Like a Hurricane

I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream......

Noriko looked up, startled.

Two days before she'd asked Shuya what he liked about her. Shuya had discovered that girls did this quite often, so he wasn't surprised by her question. He was a little taken aback by his answer though. You are like a hurricane, he replied, there's calm in your eye. (He almost added, and I'm getting blown away, but thought better of it.) It probably should have come across corny, but it was spontaneous and Noriko knew it and Noriko liked it.

Just for a second the calm was gone. As she looked up at him, Shuya saw turmoil, confusion, even fear. Her eyes were usually like the dark brown pebbles on the beach at Shodoshima, polished by the surf and sand, and Shuya could occasionally catch his own reflection in them. Now they'd seemingly become translucent, as if they were those lenses that changed from dark to light when you stepped out of the sun. Noriko had always been there to support and defend Shuya. Her vulnerability exposed, he realized, in that second, that the time would come he'd have to protect her.

Just for a second and then her composure returned. Shuya felt relief. Until he saw the knife in her hands, its blade smeared with blood, not yet quite dried and glinting in the glare of the hallway's fluorescent lights. Someone had stabbed Kitano earlier that morning. He was badly hurt but not critically. He'd be back to torture Shiroiwa Junior High with denominators and differentials soon enough. He knew instantly it wasn't Noriko who did it. 

- Well, don't just stand there, give me a hand to hide this, said Noriko, standing up and placing the knife between the pages of a copy of Blenda magazine.

- Okay, but who....

Noriko raised a finger to her lips. 

- Let's go, Shu. 

It was, of course, Yoshitoki who'd shanked Kitano. Even though it was so many years ago, a wave of sadness passed through Shuya as he remembered his old friend. The way he'd raise his eyebrows and grin like an idiot whenever Shuya fell for one of his practical jokes, the way he'd bubble with uninhibited enthusiasm whenever he talked to Ms Ryoko and the way his head disintegrated into thousands of bits of bone and brain when the bomb around his neck was detonated. If he was dying, Shuya was not being spared such memories. But he still didn't know where he was. He had no reference point, there were no shapes, nothing defined. Just light and colors. 

Photochromic. That was the name of those lenses.

If he was dying? Now, there's a thought, Shuya thought to himself.

A New Morning, Changing Weather

Dreaming of drinking wasn't unusual. It had featured in every dream since he'd quit two years, five months and twenty three days ago. In fact it usually played the starring role. But dreaming in a language he couldn't speak - now that was a first. He would google translate it later to find that it even made sense. Look Mama, a shooting star.

Kit rubbed his eyes against the bright white of the clouds below and turned to the screen in front of him. The laptop had fallen asleep just after he had, no more than fifteen minutes ago. It woke with a brush of his finger, revealing a single white page.

"Switching addictive behavior in mice by genetic manipulation of the Stand Alone Complex."

Kelvin I. Thomson

The Waystead Institute for Synaptic Engineering

Running title: Tweeker squeekers.

It was a review he'd been commissioned to write for Nature Mindfuck. Not a journal he had much time for, but one with sufficiently high visibility to keep his benefactor happy and generous.

- You must be a scientist. The passenger sitting next to him was gesturing sheepishly towards the laptop screen.

- So I've been told, Kit replied.

Indeed it was something his father had told him on many occasions, usually after a lengthy discourse on the grand tradition of scientific endeavor in the family. The tradition stretched back to William Thomson, Baron of Kelvin, who had given to the world an absolute scale of temperature founded on that most unattainable of certainties, Absolute Zero. Successive generations of Thomsons followed his footsteps, some excelling, most faltering, but all with a determination to put everything in its rightful place in the universe. For the Thomsons there was no room for uncertainty in the physical world; Kit's great grandfather's claim to fame was once having landed a right hook on the jaw of Werner Heissenberg, exclaiming "Observe the position and velocity of this, you scoundrel!" Kit's decision to study the ambiguity of the human brain rather than certainties of the atoms and the forces that held them together broke family ranks and his father's heart. Some in the family saw it as a blessing that his father was in the early stages of Alzheimer's (which was in fact one of Kit's motivations for entering neuroscience) and indeed after some time his father became quite oblivious to Kit's heresy, not long before he became oblivious to Kit himself.

Kit turned to the window while he thought of something friendly to say to his neighbor, who he'd noticed had been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, one of Kit's favorite novels. He'd ask him how he was enjoying it. As Kit looked out the window he saw that they had passed over the mountains and that the shiny white clouds had given way to a carpet of grey. Not the rich slate grey of rain clouds, but a dirty, mottled grey that seemed to be sucking in all the light reaching it. He was getting close to home.

Eighteen thousand feet below Johnny opened his eyes and looked up into a vermillion sky. Another weird dream, must be something to do with being alone in the desert. He was still in the desert when suddenly he got the feeling he was surrounded by horses, horses, horses, horses, coming in from all directions, white shining silver studs with their nose in flames. Pretty scary. No horses here though. Cougars, coyotes and collected critters circled him, but no horses. He was sure of that. Sort of. Actually, he encouraged the desert's creatures, leaving out candy and jerky for them. And there was still plenty of water for them. When the fairways turned to fireways and the rich angelitos fled for their gated havens they left the water - took the booze, but left the water. In plastic bottles. And Johnny. They left Johnny. Things sometimes worked out for the best. That was almost six weeks ago. Forty days in a giant sand trap. If only he could do something about getting some wine from those plastic bottles. 

Still, horses. Pretty scary. Not as scary as the fires, but still. Pretty scary. He just couldn't shake the feeling that the horses were a sign. That something bigger was on its way. Something very big.

A New Morning....

- What was that Shuya? I could not hear your answer. And I don't suppose anyone else in the class could either. Am I right class?
- Yes Miss!
Once again Shuya had been isolated. Still, it was no surprise Miss Saeki had not heard his answer - he, after all, had not heard the question. He focused on the scrunched up piece of pale blue paper lying on the classroom floor. Within its folds he could make out a crane, like the ones his sister would create from sheets of shiny colored paper. He saw it take shape and then take wing, headed for the very same window he had been looking out of when Miss saeki had asked her question.
- And I'm quite sure that everyone else in the class knows the answer. Who can answer the question for me?
Shuya could feel the breeze as hands all around him waved frantically in the air.
- You see, do you, Shuya, how alone you are in your ignorance?
Reluctantly Shuya withdrew his gaze from the scrunched up paper and he glanced around himself. Indeed every student in the class had his or her hand raised. Except for Noriko, sitting in the front of the class. Now, surely Noriko would know the answer to any question set by Miss Saeki. Had she also been daydreaming and not heard the question? Inconceivable. But at that moment Noriko turned her head and looked directly at Shuya and he realized why she had not raised her hand.
Shuya blushed.
- Yes Shuya, I can understand why you would be embarassed. You see I am quite certain that you know the answer to my question, for surely noone in class is as familiar with Soseki as you are. So I can only conclude that you had not heard my question, that your incoherent reply was just a stalling tactic. Am I right?
Shuya nodded.
- I thought so. Perhaps you will learn from this, Shuya Nanahara, that having all the answers will not mean anything to anyone, let alone yourself, if you do not listen to the questions. This you may find to be true in many ways and at many times in your life, Shuya.
- Yes Miss saeki.
Miss Saeki was full of crap. Shuya had known this for quite some time. He now wondered if perhaps Noriko did too.

At the end of class Noriko again caught Shuya's gaze. And this time she smiled just so slightly. And Shuya wondered whether maybe a bond had just been formed between them. Or maybe not.
He smiled back. Just slightly.

Shuya was fairly certain this was not a dream. After all, though it had happened many years ago, it was a real event, a real memory, and as far as he could remember, he had never before dreamt of things that had actually happened. Besides, it was so clear, like watching a DVD and being in it at the same time. Yet he had the distinct impression that the the memory had replayed in just a fraction of real time - like turning off the alarm, dreaming an epic saga of a dream, then waking up five minutes later.
Curious.
More curious was the fact that he couldn't remember much about more recent - much more recent - events. He remembered being with Noriko, though that was inevitable. He vaguely recalled falling from a red sky. And the smell of smoke. And not much else.
In fact, nothing else.
He was a little worried.

A New .....

The walls of the buildings on either side of the narrow street loomed so high and leaned so far in that neither day nor night could be seen. The ground was darkest grey and if there were sidewalks and a pavement there was no indication of where one ended and the other began. The buildings, too, were shades of grey with an almost metallic sheen and here and there a touch of blue. Blue? Windows perhaps? Could there be someone looking down on the street from above? There certainly wasn’t anyone on the street.

Two figures stood at the street corner. One wore a black leather jacket, the other was in police uniform. They were smoking, talking between themselves, their attention now focused on him. His attention now focused on his feet. One foot in front of the other, straight line, watch out for that crack. He walked into a post. Not a standing structure of any kind for blocks upon blocks and he had walked into one. It wasn’t even serving any purpose. No lamp, no sign, no wires. Just a post.

Just a post!

“Good evening,” the man in the leather jacket whispered – he was that close – through a plume of smoke. He looked curiously familiar.

“We couldn’t help notice that you walked into one of our posts.” One of our posts? Strategically placed to catch the careless and the inebriated off guard?

“Have you been drinking?” asked the leather jacket guy with a sneer. Of course!. He was a character from a TV show – Shane from The Shield. Or he was the actor who played Shane. Either way it was a worrying development.

A pointless dialog would follow in which his sobriety, his honesty and his integrity would, one by one, be called into question. Shane struck his Zippo to light another cigarette. A vision of him dropping a grenade into his friend’s lap. And then running.

A screaming came across the sky. The Zippo, now a huge ball of flame arced toward the running man. On the side of the street a little girl, clad in a tiny, shiny blue raincoat, tugged at the hem of her mother’s dress. “Mirada, mama, una estrella fugazi!”

Then. White.

Just white.

Pura Vida: Unfinished Sympathy.

How can you have a day without a night?

The morning’s rain had fallen and the early afternoon sun was resolutely returning it to the clear sky. A brilliant blue butterfly flopped through the open window, casting off its shadow as it crossed the room’s threshold. It landed on a weighty manuscript, open at the middle. The paper was thick, textured and faded in a way suggesting great age. The script was elegant and measured, yet even a fluent reader of spanish might have had difficulty deciphering its context from the extravagant loops and tangents that overflowed into adjacent words and lines. Throughout the text words and phrases were crossed out, replaced, in the same handwriting, between the lines and in the margins by alternative expressions, making it even harder to read. The original text was faded but distinct, while the marginalia were various darker shades of black, sometimes dark blue. It seemed it had been revised on many occasions during its lifetime.
The manuscript, on which the butterfly now rested, flexing its azure wings, sat in the middle of a large oak table, otherwise unadorned save for a black box sitting in the corner. Lying in front of the box was a small stack of photographs. The table was of a kind oine might describe as a kitchen table, were it not in a room that was clearly not a kitchen. On two other tables, and on the shelves that lined all the walls of the small room, were sprawled and stacked all kinds of books, scrolls, folios, codices and manuscripts. Many were bound in fine leather, red, gold and black, many were bound by vellum or parchment, while many were unbound, tied with red or gold cord, as the one on the table. Most were clearly of some antiquity, yet despite the absence of any protection from the elements – the window had been open, as usual, during the morning’s downpour and the late afternoon sun would soon be streaming into the room – they were exquisitely preserved.
Above the open the manuscript a white Montblanc pen, embellished only by a black opal at its apex, hung suspended in the air, seemingly poised for writing. The butterfly took wing as the pen arced toward the page and, as it did, its support, hitherto unseen, became starkly visible. The hand was thin, its skin deeply tanned, tight to the bone. Well manicured nails glinted in the dark of the room, as if reflecting light that was not there, and tiny hairs on the hand’s surface illuminated themselves with crystal clarity. A sleeve of white, sheer silk hung loose from the arm, brushing the paper’s surface as the pen slowly drew a line through ‘abrazo chozas‘, replacing it with ‘incinero hogares‘ in the tight space above. Through the arm and the hand, the page’s text was quite clearly readable.
The arm retreated, the pen resumed its point of suspension and a red light blinked on the black box. A photograph slid out from a slit in the box and flopped onto the stack. It was of a town square, in the background a grand hotel in front of which huddled small groups of people talking, taking photos. In the center, apparently the focus of the photo was a man in his forties wearing a white linen shirt, black pants and sandals, walking across the square away from the hotel. His attention seemed drawn to a spot on his left shoulder.

As Kit walked across Plaza de Santa Ana, the water that had hung in the air all day, casting a heavy shroud over the city, started to coalesce and fall from the sky in large drops. The few tourists dotting the small square snapped their cameras and cell phones at the grand hotel where the bullfighters stayed, the old theater where once-great actors took the stage and the cervezeria where a great writer once drank. Pausing at the signs of rain, they looked skywards and deliberated whether to join Hemingway's ghost or retire to their hotels for shelter. Kit headed for a once familiar haunt.
He placed his book on the metallic bar and ordered a drink. The barman placed a green bottle and a glass in front of him and resumed his one-sided conversation with the other customer, sitting at the other end of the bar. The topic of conversation - monologue, really - was the big game coming up on Saturday. It was not so much about who would win, but about how many goals Athletico would crush Real by and who would score them. Times had certainly changed, thought Kit. Real's domination of cross-town Athletico, and every other team in La Liga, had surely been perpetual. As the barman revelled in this change in fottballing fortunes, the other patron stared at the ice melting, slowly yellowing the last drops of liquid in his glass, as beads of sweat dripped slowly down his face. His name was Arturo and he used to have season tickets at the Bernebeu, Real’s own theater of dreams. Over the years he had negotiated himself into one of the best seats in the stadium, just in front of the president's box. Other regulars in this section of the stadium would greet him and ask his opinion of the latest line up or Real's game plan. During a Champions League game against Inter Milan, Arturo was so impressed by Inter's young, speedy striker that he turned and yelled towards the president, "This guy's got some talent, Senor Presidente, you should buy him!" Sure enough, next season the prodigy was suited in Real's famous white strip, scoring goals the likes of which hadn't been seen on the hallowed ground for many a year. Of course Arturo did not shirk the credit afforded him by his fellow Real fans and his reputation as a tactical visionary blossomed. On one occasion the legendary Raul, retired for some years and carrying a reputation rivalling that of Di Stefano before him, shouted out from quite a few rows away; "Hey Arturo, 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 against Depor next week?" "Even you fared better with a partner, Maestro - 4-4-2, of course!" Arturo had replied, bringing smiles and nods of approval all round. It seemed he had the ear of the entire Real family. But now Arturo went to games no longer and no one listened to him. Now he listened, or feigned listening, to his barman's tabloid sports column regurgitation. And that was just fine with him, as long as he continued to serve him.
Kit looked around the small bar. It was much as he remembered from his previous trip to Madrid, which surprised him, having seen it before only from the depths of a mojito-fuelled haze in the midst of a crowd of late night revellers. Beautifully tiled walls, scenes of bullfighters majestically dispatching their ferocious, unnaturally large quarry in shades of ochre and red, were trimmed ornately by brilliant blue and yellow patterned tiles. Wooden stairs led up to an even smaller room, served by a bar about the size of a subway ticket kiosk where he had spent many a night-time hour before.
Today he had taken the afternoon off from the conference he was attending "At the Crossroads of Molecular Biology and Psychiatry: How do we pave the road ahead?". The afternoon session promised a discussion of signaling pathway and gene expression aberrations in schizophrenia. But two and a half days spent in the company of the "elite" of the emerging molecular psychiatry field had exposed him to more than enough delusional grandeur and paranoia. Instead he'd walked to the Prado, not for the full tour but to revisit some of the highlights of his previous visit to the museum, some five years ago. Lingering in front of the Garden Of Earthly Delights any remaining feelings of guilt about skipping the afternoon's session soon disappeared. The depiction of the garden of Eden on one side of the tryptich, hell on the other and in the middle some kind of terrestial mish-mash of the two, the corruption of human desires and needs born of original sin, left him in no doubt that Bosch, some five hundred years previous, was as familiar with the workings of the schizophrenic mind as his esteemed colleagues. Leaving the museum he had wandered the narrow, grey streets, now and then coming across a tapas bar or cerveceria he remembered from before. He would have stopped for his favorite pimientos de Padron in one of them had they not been closed. Though siesta was no longer widely practiced, its influence persisted, the city dragging its past through the current.
Lighting a cigarette, Kit picked up his paperback and continued reading. Benny Profane was still hunting alligators in the New York sewer system. Kit smiled at that.
“Uno ottro Perrier?” asked the barman, barely disguising his disapproval.
“No ….. gracias. Una Chivas Regal, por favor.” replied Kit.
“Ah, yse”, the barman’s demeanor visibly improving, “With ice?”
“Si.” replied Kit in his best spanish.
Kit put out his cigarette, closed the book, picked up the glass and walked over to the other end of the bar. He placed the glass in front of Arturo, nudging aside his empty one and whispered “Viva Real!”. Arturo looked up, startled. A flicker of recognition passed between their eyes, though they’d clearly never met before, a fleeting glimmer of understanding lightening Arturo’s face before the shadow cast itself again.
Outside people were emerging from their temporary shelters as the downpour subsided. Kit turned to the right and started making his way towards the heart of Madrid, the center of Spain.

He put down the pen and closed the manuscript. The front page bore the work’s title and underneath a sketch of a man’s arm upon which rested a collared falcon. Circling this were the words ‘EX TENEBRIS SPERO LUCEM’.
A bright blue paper origami crane now sat on the black box, from which another photo slid. The man in the white shirt and black pants was walking away from the camera. In the background loomed the fountain and the crowds of Puerta del Sol. He picked up the photo and his thin lips materialized, twisting into a smile of recognition, and whispered “Take care, Dr. Thompson, not to fly too close”

They think it's over ...... It is now!

It seems like just a few weeks ago - in fact it was five - that the world sat agog in front of its TV set, awaiting the kick off of FIFA World Cup 2006. It was the hosts, Germany, who got the ball rolling, against the minnows– albeit minnows protected by conservation statutes - of Costa Rica. Despite plucky resistance, the German machine soon overcame the Ticos, rolling to a comfortable 4-2 win. The Germans went on to coast comfortably through the group phase, while Costa Rica regained their composure to follow them through in second place.

Elsewhere in group play, England allayed the concerns of their supporters about Wayne’s foot, Stevie’s back and David’s coiffeur to qualify easily for the knockout stage. In the “Group of Death” Serbia and Montenegro shocked the football world as their stellar defence unexpectedly declared independence from the midfield, just minutes before the kickoff of their first game against Holland. Nonetheless, S&M dominated the submissive Orangemen to claim an emphatic victory; “Serbian Group of Death Squad Squashes Orange” the tabloids would yell the next day. In the Group of Near Death, the Czech Republic, their coach fresh off coaching Hogwarts to its fifth consecutive quidditch title, quickly picked up three wins and strolled through to the knockouts. Team USA followed them, their strategy of pre-emptive strikes against their opponents’ goal before kickoff paying high dividends. Elsewhere favorites failed to deliver as Spain and Porugal made it 0-for-Iberia, french joy de vivre fizzled as they saw déjà vu and failed to progress, while the Italians couldn’t even buy their way out of the group phase.

As the knockout phases progressed rivalries were renewed. The showdown between USA and Mexico saw the americans employ defensive tactics with the mexican strikers repeatedly coming up against a defensive wall, only to be called back for offsides each time they broke through. Not surprisingly the encounter ended in stalemate, with the US, predictably prevailing in the penalty shoot out. England and Argentina resumed their long running vendetta, with the divine digits of Argentina's Messi deciding the issue in dubious fashion. Meanwhile the confidence of the plucky Ticos soared as they mashed the Swedes, bounced the Czechs and then humbled the mighty Brazilians in the semi-finals.

Finally the scene was set for the grand finale, a repeat of the opening libretto; Costa Rica v. Germany, the guardians of the rain forest against the gargantuans of the Black Forest. As kickoff approached, Ticomania spread, the supporters of ousted countries staying on to cheer on the Ticos. The dutch fans, a splash of orange in grey Berlin, sang "Do you know the way to San Jose?" to the rhythm of the brazilian samba drummers. The english fans drank warm Imperial cerveza by the liter, while the french fans, who noone knew had been there to start with, gleefully tucked in to rice and beans and plantains.

But, soon after the kick off, it seemed the german juggernaut would continue its teutonic roll, with two goals from their center forward putting the men in black and white up 2-0 at the half - it seemed the Ticos had been klosed out. But they bounced back, scoring twice to send the game into overtime. A thunderous strike from Wanchope's boot thudded against the crossbar and bounced down behind the line - 3-2! With seconds to go and legs failing, Paulo completed his hat trick, thumping the ball into the back of the net. It was all over. Costa Rica 4 - Germany 2!

Costa Rica, and the world outside Germany with it, celebrated. The streets of Alajuela rang with "Hallejula!" And, around the world, on the lips of the followers of the beautiful game was the beautiful phrase from the beautiful country.

Pura Vida!

Not dead yet.

Reports of my cyber-demise greatly exagerrated. But, still, thanks for stopping by and commenting after all this time, P.
Posting to resume here soon with Pura Vida.
Really.

Haiku vaccine.

foxy: "Happy six months' anniversary."
cali: "What? Oh yeah, that. Thanks."
foxy: "Now, if you were still going to those meetings you could've got a token."
cali: "And I could've told everyone how, if it wasn't for them 'just being there', I wouldn't have made it 'one day at a time' to be there to accept the token."
foxy: "And the higher power - don't forget the higher power."
cali: "Right, can't forget the higher power. Or should that be Higher Power?"
foxy: "So are you going to celebrate?"
cali: "Could do, except I haven't really learned how to do that without .... y'know? Maybe we'll go see V for Vendetta - watching someone blow up Parliament seems as good a way to celebrate as any."
foxy: "Six months alcohol-free, two months nicotine-free and one month SSRI-free. Good thing you've still got your memories, otherwise you'd pretty much be running on a brand new brain. Kinda like that Steve Martin movie."
cali: "The Jerk?"
foxy: "I was thinking more along the lines of "The Man with Two Brains" but that'll work too. So, are you going to post on the blog again?"
cali: "Yeah, I'll post something in the next few days. Least I can do to thank the haiku poets."
foxy: "What is a haiku anyway?"
brad: "Its a style of japanese poetry consisting three lines of five, seven and five phonetic units."
foxy: "Hey, Brad, how's it going? Thought you were doing the Mr. and Mrs. Smith thing in Italy this weekend."
brad: "Nah, the press were all over it like pesto over gnocchi."
cali: "And you were all over my TV screen this morning;
BRAD 72
PITT 66
brad: "Yeah I watched that game, couldn't decide who to root for. Anyway, Angelina didn't want the wedding the same weekend as Milosevic's funeral."
foxy: "I can see that. Apparently his daughter already wants him dug up and reburied in Montenegro."
cali: "How about they dig up and rebury the motherfucker several thousand times. In the same fucking grave."
foxy: "He's kind of down on tyrants today. Anyway, Brad, I've got something for you."
brad: "Serial killer with deadly sin MO systematically murders hollywood movie stars partying on a movie set?"
foxy: "First rule of Ocean's Se7en is never talk about Ocean's Se7en? No, not that one, you'll like this one."
brad: "Okay, where is it?"
foxy: "Stay tuned to this spot."
cali: "Just be very, very patient....."

Never trust a scientist. Or an alcoholic.

Foxy: "Whatcha reading there?"
Cali: "Its an essay in PLoS Medicine explaining why most published research findings are false."
Foxy: "Wow. What's it called?"
Cali: "'Why most published research findings are false.'"
Foxy: "And why are they?"
Cali: "Well, the guy reduces it down to a pretty simple relationship between positive predictive value, error rate and bias; PPV = ([1 − β] R+uβR )/( R+ α − β R+u−uα +uβR )"
Foxy: "What?"
Cali: "PPV = ([1 − β] R+uβR )/( R+ α − β R+u−uα +uβR )"
Foxy: "And, umm, what does that mean?"
Cali: "I've got no fucking idea. But, still, are you surprised?"
Foxy: "That more than half of all published science is wrong? Not really. Most scientists use blind faith as a benchmark, arrogance as their guide and follow trends with all the awareness of a fourteen year old girl walking into Abercrombie and Fitch. No, not really surprised."
Cali: "Of course publication, or numbers of publications, are the currency of scientific careers, so its not likely to change. Maybe if those who regularly publish results later proven to be false were to face some kind of consequence?"
Foxy: "Yeah, make em appear on Oprah; 'I feel duped'. Did you see Frey last week? Looked like someone had sprinkled coke on his cornflakes."
Cali: "But she didn't ask the question that really needed answering - if he told a million little lies about his past life and relationships, did he also lie about the road to his recovery? Did he really travel it alone, without the twelve steps and a serenity prayer to his higher power? Inquiring alcoholic minds need to know."
Foxy: "A few persuasive words from the associates of his friend Leonard might be a more effective way to the truth. Another trip to the dentist's chair maybe?"
Cali: "Couldn't be much more painful than Oprah's couch. Who can you trust these days though?"
Tom: "Me! Me! Trust me!"
Foxy: "Oh for fucksake. Did you let him in?"
Cali: "No, he must have been hiding in the closet. So you're here to tell us the Truth, Tom?"
Tom: "You can't handle the truth!"
Foxy: "That wasn't you Tom, that was Jack shouting at you. And, no offence Tom, but you're no Jack."
Tom: "I'm no Jack, I'm Tom! I'm Tom!"
Cali: "Jesus. Can you get him off the couch and back into the closet? I'm off for a drink."
Foxy: "You quit drinking, remember?"
Cali: "Whatever. Maybe I was lying ....."

So, Santa's Really Imaginary?

We returned from the hols spent in the UK. Being my first sober Xmas/New Year for quite a while (!) it was actually more fun than I'd anticipated. Yup, still sober.

While we were there, there was some discussion as to whether the time had come to disabuse my ten year old niece of the notion that Santa Claus (Father Christmas as they call him over there) exists. I think she'll wake up to cruel reality soon enough without anyone forcing it on her. Besides, I merely traded in Santa's sleigh for Tanqueray, so who am I to do the waking. Of course, addiction is not the only sleigh ride from reality that some of us embark on. For instance;

A famous hollywood starlet ranted "There's no such thing as a chemical imbalance!"on morning TV not so long ago. Of course, Tom Cruise also believes that humanity's problems stem from the implantation of negative memories into the souls of our forefathers by extraterrestrial detainees visiting Earth on intergalactic DC-8's. But still, could there be at least a grain of truth in what poor deluded, sexually insecure, couch jumping Tom has to say?



Not according to the Zoloft TV commercial in which a very unhappy blob creature is transformed into a happy one with the aid of this SSRI anti-depressant, a class of drugs pioneered by Prozac, market led by Zoloft and diversified by Paxil. In the Zoloft commercial we're told, with the aid of a diagram of a nerve synapse captioned with the disclaimer that its only a representation (lest we believe its the real thing), that depression may result from a chemical imbalance in the brain and that Zoloft works to correct this imbalance. The commercial confidantly states that "scientists believe that it could be linked with an imbalance of a chemical in the brain called serotonin", a belief founded on a theory proposed about forty years ago.

The fact is, though, there is no actual direct evidence for serotonin imbalance in depression. Scientists can't yet directly measure serotonin levels in the brains of depressed people. Of course they can measure serotonin levels in the brains of dead people, but I'd guess that most people get a bit down just before dying. In fact, the supposed success of SSRI anti-depressants, which boost serotonin by blocking its reuptake at synapses, is itself most often cited as proof of the hypothesis. This is a little like explaining headaches as being the result of aspirin deficiency and is about as good a piece of evidence as finding the cookies and milk eaten on Christmas morning. In fact, one could argue that the additional presence of the carrot, half eaten by reindeers, provides stronger support for Santa's existence.

But, if the drugs work, why should we care whether the pharmaceutical industry markets SSRI's by misrepresenting scientific findings. Well, leaving aside the question of whether or not they do indeed work (in case you're wondering, I've been taking Lexapro for years now), claiming a collective scientific belief legitimizes prescription not only for depression, but apparently for a whole host of other ailments including anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive and pre-menstrual dysphoric disorders. Just how such a variety of disorders with widely different behavioral symptoms could all be due to serotonin imbalance is beyond me, though not the FDA's guidelines apparently. Curiously the pharmaceutical companies also market new anti-depressants which don't act via serotonin - Wellbutrin and Edronax, for instance - which perform just as well as SSRI's in trials. To my knowledge their commercials don't claim "scientists don't believe that it could be linked with an imbalance of a chemical in the brain called serotonin".

Ultimately, it seems to me the only difference between the belief systems of kids at Xmas, the pharmaceutical industry and Tom Cruise is that the kids don't ram it down our throats on TV (though they may occasionally jump on the couch).

Still, at least Pfizer doesn't care if we've been naughty or nice.

Happy Holidays.

To those of you who still visit this post-deficient blog, thanks and have a great Xmas and New Year. I hope to resume posting on a more regular basis in the New Year - my thoughts on the 12 step program, science's misunderstanding and pharma's misrepresentation of depression, the return of Fox Force Five, the introduction of Foxxy Love, Mystery Solver, the Memoirs of Morris E., the Melancholy Mouse, and anything of note that may have happened over the holidays.
Until then, have a wonderful holiday season and don't forget to be jolly.

Georgie.

Best remembered leaning against air, not a bar.
Gone, never forgotten.

Dopaminutiae.

Part One in a series of short pieces describing my perspective of ongoing research into my favorite neurochemical and its role in the physiology and pathology of addiction. Will there be a Part Two? I have no fucking idea.

Alcoholics, junkies, crackheads, pill poppers, tweakers. Stick 'em in a detox unit together and they'll soon realize they have something in common. They all smoke. But, apart from that, they share a common goal. It can be summed up in two words. Gimme more.

Nerves transmit information which is processed by particular areas of the brain to elicit a response. The information is transmitted as an action potential, a transient change in the resting voltage that exists across a nerve's cell membrane. When this wave of depolarization reaches the nerve ending, pockets of a chemical neurotransmitter are released into the space between that neuron and the next, the synapse.



The neurotransmitter interacts with receptor proteins on the outside of the post-synaptic neuron and the action potential is regenerated. Since persistent neural transmission is generally undesirable, the signal is rapidly terminated by re-uptake of the neurotransmitter by protein channels on the surface of the pre-synaptic nerve ending. Each neuron typically uses one particular neurotransmitter to relay information.
When we consider that this form of neurotransmission can be "filtered" by the impact of other neurons using different neurochemicals, known as neuromodulators, and the fact that each part of the brain uses different sets of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, we start to see the immense complexity of the brain.

Less than 1% of the brain's neurons use the neurotransmitter dopamine to communicate with other neurons. Yet this fairly simple chemical (its chemical structure is next to Foxy's head, above) plays a central role in behavior such as motivation, pleasure seeking, survival and learning. Disruption of dopamine levels underlies psychosis, schizophrenia, Parkinsons disease and addiction.
Part of the brain is responsible for sensing and processing information that is important for survival and preservation. Sensory information related to fundamental cues that are key to survival, such as food, sex and danger is relayed to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, from where it is sent to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) for processing. The response to this processing is either one of attraction (the smell of fresh baked bread, the sight of Jessica Alba/Brad Pitt in a swimsuit - take your pick) or repulsion (the sight and smell of Dick Cheney in a swimsuit). Since it was once thought that pleasant stimuli were the overriding motivators, the NAc used to be referred to as the brain's reward center. Now that its realized that fear signals equally impact the NAc, its function is more often referred to as a salience processor. In chemically dependent individuals, however, the VTA-NAc axis might best be referred to as the Gimme more center of the brain.

All drugs of addiction produce an increase in dopamine levels in the NAc. Some drugs have a direct effect on dopamine levels. Amphetamines increase release of dopamine from pre-synaptic nerve endings. Gimme more tweak. Cocaine decreases reuptake of dopamine by these nerve endings, causing an elevation in synaptic dopamine. Gimme more coke. Other drugs exert their primary action on other neurotransmitter systems, but ultimately impact dopamine levels. Gimme more booze, smokes, smack, vicodin, xanax, ex, weed. Just gimme more.
Normal environmental stimuli, like food and sex, elicit a satiety signal once enough has been experienced, mediated in part by another neurotransmitter, serotonin. However, although some drugs, like nicotine and heroin, may create a temporary feeling of satiety, most drugs, including alcohol, override this signal completely. Enough is never enough.
In response to the ever increasing supply of drug-induced dopamine in chronic addicts, the NAc starts to compensate by decreasing the number of post-synaptic dopamine receptors. This desensitization causes the need for even more drug to achieve the same effect as before and tolerance sets in. The addict becomes faced with two alternatives; continue the upward spiral of tolerance and craving or quit. Titrating off the drug is no longer an option. The former option almost inevitably results in death. Choosing the latter option slowly resets the balance between dopamine and serotonin in the brain and craving becomes less intense and less frequent.

But, why do most addicts relapse, often many years after gaining sobriety? Though there are many reasons, one of the strongest provocations for relapse is drug associated memory. A recovering drunk or crackhead puts him or herself at risk simply by walking into a bar or a crackhouse. Proximity of the previously used drug, even years after use, can trigger powerfully persuasive memories. Often the drug associated memories are more subtle; the clink of ice cubes in a glass tumbler for the recovering alcoholic or the early morning coffee for the ex-smoker.
Two recent scientific studies have shed some light on the nature of this phenomenon and point to possible avenues of clinical intervention.

In last week's issue of the journal Nature, the world's leading science publication (yours truly has a couple of papers published in it, LOL!), Liu et al studied the effect of repeated doses of cocaine on the VTA in mouse brains. Mice and rats are most often used in addiction physiology experiments because their brains are sufficiently similar to those of humans to allow extrapolation of the results to people, besides alcoholics and addicts are not the most reliable of subjects. Cocaine is most often used as the drug of addiction because it directly impacts dopamine-using neurons and rats and mice evidently like it.
The researchers found that repeated doses of cocaine induced a phenomenon called long term potentiation (LTP) in the VTA of mouse brains. LTP is a basic form of memory in which subtle long lasting changes in synaptic function can store information. They determined that the effect of cocaine was to block the impact of another neurotransmitter, GABA, on dopamine synapses. GABA is a so-called inhibitory neurotransmitter which tunes out many neuronal pathways. Its receptors are a major target of both alcohol and benzodiazepines like valium and librium, indeed the researchers found that valium inhibited cocaine-induced LTP. The results suggest that stimulation of GABA receptors in the VTA might be an effective way to reduce craving and drug associated memory in individuals addicted to cocaine and quite possibly many other drugs. Notably the anti-epileptic drug vigabatrin, which mimics GABA, is currently in clinical trials for coke addiction.

In a recent issue of the journal Neuron, the effect of cocaine on the retrieval of memories elicited by environmental cues in rodents was examined. The establishment and maintenance of drug associated memories by conditional stimuli is known as consolidation. The retrieval of these memories involves a reinforcement process termed reconsolidation which requires the activation of a pattern of genes within neurons. Miller and Marshall identified a signaling pathway inside the NAc which appears to mediate reconsolidation in response to an environmental cue. Such signaling pathways are chains of molecular events which transduce a message, in this case from dopamine, from outside a cell to the cell's nucleus where gene programs are activated to produce proteins. The particular pathway activated by dopamine is one very familiar to scientists working in the field of cancer research, since it is hyperactivated in many types of cancer. For this reason it has been the subject of intensive research and drugs have been developed to block the passage of information along the pathway. Using one such drug, the researchers showed that inhibiting the pathway markedly reduced stimulus-elicited reconsolidation. Although the drug used is probably too toxic for use in chemically dependent people, the results identify multiple potential targets for clinical intervention.

Taken together, the studies reaffirm that expanding our understanding of how drug associated memories are retrieved may lead to the development of specific drugs to reduce drug craving and the danger of relapse in recovering addicts.
Until then,
Gimme more espresso, gimme more smokes, gimme more diet red bull. Just fucking gimme more!

Then and now.

In one of my few memories from childhood I remember the parties my parents used to throw. We would be allowed to stay up to greet their guests, most of whom we knew well. There would be much laughter and a sense of anticipation of the party ahead. Dad was renowned for throwing the best parties. After the guests had arrived we'd go to bed and as I lay in bed the soothing sound of conversation and laughter percolating up from downstairs would soon send me to sleep, happy in the knowledge that I, too, would one day be able to join in the partying.
The next morning I would get up early and creep quietly down the stairs, the same ones i'd run up as fast as possible at night to avoid being jumped on by whatever it was that lurked in the shadows of the landing. I'd go straight to our large living room - we lived in a huge boarding house at the school where Dad was a teacher, and all the rooms were large, or so they seemed to me - and stand in the doorway. It would be quite dark, the curtains still drawn shut, and there would be many, many glasses of all description on the tables and floor, some empty, many half empty. Ashtrays filled to overflowing with extinguished cigarettes and cigars nestled between the glasses. The air would be musty and stale, at once both acrid and aromatic, with lingering traces of perfume. I'd walk carefully around the room, stopping to pick up glasses, sometimes taking a sip of their half empty contents. They all tasted quite disgusting but i knew that one day I'd discover the reason that adults so clearly enjoyed drinking these drinks.
Soon enough Mum would come down to clear up and, after drawing the curtains open, I'd help carry the glasses out to the kitchen for washing and i'd empty the ashtrays. I'd draw the curtains, rearrange the furniture while Mum vacuumed and the living room would be back to its usual self, clean and bright.

I woke up and tried to focus through the gray blur. I could see the hard, gray floor I was lying on and, by moving my eyes, the lighter gray wall opposite. I moved my head slightly up and down and saw, on one side, a toilet bowl in front of another gray wall and, on the other, black metal bars. It was hot, very hot, and the stench of urine filled the still air. I tried to sit up and winced as pain swept through most of my upper torso. Slowly I pulled myself into a sitting position and the pain started to ease until it was a dull soreness around my ribs and stomach. I pulled up my shirt and lokked for bruises. None. I figured I should stop feeling sorry for myself, it couldn't be that bad if there were no bruises.
I drifted in and out of half-sleep until I heard the lock being turned. I looked up and a cop was standing at the door pointing to his right. He didn't say anything, he just pointed. I slowly got to my feet and the pain returned. I stumbled towards the barred door and followed the direction of his finger. I didn't expect him to help, didn't want him to, and he didn't. At the main desk the duty sergeant pointed to the door. I walked out. The sun was bright, blinding. When i was able to see again I inched down to the steps and started the long walk home.
As I walked up Broadway I tried to piece together the strands of memory of the previous day and night. I had been at an afternoon lab party, that much i remembered. Playing with the kids, talking, laughing and drinking, and drinking. After I got home I must have hit the gin pretty hard. i remembered standing outside B.'s door yelling at him to come out drinking with me. He'd tried to calm me down, that much i remembered, but must have given up after a while. The cops arrived and bundled me into the cop car. One of our neighbors must have called them. I would find out who it was and go and thank them. The cell was full when they threw me in. Any cash and cigarettes I'd had were soon gone. My cellmates scared the hell out of me, drunk as i was, and i needed out. I vaguely remembered banging on the bars, shouting for them to let me out. Their warnings to shut the fuck up went unheeded - what did they expect?
I bummed a cigarette off a homeless guy and for the first time noticed the dried blood on my hands. As i walked past the medical center i started to question whether it was indeed the Nashville Police Department that were responsible for the pain still emanating from my upper body. I decided to let it go. Better them than my cellmates.
Eventually I got home. I walked into my apartment, the carpet was strewn with broken glass - so that's where the blood came from. I headed for the fridge and opened it. Beer. Thank God. I grabbed a six pack, headed for the couch and switched on the TV. I was going to have to go out for gin and cigarettes but it could wait. For a while.

"This is a life-changing event for you!" insisted M. from behind her reception desk. I was skeptical and more focussed on what lay behind the closed doors of the detox unit to my right. S. and I said our farewells and I walked in. Less than three hours later, sitting in my room, it started to rain. It doesn't rain in San Diego in September. I found it hard not to wonder whether this was an omen of some sort. Washing away a dusty film of false protection or just a sign of the approaching storm? Sure enough, that night the thunderstorm arrived. We don't get thunderstorms in September. Another portent? Or just confirmation that we've fucked up our atmosphere beyond saving. Probably.
Though my old friend was, of course, not allowed to be there with me, my new, transient, chemical friend helped me through the next four days. I was introduced to "groups", sharing and, of course, The Big Book. We've yet to become friends, and maybe never will, but at least I no longer demonize it. My fellow in-patients and i killed the time exchanging our stories, our secrets, deceits and hiding places. For the first time, whether it was booze, crack, H or vicodin, i realized the undeniable, unbreakable bond we shared, whether we liked it or not.
One morning we were sitting outside in the designated smoking area, smoking, when three elderly folk walked by. They were clearly lost, pointing this way and that, no doubt trying to find a particular building or unit within the huge hospital complex. One of them started to walk towards us, apparently to ask for directions. Before reaching us one of the ladies shouted after him, "Don't asked them, they probably don't even know where they are!" We cracked up. She was right.

And now? Well, now is really just exactly what its all about. When i was drinking the past offered little consolation and less to learn from. Yet i insisted to myself that my blurred, hazy memories of what had gone would serve to guide me through the future, to change its inevitable course. For more than twenty years i labored under this delusion. Characteristic of the alcoholic #27; we do the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results. So now the past is past, like a mountain stream its still there but its not the same, and though i can guess where its going, i can neither predict its course nor change it. So its down to "now". AA and Leah have written about this recently - it ain't easy but i'm gettin there. And though I won't dwell on it, i'll occasionally look back, not in anger, just look back at the times spent with my estranged friend. Just now and then.

Opportunity.

I had written a post last week entitled "The End". I couldn't resist the irony of using a song written by an alcoholic who drowned in a bathtub to describe an alcoholic's surrender to detox. It started something like this ......

"This is the end,
Beautiful friend."
J. Morrison.

A beautiful friend who ......
stood by me for more years than I can remember and helped me forget them,
lifted me up when I was down and let me down when I was in need,
embraced me as an lover and embarrassed me as a fool,
disclosed secrets to strangers and hid them from those I love,
made me powerful, invicible, all knowing and weak willed, pleading, lost,
made me lie to myself and made me lie by myself,
encouraged my desires and disabled my ability to achieve them,
boosted my Ego and destroyed my Self,

and so on.

But now, upon more sober reflection and in the light of the support of those close to me, the experience of those who have been through this and the wisdom and support of Penny and other blogger friends, I prefer to consider my current situation as an opportunity, a possibility, there to be seized.

"The sea's the possibility
There is no land but the land
There is no sea but the sea
There is no keeper but the key
Except for one who seizes possibilities, one who seizes possibilities"
P. Smith.

or, in another poet's words,

"You only get one shot, do not miss this chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo
..... Success is my only motherfuckin' option, failure's not"
M. Mathers.

Maybe I'm overblowing it a lil, but how many chances do you get?

As he pondered his future, waiting, anticipating in unfamiliar detox
Realizations dawned, futures unfurled, somewhere in the mind of fox
A change in course from failures to triumph, remember the Red Sox?
Or more of the same, one big step closer to a cold and lonely pine box
Woefully inept poet.

So, what's it gonna be, fucker?

Get Pissed, Destroy!

We were hanging out in Victoria Square, outside our sleepy town's only record store, conveniently located next door to Blewetts, where the best pasties in town were sold. I ate one of our county's famous delicacies with one hand, the other clutching my latest purchase, Generation X's debut single, "Your Generation"/"Day by Day". Though I was eager to get home and listen to it, we first needed to decide on what to do later that evening, it being Friday. Dibs scoured the West Briton for signs of nightlife, rarely spotted in our quiet backwater.
"The Garden, Penzance. Friday night, Mystery Band. You don't think it could be...." he wondered aloud.
The Garden was a smallish club, the only respectable venue for rock bands in our languid county. We'd been there many a time to see mid-level british rock bands, the likes of Hawkwind and Be Bop Deluxe. But now our ears and hearts were tuned to a new sound, one of vitality and energy that we hadn't experienced before, but which we could immediately relate to and feel part of.
"Nah. Why would they play down here?"
"They'll play anywhere. We should at least check it out."

In early 1977, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols used the word "fuck" in an interview on national TV. Instant infamy. Just as they attracted fanatical followers, they attracted many who wished them and their fans more than a little harm. As much as they revelled in the hatred levelled against them, after getting the shit kicked out of them after every gig, the Pistols decided to start playing anonymously. We had to check it out, of course we did.

We rolled into the cozy fishing port of Penzance in the late afternoon. The doors to the Garden were still closed. After a brief stroll down the promenade to take in some sea air, we claimed a table in the pub next door. As time passed the pub started to fill with people around our age, with the same expressions of anticipation and subdued excitement. Eventually the Garden doors opened and we got tickets. But still no confirmation as to who was playing. As we walked back to the pub (if they were playing that night they'd most surely come to the pub first), it was apparent that the local cops were patrolling in unusual numbers. An excellent sign.
More time passed, more pints were consumed and pernods were added to the rounds. By about 9.30 we were getting not only well pissed, but also somewhat concerned that no one was showing up. It was my round and I forged my way to the bar, now quite filled with expectant drinkers. As I tried to catch the barman's attention, I noticed the volume level drop somewhat around me. I got his attention and was about to order when, in my left ear, came an already unmistakable voice. A nasal, sneering half-whine that suggested both malice and derision.
"Four pints of bitter." Lingering on the "s" as if "four" needed more explanation.
I turned my head slightly. John Rotten looked back with his head cocked.
"We're thirsssty." He sneered.
"Sure, sure. Go ahead." I mumbled.
"Thanks."
"He said thanks, he said thanks!" I thought to myself giddily.
The Pistols established themselves at the bar and started drinking several pints in quick succession. About a half hour before closing time they headed out. We and the rest of the pub followed.

Within no time they were on stage, ripping through songs we knew, "Anarchy", "God Save the Queen" and "Pretty Vacant", and songs we were hearing for the first time, "Holidays in the Sun", "EMI", "Liar", "Submarine". We were in the midst of a seething, surging, sweating mass of energized bodies. The energy level in the small club was unmatched by anything we'd experienced before and wouldn't even quite be equalled by the even more kinetic Clash a few weeks later.
Afterwards, while my friends headed to the bar, abuzz with the electricity of the show and the pernod, I ventured backstage. After asking Rotten, sitting, slouched and soaked with as much sweat as me, about the upcoming album - he was polite, friendly but clearly not too interested in chit-chat - I asked Sid if he fancied a beer.
"Sure."

We sat at the bar, had a couple of beers and chatted about stuff - the album, the ex-record labels they hated so much, Sweden (they'd just toured there - "fucking boring, fucking cold too"), football - regular pub talk really. Finally we were kicked out as the club closed. Though not before Sid scrawled his name on the sleeve of my denim jacket.

While we staggered toward the car, though I was clearly the most drunk of the six of us, I fished out the keys from my pocket. Still buzzing from the show, meeting Sid and several pints and pernods, I took off, completely ignoring the mini-roundabout outside the club, instead driving right across it. We sped down the road running parallel to the promenade and seafront, talking excitedly about the show. At the end of the promenade the road gently curved right, towards the quay where, as a child, I had so often boarded the Scillonian for our annual family summer trip to the Scilly Isles. As the road curved, the car continued on its linear path, ending with an inevitable, yet surprisingly quiet crunch as it hit the wall lining the pavement.
Within seconds, it seemed, we were surrounded by three police cars. They had been expecting trouble and had finally found it. We staggered out of the car aided by the cops, actually a pretty friendly bunch, no doubt happy that something had finally happened. No one was hurt, though Dibs would complain for days afterwards that his thumb had been bent and hurt like hell. Frankly, the little fucker deserved it. Though there was no damage to life or limb, my dad's Datsun was completely totalled. This was not good - he really liked his Datsun.

Weeks later a friend of my parents, a locally respected lawyer, would stand before a judge pronouncing me a fine student, planning to go to a well respected college at Cambridge who didn't know that pernod was a strong drink. Naturally I received the maximum possible fine and suspension.

A few years later I would be sitting in the bar of that same respected college when a friend would walk in carrying a newspaper,
"Well your old buddy's really fucked up this time" (I'd played the story up a bit).
Throwing down the copy of the Sun on the bar, I read;
"SID KILLS NANCY!"
Yeah, he'd fucked up real good this time. Though I'd spent barely twenty minutes drinking with Sid Vicious, I'd grown to resent the media's treatment of him, first demonizing, then ridiculing. Something like this was, at least in hindsight, inevitable.
A few days later, just as inevitably, he too would be dead.

The day after wrecking my dad's car I decided it would be diplomatic not to drink.
To the best of my recollection, that day in 1977 was the last that I went without a drink.
The last day until tomorrow.

I'll be back.
Soon. I hope.

Fox Force Five! (continued!)

As you may recall, the Fox Force Five! are looking for clues as to the whereabouts of a missing super-secret stealth bomber and its pilot, Lt. Col. Brock Towers. The trail of clues has led them to the world renowned Getty Center in the L.A. hills. Team leader Lark is scouring ancient korean documents in the South Pavillion, in the hope of coming up with a clue. japanese martial arts expert Suzume, frustrated by everyone's mistaking her nationality, is keeping a low profile in the azalea garden, while Michelle, the french bombshell, is having cautious sex with a docent in the cactus garden. Meanwhile Raven and Robin are sitting in the central courtyard, reflecting on what they've seen so far over iced lattes .......




"Sure, he's a great painter, you just have to look at the nuances of the apostles' expressions to see that, I'm just saying it's all so freakin dark. I mean, didn't they have windows back in seventeenth century Holland? How about some candles?" asks Robin of the exhibit of Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits.
"What do you expect? He painted his girlfriend as the Virgin of Sorrows - how happy could the guy be? Besides, these paintings were pretty revolutionary in the way they portrayed the apostles as real, vulnerable people. You can only knock down walls one at a time." countered Raven "But maybe it would be a good idea to go look at some lighter stuff."
"SHOW ME THE MONET!" yells Robin.
The two of them burst into laughter.
Their reverie is interrupted by the shrill ring of Raven's phone. She fishes it out her pocket.
"Hello ....... Okay, we'll be right there." she looks to the South Pavillion, "Lark thinks she's found a clue, lets go."

Lark is closely examining a very large, beautifully engraved book, clearly of great antiquity and value judging by the broken glass and comatose guards on the floor around her. Suzume is already there, clearly irritated that Lark had taken out the guards before she got there.
"What've you got Lark?" asks Raven.
"Where's Michelle?" asks Robin.
"Something that shouldn't be here....... She said she'll be coming in a few minutes." replies Lark to them both.
Raven, Robin and Suzume roll their eyes.
"Look here", Lark points at a section of faded parchment. "If my memory of ancient korean dialect serves me right, this is a reference to the hunting of the great black hawk by the ancestral followers of Tangun. Do you agree Suzu?"
"Japanese, you fucking bitch," Suzume mutters under her breath.
"What's that Suzu?" asks Lark, engrossed in the manuscript.
"I wouldn't know, Lark hun, I'm Japanese, remember." she chirps merrily.
"Oh yes, sorry Suz - you know how it is." responds Lark with a wave of the hand.
"Sure, I'll know how it is when I kill all four of you bitches. We'll see who can remember who's japanese, chinese and korean then!" Suzume thinks to herself and grins.
"And thai?" thinks Robin.
"Fuck!"

"So what's out of place, Lark?" asks Raven.
"Well, it's this," says Lark, turning a huge, fragile parchment page gingerly.



"Wow, that IS out of place," exclaims Michelle as she walks in, tucking her blouse into her jeans.
"Yes, but there's something even more out of place" exclaims Lark with urgency, "I need to get to the library!"
"What is it?" asks Raven.
"It's a large building with books in it. But that's not important right now," replies Lark, hurrying out of the door.

As the five make their way across the courtyard towards the Getty's impressive research library, Raven spots something unmistakeable in the reflection of the window opposite - the reflection of of a sniper's telescopic sight! Or someone wearing sunglasses. She spins, in one fluid movement reaching to her boot to retrieve the knife and flinging it upward in a perfect spiral. A body falls from the roof, a rifle crashing beside it. The Five! gather around the fallen sniper, knowing they have little time before having to call in some favors. Reaching into the dead man's jacket, Robin pulls out an ID card. "Ngoyen Van Luc; Vietnamese Department of Virus Control, Special Attache to the Centers for Disease Control".
"The guy's a virologist - why'd he be shooting at us?" she asks, bewildered.
"And why are the vietnamese involved now?" asks Suzume, fearing yet another misunderstood asian nationality trait.

From behind them a commanding voice exclaims,
"I might have guessed the Fox Force Five! wouldn't be able to go to a museum without killing someone!"
The Five! whirl on their heels, unaccustommed to being referred to by their supposedly covert group name.
"And who may you b..." starts Lark, instantly recognizing the face of the person standing before her.


Guest Starring Vincent Vega as Special Agent Cliff Powers

"The face you clearly recognize is that of my identical twin, Lieutenal Colonel Brock Towers." says the tall, dashing man standing before them. He holds in front of him an ID card; "Special Agent Cliff Powers. FBI, MI5: Super High Level Clearance."
"Wow! FBI and MI5," exclaims Raven, clearly impressed.
"My mother was british," explains Special Agent Powers.
"But I saw no mention of a brother in Lieutenant Colonel Towers' dossier, and it was pretty detailed." recalls Lark, once again calling on her photographic memory.
"Well up until just recently I didn't know I had a twin brother ....."

Cliff Powers goes on to tell the Five! the story of the two twin brothers. Their parents had both been deeply engaged in espionage at the height of the cold war, Rock at the CIA and Rosie at MI6. They had made many enemies between them, not only in the Soviet block, but all around the world, even in their own home countries. Each of them had made decisions that no person should ever have to make, often resulting in the death of not only their adversaries, but also their colleagues. But when Rosie Flowers discovered she was pregnant and, later, that she was expecting twins, they faced the hardest decision they would ever have to face. They decided that, since both they and their children would be at risk of assassination for the rest of their lives, they would separate, never to see each other again, each assuming new identities and each taking one of the twins. Rock took Brock and Rosie took Cliff. No one, including the twins, was to know of this.
In 1981 Rock was tracked down and killed with a botulinus toxin-tipped umbrella by a vengeful bulgarian widow. Perhaps because she had children herself, she spared Brock, who rapidly rose through the US Air Force's ranks. Rosie had covered her tracks well and eluded assassination by enemy counterparts. only to be defeated by her own genes and habits. She had succumbed to lung cancer just six months ago. But before dying she revealed the whole truth to her beloved son Cliff. Eventually Cliff had uncovered the identity of his twin, only to find that he was missing in action during a routine training flight over North Korea.

Engrossed in the Special Agent's story, the Five! temporarily forget about the dead vietnamese virologist with a knife sticking out of his chest at their feet. As Cliff starts to relate his own meteoric rise to Super High Level Clearance in the FBI and MI5 he is interrupted.
"Do any of you know anything about the dead guy with a knife sticking out of his chest here?" asks a California Highway Patrolman.
"Oh my god! Look Raven, there's a corpse right at our feet!" exclaims Robin.
"Oh my god, oh my god!" replies Raven.
"Okay folks, move it along, this is a murder scene." orders the CHP officer.
As the Five! and Cliff walk away, Michelle uses her experience, and the knowledge that she's not wearing a bra, to divert the attention of every cop at the scene, while Raven reaches down to retrieve her favorite knife from the virologist's chest.

As they walk away Luc breathes a relieved, if very painful, sigh of relief.

Within minutes the Five! are headed south on the 405 in the Big Mutha Foxmobile, their customized SUV. Lark is at the wheel with Raven beside her. Suzume and Robin are seated behind them and Cliff and Michelle are in the back.
"Where are we going Lark?" asks Raven.
"South, we're headed South." replies Lark mysteriously.
"Wouldn't be the first time," chimes Robin.
"Hey, where's Michelle?" asks Lark looking in the rearview mirror.
"Umm I think she uhh dropped something on the floor," replies Cliff distractedly.
"MICHELLE!" yells Lark.
Michelle's head suddenly bobs up from behind the back seat, a startled expression on her face.
"You know the rules!" continues Lark, anger in her voice. "No intimacy with team members!"
"I'm sorry Lark, I forgot for a moment," replies Michelle apologetically.
"Actually I'm not technically a member of the ......" Cliff starts timidly before being cut off by the harsh glare from the rearview mirror.

To break the ensuing uncomfortable silence Robin makes a suggestion;
"How about one of your jokes Rave?"
"Yeah, lets hear a joke, Rave," chime in the rest of the Five!
"Okay. So three tomatoes are walking down the street- a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him... and says, Catch up."

To break the ensuing uncomfortable silence Robin makes a suggestion;
"How about some music, Rave?"
"Yeah, lets hear some music, Rave," chime in the rest of the Five! and Cliff.

Raven flips on the music. Soon the Five! are singing along, as they usually do when listening to the Bangles covering a song by one of their favorite girl bands. This time its Sleater-Kinney's "The Fox".

"Shiny pretty fox" thought the duck,
The duck came up on to the land
The fox saw her and he just laughed ....

"Great song," remarks Cliff as the music fades out. "Reminds me of a guy I used to work with in the FBI some years ago. Claimed his sister had been abducted by aliens. Good agent though. They retired him in the end to keep him quiet."
"What does he do now?" asks Suzume.
"Apparently he's getting his message out through the internet. He's got a blog under some pseudonym. Duke Of Me or something like that." replies Cliff.
"Good for him, everyone has to maintain their belief in something," comments Robin.

About a mile behind the Five! on I5 a sleek black limo with black tinted windows cruises in the same direction. Sunglasses in the passenger seat follows the red blip on the laptop in front of him.
"Looks like they're headed for San Diego," says sunglasses, turning to face the suit in the back seat.
"Just follow and keep distance," replies the suit in a calm, level, measured tone.
"I think I know where they're going," as he lights another cigarette.

Join us after the commercial break, when the trail of clues lead the Five! to the San Diego Zoo, where Suzume takes on a pair of ninja pandas and Michelle takes on a bunch of horny meerkats.

FOX Breaking News.

"We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you this FOX exclusive news story. FOX News has learned that a group of liberal anti-americans has issued a request to the government of Venezuela to assassinate the Reverend Pat Robertson.
We go live to our political correspondent in Washington, Dick Risingtall.

"Yes, indeed, Brat, I have in my hands a copy of the written request sent to the Venezuelan President by this coalition of liberal subversives. If I hold it up to the camera you can see it reads as follows:

"We the people who have sined underneath, formerly request that the government of Venezwailer take out Pat Robinson.
Sined,

"Now unfortunately, Brat, FOX News is currently not able to show the signatures or to release the names of those signing the document. However, I can say that there are some notable liberal politicians and namby pamby hollywood celebrities included in the list."

"Dick, has there been any word from the White House on this?"

"Yes, Brat. A spokesman for the White House has said that this threat to a highly respected US citizen will not go unanswered. Unofficially, Brat, its been known for some time that the President has been wanting to hit back at some of these jackasses, especially after seeing himself on film sitting in a children's classroom for several minutes."

"Well thanks, Dick. FOX News of course joins all americans in supporting the Reverend Robertson and condemning these evil, liberal anti-americans.

In other breaking news, at least one person is feared dead after a mysterious automobile incident on a bridge in New England.

We now return you regularly scheduled programming."