Guess What The Fish Sings To The Hook

1. The Brotherhood of Confectionery-2

“You ask me how I know Bess?” said Jai. “Bess is like you. She’s a dealer.”

“Everyone’s trying to make money,” said Athers turning to Jai. “Like we need money.”

“Man, what’ve you been eating?” said Jai. “Your breath’s ripe.”

“Wolf cheese,” replied Athers.

Sabienn stole a glance towards Stork as did Deep and Bray. Stork had firsthand experience with the food and looked up to the sky in desperation.

“We’re not dealing,” said Bray definitely.

“Whatever,” said Jai blankly, moving his eyes to the street in front of him without interest. “You’re hiding. You’re swallowing. You’re going to meet another dealer. I’m only joining dots.”

They found themselves at the doorway of an old one story brick hovel draped in tape for demolition. Athers pushed in a broken glass door and the group entered cautiously as there was crackling and sharp rubbish breaking under their boots on the floorboards. Sabienn looked to the end of a corridor using the dying day’s light coming through the door and saw the light from another room flickering like fire. He moved slowly behind Athers and Jai towards the light followed by his brothers. The corridor was strewn with small plastic bags, takeaway packets and old cloaks that smelt strongly of urine.

As Sabienn moved through the door where the light was coming from, his immediate impression was that he was not alone. Three human people of middle age, a man and two women, sat up against the wall to the side. Each of them was carefully injecting some substance up into their arms and was dressed in professional clothing. They all looked to Sabienn as if they could have been the life of the party at one stage of their life but now they were committed to a routine. Even the arrival of six strange men into the room didn’t alarm them or deter them from their chore.

Sniffing the air, Sabienn was aware of the smell of cooked soso and watched its liquid form disappear up into a vein of each of their arms.

The room was lit by candles precariously placed around the walls of the room next to old take-away wrappings. Sabienn’s military eye, sensing the danger, wanted to move in and clear away some of the potential fuel for the fire that may occur, but a rustling amongst the garbage indicated the presence of some unknown wildlife that he didn’t want to put his fingers into.

“Hello,” came a female voice from the side. Sabienn turned a viewed a tiny young woman of no more than sixteen. She could have been a mixture of human and native heritage in her facial features but it was the way she was dressed and the way she stood that Sabienn found quite striking.

She was a vision of black and white. She wore a modest black dress providing cover to her knees with a white collar that was distinctly old-fashioned, even for Sabienn’s lack of style. Her face was white and her eyes, tied-back short hair and lips were black, augmented by some particular make-up. She stood ramrod to attention with her hands crossed over her belly.

“Bess Wan Jo?” asked Sabienn tentatively. It was then Sabienn spotted dangling around her neck a faded looking piece of jewellery. His heart thumped at the thought that this may be the locket his quest had called him to get a read on.

“I’m Bess,” she said pleasantly, keeping eye contact with Sabienn.

Breaking away from their group, Jai moved to the side of the room to grab a small metal box. “He’s a dealer, Bess,” said Jai blankly. “I caught him upping. Says it was paper.”

“It was paper,” said Sabienn definitely, with some annoyance.

“His friend joked it was a suicide note,” said Jai returning to a table beside Bess and ripping the top off the box. He and Athers then moved to the contents of the box and picked out a small yellow pill each which they placed on their tongues.

“A suicide note?” said Bess calmly. “Well they’ve come to the right place.” She touched the locket around her neck. “Have you come here to touch this thing?” She looked into the dumbfounded faces of Sabienn and his brothers before continuing, “It’s OK. You’re not the first.”

“We’ve come from far away,” said Bray. Sabienn could sense in his brother, as he spoke, an uneasiness. Bray was the one amongst them who had been involuntarily administered with soso back when they were in Turrland. Sabienn knew he’d be walking a knife’s edge being around all this substance trying to seduce him back under its spell.

“By your bearing, I’d say Hayddland,” said Bess with genuine affection. “How goes the revolution? We’re all great fans of The Great Leader.”

“Oh, we’re just thrilled about him too,” said Stork sarcastically. Sabienn had to give Stork a stern look to bring him back on to a leash.

“Forgive me,” said Bess excitedly. “I’m just fascinated. Which one of you is the reader?”

Bray, Stork and Deep stepped back and pointed towards Sabienn who saw his brothers wilfully giving him up. It was, to Sabienn, like he had just passed wind badly and the others didn’t want to be tainted with the guilt.

Taking a few steps towards Sabienn, Bess spoke calmly and almost in confidence with him. “It must be a gift,” she said. “But how do you know? What’s reality and what’s an illusion? What’s a hallucination and what’s a reading? Is it a genuine vision and where does it come from? Tell me, do you read in colour?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hear sounds?”

“Yes.”

“Fascinating,” she said. She reached out and touched Sabienn’s cloak as if to feel the feathers of some exotic bird. “If I can help in any way.”

“Well,” said Sabienn, his heart was now racing as he saw the locket before him hanging around her neck. The precious reading would soon be his. He held out his hand as if to receive it. “May I?”

“Of course,” said Bess. “But take this first.” She held out in her hand before Sabienn a small yellow pill. “All the readers swore by it.”

“No no,” said Bray, swinging into Sabienn’s side like a big brother. “He reads just fine. And he’s just had one. It wasn’t paper. It was some kind of ‘bend’.”

“I told you,” said Jai from the side. His voice spoke but his mind was distant.

“Not like this though,” said Bess, speaking lovingly to the chemical in her hand. She pointed to the three adults against the wall, each with a syringe pushing a substance up into their arm. “If you’re worried, we have help. A doctor, a teacher and a mother of four. There’s no shortage of assistance here.” Sabienn stole a brief glance towards them to see three people barely capable of looking after themselves than be a source of relief.

“The last man heard cannons,” said Bess, still in Sabienn’s face.

“Cannons?” said Sabienn, feeling excited.

“And colours. They saw everything. Three sixty degrees,” said Bess, looking to her yellow product in the palm of her hand. “Colours of a sunset. Interested?”

“Don’t do it,” said Bray, still in his ear. “This read’s too important.”

“We’ll still be here in the morning,” said Bess to Sabienn. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”

Sabienn looked hard at the pill. Is what I see real? When I’m holding the thing and reading? If it were augmented would be any less real? Three sixty degrees? How does that work?

“This’s not what we’re here for,” chimed in Deep.

“Just punch her lights out and grab the thing from her neck,” said Stork.

“There’s nothing stopping you,” replied Bess pleasantly to Stork. “Do it if you want. I’m not planning on living past twenty-five.”

Even Stork was taken aback by the response. He addressed Sabienn, “We’re in the church of self-indulgent wankers. Only thing with sense here are the ceremonial rats in the bread-rolls. This is no time to see the light.”

Bess leaned in closer to Sabienn pushing the pill before his face. “Three hundred and sixty degrees,” she said. “That’s what they said. They saw everything. Even looking down. And the colour? They couldn’t stop raving.”

“Three sixty degrees,” said Sabienn, looking longingly at the substance. It was one quick movement. He picked up the yellow pill, put it to his tongue and then let it slip down his throat.

There was an audible gasp of dismay from his brothers but particularly from Bray, the man of intellect. Sabienn turned and saw Bray’s face to witness the expression. It seemed the capacity to be disappointed in Sabienn found a new lower level.

In keeping with her side of the bargain, Bess quickly whipped the locket off from around her neck and placed it into Sabienn’s right hand.

Immediately Sabienn felt competing feelings. There was a stirring from the object. The feeling like a tornado began from the top of his head. But then his heartbeat started thumping and racing like he’d turned up a metronome. The figures of a man and a woman briefly appeared but the door they were trying to enter suddenly slammed in and shut tight. Sabienn put his shoulder in his mind to the door to push but what was on the other side held the door tight.

Then the sweat came. He felt wobbly in the knees. His mind exploded and he was the centre of a flock of blue birds that swooped out of whatever it was that held them in. All around him they came. Three sixty degrees. The light was blinding and bright. His blue birds then became black birds and he was struggling to function. He was breathing like he’d run a race.

“Are you feeling well, sir?” the voice of Bess in his ears was present and all-encompassing. She stood before him haloed by light. Her facial features of black and white became even more grotesque. Her head became bulbous like a monster. She surrounded him in sound and vision. “We’ll get to your reading,” she said, her words booming like they’d come through speakers. “But first we need to address your failure. How useless you are. How insipid you are. How worthless you are. How sickening and traitorous and false you are. You stand before your friends as defective. You’ll never be any good.”

“No!” shouted Sabienn bringing his hands up to his face. “Why are you speaking this way?”

“I’ll speak any way I wish to a man who needs the truth. You have the brains of a dog’s c**k. Your mother. Your precious mother. How you failed your mother. But your mother failed you. You should have been tossed with the s**t and the afterbirth. You weak, you wicked, you filthy amount of nothing. Nothing!”

In desperation, Sabienn started thumping his chest. He had to remove his heart which was thumping wildly like a scared rat in a trap. It seemed to him that if he could just break through the rib cage, he could get his hands to it and fling it out. “Don’t say that,” he shouted grimly. “I know what you’re saying. I.. I have limitations.”

“That’s not what I said,” shouted Bess. Her bulb-head was all around him. Her voice was maximum amplification. “You are useless. You are untrustworthy. You are filth. And you are nothing!”

At that moment, Sabienn’s knees buckled. He sensed he had fallen and hit the ground hard knocking his head but there was no pain. His mind was full of colour but then the memories appeared. Moments of his life where he failed people. He saw himself bullying Bray back in school, mocking the young thin curly-haired artist as Sabienn spat in his sandwich. He saw himself smashing a window next to an old veteran selling handmade cards and figurines of angels. He saw himself shouting “Freak!” to anyone and everyone. His mind rolled like a clothes drier. All images tumbling and becoming a lint-filled amalgam of a useless and terrible life.

Then he awoke. Rough hands had grabbed his throat. His head became aware with a jolt. Sabienn was looking into a face in the dark. “Get out!” said the gruff no-nonsense voice. “Five seconds. Get your stuff. Or I’ll hurt you.” The hand let Sabienn go and he was flung back to the floor. Sabienn looked around to see the room was dark and all the candles had been snuffed out.

Another strange voice came out of the room they stood in. “We have three here,” said the male voice. A torch light hit the legs of the passed-out people who’d been shooting up. “Just let them cook.”

More shadowy figures entered the room and Sabienn heard a familiar voice. “Hey, you’re not the thinker of the group, are you?” It was Stork’s voice. “You burn this with people here, this is a crime scene. Everything’s shut down. You can’t build for a year. How’s your boss going to feel about that?” His voice was then directed to the thug who had his hands around Sabienn’s neck. “Why do you employ idiots?”

At that moment, Sabienn felt calm and reassuring hands grabbing his shoulder. “Let’s go.” It was Deep’s voice and he was firmly but fairly being lifted to his now stable legs.

“Check the rooms,” shouted Sabienn’s thug to his henchmen. “What do I keep telling you? No comebacks.”

Strange hands were now dragging the passed-out bodies along the floor; without care where their heads hit.

“Move!” shouted Sabienn’s thug to Deep.

“We’re good,” called Deep to the man, “We’re moving.” Deep helped Sabienn walk unsteadily past the thug who was now pulling out bottles of liquid from a bag. The cap came off one and Sabienn caught a whiff of some accelerant.

They made it to the footpath and witnessed on the other side of the road all the passed-out occupants from the building being dumped like rubbish on the kerb.

The building they were in then lit up like a fireball. Four men dressed in black ran from the damage and proceeded up the street to get away. Sabienn sat down now with his back against a brick wall just watching the wreckage burn before him.

“So,” said Bray, coming up beside Sabienn resting. “How were the cannons?” His comment was laced with utter contempt.

“What happened?” called Sabienn, still favouring his heavy head.

“You blew it,” said Deep. “Our best chance of finishing this.”

Sabienn knew what he had done. He watched the flames before him go up, busting the windows and billowing toxic black fumes into the night sky. The street was starting to fill with shocked and nosy bystanders.

“Three sixty degrees?” added Stork. “Well look on now. We’ve sent our rats off to a decent cremation. It’s be a thousand degrees now. How’s the vision looking from your angle?”

“I’m sorry,” said Sabienn, putting his head into his hands. “Why was that chick shouting at me?”

“Who?” said Bray. “Bess?”

“The three of us were there,” said Deep to Sabienn. “She didn’t say a word.”

“There was just you,” said Stork blankly. “Mumbling like a d**k. Then you were swatting flies. Like you were the right popular turd.”

“We all stayed with you,” said Bray. “Bess put you into a recovery position.”

Sabienn sensed his ‘sorry’ wasn’t going to quite cut it with his brothers. He looked to the three people that had been dragged out and lay on the footpath; on their side so as not to choke on anything coming back up the throat. “Well at least I’m not as bad as them,” he said.

“Wake up to yourself,” said Bray, now pushing his face in front of Sabienn. “This is all about you. You need to be here. You need to be clear. Because at the end of the day, you need to steer. You’re the leader and you’ve let us down.”

The sirens of emergency vehicles were getting louder. Sabienn was in no mood to be questioned by authorities. He was getting enough grilling from his brothers.

“We need to move,” said Deep.

Still choking on his words, Sabienn spoke to them all. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I was doing the right thing. Does anyone know where Bess’s locket is?”

“Ask her yourself,” said Bray, indicating two people on a street corner two blocks away. Sabienn followed the direction indicated and saw in the flickering light, where they stood, Bess and Jai.

“Oh,” added Stork to Sabienn. “You’re going to love this.”

Deep, Stork and Bray all stood and started walking towards Bess, leaving Sabienn sitting there with his guilt-ridden thoughts. Finally Sabienn stood up and dusted down his cloak and followed them. What is it that I’m going to love?