Warning! Do Not Read In Bed

Passage Four

My supporters are trying to get in as many new objects as possible to be a threat to the opposition. The only way we can transfer from one object to another is by actual contact of the object we are in and the one we wish to transfer to. This transfer is completed on the total destruction of the first object from its original form. Thus we are an animus. Thus like us if The Fiend wanted to arrange for some of his sprit followers to transfer from a pane of glass in a house window to a baseball bat he would use his animus/nix aura to influence a spotty American brat to play baseball in the garden. Even against his father's dictum:

'Go play in the park.'

The brat misses the ball, releases the bat, bat sails through the air; creating another example of Sod's law. Window smashed by the bat, father irate.

'Just high spirits dear,' pacifies Mom.

The spirit transfer has been engineered from glass to bat. A duel transfer influencing event; window smashed by the bat, because the father was irritated by some of us spirits to being irate and the boy was influenced by likeminded spirits with the same objective to play baseball in the garden and not the local park.

In the early days of the pursuit of my objective my supporters were mainly in: industrial objects, toys, tools, domestic appliances, vehicles; anything that whirrs and jigs about. To undermine our cause The Fiend cajoled his supporters to influence too many of them. One of his many enthusiasts may cause a lathe to trap an operator's tie strangling them to death. Another diverts a bus under a low bridge decapitating the passengers. Have you ever wondered: Why? Why do babies die at birth? Much appreciated paintings slashed in an art gallery? Milk bottles break under the back seat of a car (What a smell!)? Middle aged man, career success, loving wife, nice kids; crushed to death in an industrial accident?

'He had so much to live for - why?'

Following the edict from the oppositions hierarchy that minor, medium, and major disasters should only happen in threes all in seventy two hours, for instance: a single propeller plane crashes into a barn of cows, a Lear Jet crashes into a row of houses in a town, and a passenger airliner crashes into a row of hotels in a seaside resort; based on a ridiculous notion related to maintaining the equilibrium in the spirit world. I led a fight back, a continuous happening of inexplicable incidents. The result of our defending actions was that many of those boring supporters of the opposition began to question the decisions of their leaders. A defining moment for me more signs of unrest showed in the community of spirits. I became an even more influential anarchist opposing The Fiend and his followers.

Worryingly The Fiend has heard about my security advisor's safeguarding three sixty degree advice. To instil fear in my followers The Fiend has initiated a mantra his followers repeated incessantly: The Fiend in omnipresent. The Fiend is in control. You will definitely be hearing it soon.

I have jumped ahead of myself. Back to the drowning dinosaurs, they were the last two on the planet. I had worked hard to cause there extinction in complete opposition to The Fiend. It was a massive victory; a difficult decision, however, it was for the greater good.

Consequently many began to worship me as a hero. Their hierarchy hated me even more. Consequently The Fiend was elected their leader. What the spirit community did not realise, pre-ramapithecus man was beginning to invent new objects: using flat stones as tools, animal skins as clothes, animal bones as crude weapons. Providing a fantastic opportunity for me to achieve my objective, startling the majority of the community who were happy to languish in one object for eternity, they hated new objects. I decreed dinosaurs would have to cease to exist so my spirits could enter these new objects being invented by man. Since then I have been flitting about trying to stay one step ahead. My spirits are constantly trying to achieve the ascendency. I tell them their challenge is to get their defence in first, instigate the attack, and gain dominance for the fraction of a microsecond when an object is destroyed. Whether it is a big bang or a small squeak, in that period particles decay into other particles, which is when we make our transfer to control an object.

The spirit community has developed into a pecking order. Some of us are more manipulative than others, let me explain. The more quarks and leptons there are in a substance the more spirits, from them a leader emerges. The leader, if persuasive and charismatic enough, can persuade individual spirits to act together and manipulate their substance or body to perform actions. An amoeba would have fewer spirits and have fewer actions to perform then in the higher intellects like man and dinosaurs, so I, as a leader, have duel manipulation ability. I can manipulate spirits to flit from body to body, and can manipulate the actual body.

Because there are so many spirits in man, similarly in dinosaurs (can you imagine the numbers of quarks and leptons present?); often two leaders can be present in one body. When one leader is present, depending on their bent, the body might be influenced into being evil or good. With two the result is a battle for control. You might call this a conscience. The Fiend has now realised how I am using mankind to achieve my objective. Consequently he is seeking support from spirits who like to stay in one objective for eternity to maintain the status quo; you know how the establishment gets entrenched in a position of influence. My supporters need change, tending to be those who like to flit about from quark to lepton. The Fiend has set up an organisation called the Control of the Itinerant Animus using a plentiful supply of resources. Well tough shit. I am fighting back determined to reach my objective. I survive on my wits, known proudly as the rebel without pause. When necessary raising my being above the battlements and making a point with a spectacle that encourages more flitters to join the cause. As my communication specialist said:

'The Fiend's followers have to be lucky all the time we just have to be lucky once.'

The Fiend found out by informers I was about to make the dodo extinct. I was losing followers and needed publicity. It was around 1650. I managed to get to Mauritius via sailors on a pirate ship who had taught Captain Kid his grisly trade. The dodo was such a clumsy creature. Who can have any affection for a bird that cannot fly? The Fiend knew I was to get inside the dodo via a knife with an ivory handle carved by its sailor's owner. The Fiend was in a similar object; a pistol with an ivory insert. I was at a distinct disadvantage; a pistol is obviously a more powerful weapon than a knife however much the pirate had caringly sharpened the edge. It was a standoff. The pistol was pointed at the man with the knife during a drunken brawl instigated by The Fiend. His man had my knife as the target. Was I to be obliterated? The pistol fired with a crack.

End of passage four.

NOTES FROM PETE

Hi. Thanks for your feedback, especially John Curzon who showed an interest via the Science Fiction Club, also my followers on twitter.

My video script for this short story is on draft four and progressing nicely. Just to let you know the two spirits will be occupying objects within the film snippets that are aiding visualisation of the narration. The two spirits will be identified as occupying objects within the film snippets by two distinct special effects. I was thinking of a pleasing yellow glow for the Narrator and an evil black jet for the Fiend. So in the recently uploaded passage The Narrator occupies the ivory handle of a pirate's dagger in a snippet, for example, from: Pirates of the Caribbean, which is surrounded by a mellow yellow glow. The Fiend occupies the ivory handle of a pirate's pistol which emits a black evil smoke jet.

What do you think?

What special effects do you associate with the Narrator?

What special effects do you associate with The Fiend?

It would be great if you may furnish me with your opinions.

It would also be brilliant if you voted by clicking on the star and added 'Warning' to your library.

I will be posting again in five days' time.

Cheers

Pete