Chapter 8

My time among the Momma worshipers was an idyllic interlude, they swirled around me chattering and flirting like a band of fairies, and we made love as a group for a number of days until the last one caught, whereupon I split the scene, Daddy-o! I cast a spell so that my eye color would mark my progeny, (while their skin shade would be from their mothers) in order to reduce future inbreeding. When almost everyone had my eyes, then it would be safe to re-enter the gene-pool in general. By the time my baby mamas had all produced their offering to the Momma, my accent was neutral again, and my skin tone was local standard once more. [In later years, my descendant’s and my eyes came to be known as ‘Gifts from the Goddess’ and we all got plenty of action as a result.]

So I was wrong, there were some technological enclaves in my new world. They were considered oddballs by almost every one else, after all the simple life was the best, with your family and friends, growing your own food and building all you need from the bounty of the world at hand. What else could you desire? What indeed, I thought, recalling the materialistic disposable fetishistic world I had left, with its latest toys and current year models creating more and more broken junk. Humanity seemed to have an unlimited capacity for noxious fads, from snuffboxes (the finely powdered tobacco, you pervert) to smart phones, everyone had to do what they had seen done by others. Acres of scrap cars, mostly because they were not stylish any longer than any other reason. The radio had gathered families together but TV screen sucked the attention to itself like an egocentric jealous god, smothering other human interactions into superficial stereotypical soap-opera drama and jerry springeresque selfishness. The computer screens finished the job, dissolving even the ‘nuclear family’ into its component parts, with ‘mom’ paying three quarters more of her attention to her phone screen than to her little miracle. I didn’t miss commercialism at all. But, I owed it to myself to check it out, I knew from experience how technology could ‘oft gang agley’.

Eventually I would visit the Workings Enclaves, and perhaps they were now more pleasant than they eventually could become. I could visit again later, and see how the dis utopia progressed. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I sloughed off and missed a golden age of progress because I was listening to too much gossip or too many historical biographies. There was even a new genus of gossip, called improbable gossip, which verged on the fantastical, as opposed to the standard kind which tried to at least seem possible. It reminded me of the ‘tall tales’ which gave birth to such as Paul Bunyon and Pecos Bill, where grown men swapped bald faced lies of such outrageous content with earnest sincere faces, and the culture was such that no one was about to call any other man a liar unless they were prepared to fight them, as being called a liar was the same as if someone ruined your credit rating with a forged bill. Here though, all the gossip was taken as something not quite the same as reality, although if most of the gossip was of a certain type you might let it affect your perception of a person.

My special abilities if discussed were considered to be of the improbable variety, but they were eventually to become the stuff of legends. Gertra was disappointed at first, after her quick examination of the enclave for tech, as it was mental and biologically focused, not mechanical at all. And no surprise, given the lack of mineral wealth. That is, the lighting was bio-luminous from insect larva, there were lots of alchemic experiments with bubbling brews and glass condensing apparatuses, along with hypnotism, trances and altered states, and visualizations. The head shrink was more of a morale officer combined with a social architect, and my existence blew her mind. With my otherworldly knowledge, as well as what I had learned half a world away which wasn’t yet known here, I was able to poke a finger in here or there, and turn marginal experiments and skull crackings into miracles and mind fucks. She knew I wasn’t from around here, but she didn’t suspect just how far. I had no idea how far either, and Marsa overcame her awe and comforted me in the sudden weight of loss that came over me.