It’s stopped.

Do you know where you are?

I think we’re in the exact place that we were before.

And what can you see around you?

Just the bushes, lighted by a light.  I can’t tell whether it’s from the beam of the car.  No, it can’t be our beam.  Everything is lit.

Everything is lighted up around you?

Yes.

Dimly?

No.  Not quite like daylight.  But bright enough.

Quite close?

There’s a huge light on our right up above.

And what happens now?

It’s there, and then it goes.  It’s slowly going.  I can’t see it now because the roof of the car is in the way.

What’s happening now?  Now the light is gone and you’re in the car with Z.  What happens now?

The car starts.  I think Z must have started the car.  The lights are back on and we’re driving.

And what do you say to Z?  And what does Z say to you?

He’s saying something but the car hasn’t started yet.  I think we’re slowly moving.  Then the lights come on.

And what happens now?

We’re just driving.  I can’t recall any conversation.  I think we both feel really, really, relieved.

You don’t want to talk about it. [9]

No.

Does Z take you home?

Yes.

What do you find when you get home?  Anything at all unusual?

I can see my skirt and there’s a bit of blood on it.

How much blood on your skirt?

About that much. (Gestures, indicating a patch of about four inches in diameter).

In the front?

Yes.  Just at the top near the waistband.

Any other sign on your body?  Any bleeding on your body?

No.  I don’t think so.  No.

Any other symptoms?

I remember my stomach feeling sore for a while, like an aching muscle.  The next day I think.  Every now and then, for a couple of days I felt sore.

Did you want to report what had happened to anybody?

No.

You didn’t want to tell anybody?

No.

Why was this?

I don’t know.

Why did you keep your skirt without washing it?

Because I thought if someone did come, it would be proof.

Did you think anybody would come, as you hadn’t told anybody?

I thought Z might.

Did you talk to Z about it then?

No.

Did you talk to Z about it later.  Ring him up or anything to discuss it?

Yes.  I think he said he hadn’t told anyone. (Agitated).

Just relax, relax completely.  (Pause).

I don’t know why we didn’t tell anyone.  I just don’t know.  I think I was too scared to tell anyone.

Did anything else happen after that, that was unusual, out of the ordinary?  Did anybody come to the house?

No.

I want you to tell me about the time when somebody did come to the house.  When the three men dressed in black came to the house.

That was much earlier.

You were quite young then were you?

Yes.

Can you describe the men in black?  I want you to go back in time.  How old are you now? 

I think I was fourteen.

1974 or 1975?

1974 I think.

You’re fourteen and these men come to the house?

It must have been 1974.

How many are there?  I want you to see them, look at them. They’re there now.  How many of them are there?

They’re three or four.  Three at the door and one behind.  (Agitated).

(Calms her).  What are they wearing?

Very dark suits.  All in dark colours.

How big are the men?

They’re very big.  Very tall.

Describe them.

They have hats like old men wear.  But they’re not old. 

What are the suits like?  Can you describe their suits?  Are they black or navy blue?

Dark colours.  Dark brown. [10]

Are they talking to somebody at the door?

They’re talking to Dad.

Do you know what they’re saying?  Where are you?

I’m a bit further back from Dad, in the middle of the lounge room.  I’m walking up to stand beside him.

You’re looking at the men now.  Can you describe the men’s faces? 

I can see one.  He has almost like a pumpkin face. It’s very pale and pudgy.  Very roundish sort of face.  Very much like the one that came into the office at work. [11] They’re all like that, I think.  Maybe there’s one that looks normal, more normal like us.  Older.

Do they come into the house?

No.  They’re just standing at the doorway.

Look at their mouths.  Do you see anything unusual about their mouths?  Just look at their mouths.

One’s gone quite ugly.  He’s starting to look like a pumpkin.  Nothing too different.  Just normal mouths.  They’ve got very pale lips.  Almost blue.  That’s what I’m seeing, anyway.  I don’t remember really noticing much about their mouths.

Is there anything else you want to tell me about these men?  Are you frightened of them? 

Yes.

I’m going to put my hand on your forehead.  And when I put my hand on your forehead you’re going to hear something the men are saying to your father.  What are the men saying?

They’re talking very earnestly.  It’s a very serious conversation.

What are they saying?

They’re saying not to say a thing.

Not to say a thing?

Yes.  That they could make anything happen.

Is your father frightened?

He’s frightened but he’s standing his ground.  That’s what he’s saying.  He has every right.  If he wants to, he will.  If he doesn’t, he won’t.

Do you know what he’s referring to?

No.  I’ve got no idea.

He’s never told you?

No.

The men are walking away now.  How do they walk?

Like they push back with their legs.  Like they’re very strong legs.

A strange walk?

Not unusually strange.  No.  Just very strong.

Does your father comment on them at all?  Does he say anything?

No.  He’s not saying anything as they walk to the car.

What sort of car?  Describe the car?  You see it very clearly.  You’re fourteen years old, you can see the car very clearly.

A very old car.  It’s a black, shiny 50s car, I think. [12]

It’s an old-fashioned shape?

Yes. Very old-fashioned.

(End of session).

Endnotes

[1]  “‘You Know I Can’t Eat’: The Alien Theatre of the Absurd.”

[2]  Z is a pseudonym, like Sabrina.  Z’s real name is preserved on the original tapes.

[3]  Sabrina drew the scene for me later.

[4]  Many of these alien craft appear to be far larger inside than outside.

[5]  An allusion to a later episode when Sabrina encountered a humanoid alien in a park in Brussels, Belgium.

[6]  Was this a missing plane of ours?  One thinks of Valentich’s Cessna, though of course many others have vanished without trace.

[7]  As in the Betty Hill case.  I suspect that other gynaecological procedures may have taken place, though this hypnotic session failed to elicit them.

[8]  Notice her honesty in admitting her mistake.

[9]  Typical of such abductions.

[10]  Notice she does not take up my suggestion that they were wearing black or navy blue.  So much for the argument that hypnotised subjects are always trying to please the hypnotist.

[11]  As described in the article mentioned in endnote 1 above.

[12]  These old-fashioned cars, in apparently new condition, are a regular feature of Men In Black incidents.  “Curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice remarked.  Her Wonderland was no stranger than the one in which Sabrina moved for many years.

[Published in Journal of Alternative Realities, Vol 11, Issue 1, 2004]

COPYRIGHT (C) 2010 J D FRODSHAM