A snippet from my novel

Now some of the other things happening in the room were beginning to get clearer. The lights were coming from the walls and they were indeed a mixture of yellow, orange and lilac. He had thought this odd before in his dream-like state but now he understood that these walls were made entirely of crystal, and the crystal itself was glowing in a chaotic, transient flow of these colours and numerous mixtures thereof. 

Boon became transfixed by the walls, gazing around at them, trying to take in the whole scene at once, his mind becoming more and more incredulous. However before he had managed to comprehend the walls, he noticed also the people standing in the middle of the room. There were two women and three men and they too, were a sight to behold with awe, for they wore intricate painted make-up that covered almost all of their bodies, and their only clothing – bar tie-dyed loincloths - was in the form of dangly accoutrements around their necks – shells, feathers, beaded necklaces and other jewels and talismans that were made from things found in nature. They were parading around in a circle, making wild gestures up, down and all around them with their hands, and they seemed lost in a deep trance. The mumbling was now clearer but he could still not work out the words. Boon was sure they were from another language, perhaps some ancient dialect that was mostly forgotten in the books that had been burnt since the war. They looked for all the world like tribal shamans that he might have seen on a documentary about the old world. 

The next thing that Boon noticed took him completely by surprise, as it turned out that two of the men were Paul and Yosi. He could scarcely recognise them and had to squint in the strange light to be sure; he also turned to Jenna for reassurance. She had been studying his reaction and when he turned her way she merely smiled lightly, nodded and pointed towards the dancers. This seemed to coincide with the beginning of a drumming sound coming from a dark corner of the cave – “boom ba-da-ba-da-ba-da boom ba-da-ba-da-ba-da” thronged the rhythm. There also began a new movement in the dance, where all five of the participants turned their backs to a different part of the technicolour wall with their arms outstretched towards the middle. Their murmuring became louder and unified. They were chanting as one: “RAA-KOOR-GARN! RAA-KOOR-GARN!”

“Five dancers for the five elements,” whispered Jenna into Boon’s ear. He utterly failed to understand what she meant but did not question it.

Soon, coloured light from the walls began to beam gently into the dancers foreheads. As this happened, the dancers continued their swirling and manoeuvring, and the five sources of light mingled with the lifeforce energy of the five dancers. As the intensity of the light increased about the aura of each of them, it began lightly to beam from their heart chakras into the middle of the circle. As the beams met, the light took on form – more and more complex shapes arose and the etheric swirls of colour became more solidified – one could see people, buildings, spaceships – and all the time the three dimensional picture was becoming more clear. The only thing Boon had ever seen like it was those 3D holographic adverts you get in the street. It was exactly as if the cave was showing a film, using the dancers as projectors.

Agape with wonder, Boon stared pointedly at the image in the centre of the circle. Firstly it showed a space satellite, tumbling over itself slowly. The view of the image moved around so as to show its position, in orbit around what Boon thought to be the moon. Next there were people in a remote village – in India, maybe – loading brown sacks onto a truck. Next, a newborn baby being injected with some fluid in a needle. Some men in a plush office high up in a skyscraper. The view showed the men’s view out of their window, over a huge city that Boon did not recognise. It showed also their faces which were gnarled, angry and very intelligent. Then there was a moving image of an ordinary street scene – all sorts of people milling around at their business, cars on the roads and in the air, except suddenly about half of the people dropped down to the floor as if dead. Their faces were full of anguish and screaming pain, yet whatever had caused this happened so quickly that there was not enough time for the screams to come out of their mouths. Cars crashed as their owners perished in this horror. Sirens and alarms wailed everywhere. Survivors filled the air with screaming panic and confusion. This last image stayed with Boon until the end of his days. He was horrified.

“They have asked the crystal cave a question,” whispered Jenna to him, quietly. “This is the answer. I do not like the look of it. I guess that you also do not. The members of the ritual will explain the meaning to us afterwards. They will understand the images as the cave does.”

Gradually the clarity of the pictures subsided, leaving the image of one poor woman’s face – who had just watched her husband suddenly perish – as the last picture to leave them. The beams of colour returned into the auras of the five dancers, and they then turned to face various parts of the cave wall before beaming the colour back at the crystal. This process took a few minutes; as it was going on, the drums slowly quietened down and the five dancers began to look visibly more relaxed. Finally, when all their bodies had stopped glowing, as one they got down on their knees and prostrated before the crystal walls in a gesture of humbleness and thanks.

The drums stopped. The ritual was over. No one spoke for a couple of moments, then all of a sudden, Paul rose from his bowed position and addressed Boon chirpily as if nothing was unusual.

“Shane, how are ye mate, good ter see yer oop an’about. This is ar mate, Anzir. ‘E’s a bit southern but e’s alright.”

The other man in the ritual rose just as quickly, walked over to where Boon was sitting and shook his hand warmly.

“Owright me’ol’mucka!” was his colloquial greeting.

Boon was silent, merely staring at Anzir with mouth wide open in suprise.

“Cat got yer tongue, eh? Oh,” Anzir began, hesitating as if trying to work out why Boon was silent, “Oh, that!” he concluded, gesturing with one hand behind him, vaguely in the direction of where the ritual had just taken place. “Freak you out a bi’eh? Daahn’t let it get ter yer. Looks like fackin’ mumbo jumbo ‘ippy shit, bu’ iss jus’like telly really, when you get used t’it, ‘cept it tells the truth, ha ha! You fancy a cappa tea?” 

Quote from my next book (3)

His office was in the spare room of his house, and of course there was no electronic kit. The layout of the office, equipment in it, and even the furniture, would not have looked out of place in the 19th century. Well, except for the tape player. The walls were lined with dark wood pannelling reminiscent of some stately home; there was an ornate picture rail below which hung mostly rennaissance paintings (though there were only two modern pieces: a large photo of Blackpool taken from offshore somewhere, just before the bombing), and another photo of the current President of Europe, Bearnard Cody, which he would throw darts at when he was feeling frustrated. He had filing cabinets (for storing the few things he really did need to write down) that were wooden, with old fashioned locks to which he kept the keys on his person at all times; a large oak desk with Gillow chairs, salvaged from some of the wreckage of the bombing, and an ornate standard lamp that ran on paraffin.
All in all he had a plush office that, in times gone by, would have been favoured by the elite class that he now sought to destroy. He was pleased with the irony of this. Queen Victoria had once sat in the chair he now slouched on. She would meet with the judges and the lawyers in Lancaster castle and help preside over cases, and help direct the future of the law in England. Her legacy was to bring England struggling from the Industrial Revolution into the beginnings of the information age that had now gone so wrong. Could she have envisaged this world, Boon wondered? She reigned during the time when the telephone was invented; now there was instant video and voice communication all over the planet. She ruled over the British Empire that. despite its faults, brought so much prosperity to the third world. Now, Britain was no more, there were only five countries, that same spirit of imperialism brought war and suffering all around the globe and Boon longed for a more localised world. Victoria's age invented the car, and aeroplanes were the stuff of science fiction. Now even the poorest had cars and the richest had cars that could fly; 12 hours was all it took to get to the other side of the world. Coal and oil production begun to really take off under her leadership, bringing an unimaginable energy revolution. Now there was nuclear fusion energy that was millions of times more powerful. The Victorians started the process of running censuses and monitoring the population, but they knew almost nothing about the lower classes. Now, governments could know anything about any of their citizens in an instant, including their genetic code and hiding from this was almost impossible.
Did she know where all this was heading? Did Queen Vic look out over her realm and wish she knew every tiny detail about her people? Did she want the Empire to just grow, and grow, and grow? Did she wish she could talk to anyone in the world in an instant?
Of course she did. The elite ruled the world from way back before her day. She was just the latest in a long line of rulers of England who joined the ranks of the elite. For centuries the world had been controlled by small groups of very powerful people, having secret meetings in very plush houses. "The only difference now", thought Boon aloud, "is that they have nothing to hide any more. All the cards are on the table. We citizens are actively 'subjects'. We do what they want and they watch us to make sure we are doing it. That's not a secret anymore. It's very difficult to hide. every time you go outdoors, log on, get on the telephone, use any kind of machinery, they are watching, and they're ready to dock you a week's pay if you do something minor and have you shot if you do something major. And in the meantime the wars rage on all around the globe and the only winners will be the elite themselves, from all the five sides, who have probably planned the whole thing together secretly since the war."
This was the mantra of the Freedom Party, and not the first time Boon had spoken it aloud to himself, but in light of his recent experience the words seemed more real to him. He felt a release from the harrowing tribulations of earth-bound life that he could not possibly have imagined before, the notion that he had the power to depart from his body. The perpetual sadness that had gripped him since the bombing, that relentless feeling of powerlessness and resignedness to a dreadful fate, had lifted a little. He was feeling positive, he could see his work really going somewhere, and for the first time in years, he really had the notion that his work might make a dent in the elite and bring a little more freedom for the ordinary people. This made him smile, and he pressed play on the stereo to be met by a wall of sound: hypnotic techno beats that sped up his mind and reinforced his rebellious, cunning nature.