GUIOPERA
Welcome to the GUIOPERA (an Opera on a Graphical User Interface - Web browser), a MobileAdApps presentation by afamasaga.net, which tells the untold story of the etfiction cast of characters, in between eBooks, print versions, and other diversions.

Each scene of this opera is told in a chapter of an eBook. The GUIOPERA begins in July 2008.

The Inaugural GUIOPERA – A Pantomime, a Play and its Players

CHAPTERS: OPENING | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | The BATTLE | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | X-MAS

GUIOPERA I (The Inaugural GUIOPERA)

Synopsis:
First we met John Lazoo, the illiterate but magnetic figure whose idea for a stage play became the modus operandi for the Tongue Murders, for which he was charged and tried, and then mysteriously able to walk away from. The love of a woman was enough to take center-stage in John Lazoo the book, thus introducing Genisis Jones, a worthy adversary by plot, but also the valued prize whom Lazoo eventually wins. In book II, WIPE, Polina Rada supersedes the potential global phenomenon of a video game with her wish to be part of a family. Afamasaga the narrator, Lazoo the poet, Metofeaz the writer, and Jon Le Mac the producer, otherwise known as LMLA-ink (for Lazoo, Metofeaz, Le Mac and Afamasaga), come close enough to telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the GUIOPERA.

GUIOPERA I Character Profiles

etfiction Concepts: Timeline

1920: Jon Pierre Solomon is born somewhere near Antarctica.

1926: Rozelle Zofen is born in Vienna, where she is raised by her mother; her father is unknown.

1938: Rozelle’s mother dies, leaving 11-year-old Rozelle to find her way in life.

1938: Jon Pierre is forced to flee the Pacific. While a stowaway on ship bound for Europe, he meets an entity who advises about the Book of Seeds.

1940: John Poet Soldier, a name Jon Pierre is given, writes ‘Illicit Blade of Grass’.

1956: Janine Elton is born in a New York City orphanage.

1965: Jon Pierre finds baby Metofeaz Litigatti on the streets of Venice.

1970: James Elton is born in a New York City home for unwed mothers.

1970: Young Afamasaga meets John Poet Soldier and War Veteran at his second-hand bookstore on his way to school one day.

1972: Genisis Jones is born in upstate New York.

1972: Afamasaga and Le Mac steal the POEMBOOK.

1984: Afamasaga and Le Mac meet a DJ in Peter Jackson Town.

1989: Polina Rada is born in the USSR.

1990: Afamasaga, Le Mac, and Metofeaz meet for the first time in France.

1991: Lazoo arrives in NYC; Metofeaz is homeless.

1996: Afamasaga and Le Mac arrive in NYC and form LMLA-ink.

1996: Genisis and John meet for the first time.

1997: Tongue murders take place.

2003: Alfario writes Chapter Zero of John Lazoo.

2006: Afamasaga begins to spin the stories.

2007: Three books and the POEMBOOK are published as free eBooks on the Internet.

CHAPTERS: OPENING | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | The BATTLE | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | X-MAS

GUIOPERA I Pilot Scene:

Imagine this …

Polina Rada leads a procession up the path, the same path Jon Pierre Solomon walked about the time of World War II. Afamasaga and John Lazoo flank Mademoiselle Rada, close in behind them come Metofeaz and John Page, who holds the hand of his wife, Santina San Fe. The two former players share a fleeting joke in the passing moment.

Metofeaz mutters, “I can’t see the countryside from the head that is in front of me.”

John Page smirks famously and replies candidly, “You ought to then feel for those behind you, Feeaz.”

In two days the house that Rozelle built will go under the hammer. The boss of LMLA-ink has called a family meeting. Polina and company see the house after Lazoo pushes back the old wooden gate on its rusty hinges.

On the balcony overlooking the Thinking Creature and his steadfast friends, who watch the water atop the terraces, Le Mac stands behind his rig of turntables. Below and in front of him a group of musicians, 27 of them with woodwinds, horns, and an Angelic figure who plucks the strings of the upright harp as the flute player’s head weaves while negotiating a triplet trill he aptly adds to the tails of a crescendo from a quintet of strings, which are held in under chins or standing still. And in front of them a lone figure holds her microphone ever so close to herself. The boys, who are now the men of LMLA-ink, including John Page, are all suited in black with cowboy boots. Accompanying them for this monumental and revealing event in black dresses are Genisis, Santina, Arley, and her daughter. Ms Rada, on the eve of her ninth birthday, is in her black dress, too.

As they walk towards the house, the Maestro warms to his role as master of ceremonies for the next three days, during which a documentary is made and a Pantomime played in honor of the birthday girl, who now smiles and asks, “John Lazoo, are you the Voice?”

Lazoo begins to recall his mother’s stories, and therefore may, if required, recant for his captive audience, an enclave of thinking. This special group breathes, and therefore it believes his every word from theirs and his beloved books. He says, Rozelle’s 'Besame Mucho’ haunts, as a presence sulks and then it saunters when it is asked to leave the surreal surroundings. The Poet Soldier lies upon the ground moments before he is to take the stage. The singer’s slender neck bends like the notes of her haunting lyric, her lips are rounded and a cleft for the theft, so his hand has to touch his chest to see if his heart is still there. Her blue eyes shine grey, the flute player’s mesmerizing movement takes the intimate and close crowd away as Ms Zofen’s sultry and well rounded voice collects from the afternoon’s atmosphere an ensemble of emotion and lonely longing love. Someone laughs with audacity at anyone who claims they have some.”

Lazoo sees and therefore he says. His mother’s recollection was pure, even for someone in a platonic relationship with the man who wooed women as he willed the gods to look down on him with pity. Occasionally they’d smile him onto the next escapade. The Poet Soldier enjoyed a blissful existence afforded by ignorance, his ride on the steam train today indicative of his fortune. The little pleasures he finds are his escaping fantasies. They seem harmless to a lady who, when away from the carriage she rides today, is a mother, or at least a leader in society. The way her dress is hitched is matter-less. Her back is wet, as if it were well-connected to a mattress. Her lust is equal to his as they rush together through the long tunnel that darkens the event, which is something to lessen the boredom for JPS, his willing partner, who is someone he stumbled into in the dining car of the steaming engine that now blows its whistle to let off all of its steam. As his hands clasp for her and her hands for him, they puff spores of hotness over each other as she recollects respect and he is bearing up through the sweating he now blinks to see through, and beyond.

Meanwhile their luggage is being transported to their rooms by many hands. Metofeaz has already changed into costume, that of a soldier’s uniform, during the hot summer. He throws his muscular shoulders forward, “one, two,” one after the other. The camera crew and the lighting guys discuss the findings on the meter that is held out in a fingerless-gloved hand. Afamasaga nods at Lazoo who has a question. The leader understands as he puts away the papers given to him only the day before. They’re the results of a DNA test, showing the probability of the DNA donor’s chances of being the father of the person now walking towards him, whose name some time ago was James Elton. The Pacific Islander smiles first, then holds his arm out to guide the MC as he seeks clarification of a question of fact to the side. Their conversation is therefore held in a shadow, the one right there. He sees it and now steps into it.

The woman we now know as Rozelle holds Polina’s head in her palm. The heiress looks down at Genisis and Arley and her daughter, who speak to each other standing in front of the giant, orange Thinking Creature. The American woman runs her hand down the former Russian orphan’s dark, thick, silk strands. Something about the little girl’s past, held inside her, draws the older girl to the younger.

Ms Rada lets out her thought, “I think that Arley and Afamasaga would make a good couple.”

The tourist straightens the strap of her sequined gown and then notices Le Mac, who instructs the props crew about the Thinking Creature’s color, “HTML Code is hash ff6600, PANTONE. I don’t know.”

John Page sits down fast on the king-size bed to test its torque. The thing really on his mind comes out of his mouth as the antique bed fights back. Santina has her hair above her head, checking its effect in the mirror in which she acknowledges her husband’s thought. “Yes they are normal people, and good for Polina to be around, dear.”

John Page smiles as he nears her and wraps his arms around her so she can see his fingers meshed on her tummy, his wedding band shining and his face lost in her neck and her hair now dropping to cover the kissing sounds that moisten and cause her to shut her eyes.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 1:

The next morning the place is abuzz with activity. Polina’s questions can be heard above everything else, “Genisis, were you in a U2 video?"

Genisis laughs as she makes her way down the staircase. “Yes, I actually won my role in a radio competition when I was fifteen.”

Polina has one eye on her idol in front of her, a blonde woman relaxing in stone-washed denim and Nikes by Le Mac. Polina’s other eye is on her hand, which has a huge rock on it and is resting on the banister. The props person’s voice becomes audible. “A Tiffany rock worth more than all your miserable lives has run astray!”

Genisis looks over her shoulder at her new shadow and smiles. At the bottom of the steps Lazoo and Afamasaga discuss stuff.

The table in the ballroom is set for breakfast. Arley and her daughter, who rarely speaks and hangs close to her mother at all times, are seated. So are John Page and Santina. Metofeaz and the Tourist can be heard arguing, their voices seemingly coming from the balcony.

Genisis and Polina enter into the ballroom. Genisis grabs Polina’s hand, and the little girl’s energy causes them to swing their arms as they walk. The props person has caught up with the little thief who has the diamond ring. Polina shows the teenager, who looks to be from LA, her other hand. “See? Nothing. Nada. Like Polina Rada; you have nothing on me, ah?” The little miss’s delivery alone grabs everyone’s attention.

John Page reaches for a glass of water.

Genisis and Polina are standing in the middle of the room. The props person examines the girl’s bare hand. Afamasaga and Lazoo stand in the doorway, attracting Polina’s awareness. Genisis conceals her smile, which seems to be contagious, as one begins to break out on Polina’s face. Genisis takes Polina’s hand. She holds and cradles it in two hands, the whereabouts of the diamond now unknown.

Polina begins to laugh, “If there were such an ornament on my persons, it would clearly be far, far too hard for me to hide, but if I had a beautiful assistant who could conceal an item of such splendor, then there could only be one person in this world worthy of such an introduction, da, da!” Polina points to Genisis with her free and bare hand.

Genisis holds her other hand. The older girl now curtsies and bows her head. With her head bowed and in an almost perfect Cockney accent, she begins, “Sometime today a little hand was handed to me. Since then, and having held this delicate hand so tight, it grew an object of great value. I was wondering, Miss, does the object you seek resemble this-here diamond ring which has grown on Miss Rada’s right hand?”

Meanwhile, laughter can be heard from the balcony, where Metofeaz and the Tourist have stopped their counterpunching for a second as the volume increases. Metofeaz now turns and walks toward the sound of laughter and chatter. The Tourist decides to follow.

At the head of the table the PACIFICAN sits alone. To his right, John Lazoo and Genisis and to his left Polina Rada, John Page, and Santina San Fe. Metofeaz and the Tourist now enter the room, followed by Jon Le Mac. They sit across from each other. Metofeaz is next to Arley. Arley’s daughter asks Genisis, who sits next to her, a question which Polina wants know about.

The breakfast lasts and goes well into the afternoon. Stories from Lazoo, stories from Polina, and tales by the Tourist keep the affair light and yet interesting. A butterfly on its way to new life would have excited itself from the conundrum and passed wind, all of which the boss feels proud of having dreamt up, created and therefore he owned. He excuses himself to take a call from overseas. He is at pains to leave Lazoo, Polina and company - this we can see by his pause after excusing himself and his obvious dread of having to leave the table.

The phone call is from somewhere in the US. Hariss Clariss, on a witness-protection program designed by LMLA-ink, is ready to be handed over to a designated bounty hunter who will pass him on to the FBI for a handsome reward at about the time the documentary being filmed is released.

“I’ve told you not to call me by that name, already,” Afamasaga reminds the financier, repeating his new name, “A-F-A-M-A-S-A-G-A. The G is as in a song, ah? And this is no holiday. We needed to get the story right. JPS was here and this is where it all started. I wanted to bring you, but it was too risky, mate.”

Lazoo enters the room and the boss puts his hand over the mouthpiece of the heavy antique phone. He hands the receiver to Lazoo. The voice coming from the ivory-colored piece is distinct and makes the MC shiver as he reluctantly takes it. “… and I think I deserve to at least get to talk to John,” the voice demands. “I am paying for this shenanigans of yours.”

Lazoo rolls his eyes and interrupts Clariss. “It’s a pantomime and it will increase the value of the whole package. By the time you get out it’ll be worth ten times your real-estate portfolio. You have 12 freaking percent of this.”

There is silence as the PACIFICAN standing by the window winds his hand in the air, causing Lazoo to elaborate, “There’s the doco. There’s the pantomime. There are the scripts and also the manuscripts. And then there’s the tell-all, if anyone of us is desperate enough …”

The PACIFICAN now turns his back, the smile on his face one only Lazoo can bring.

Tonight the first scene of the pantomime will be performed on stage and shot onstage and backstage. Genisis Jones tells the story of her appearance in the U2 video, ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 2:

It is eight p.m. and the light reflects a balmy summer’s evening somewhere near the equator. Afamasaga nods, Le Mac tips his head slightly left, while Lazoo stretches his neck to the right and Metofeaz shrugs his shoulders.

The two cameramen, poised either side of the path, out of the ballroom, into the lounge and then onto the balcony, look like frogmen. Seeing them dressed in their close-fitting black suits, bodies hunched over their equipment, Polina recalls Alexvale Rokov III’s description of the combat swimmers, which incidentally was a vocation her loyal pen friend had been interested in. Her last letter from the London kid had been a while ago now, but since returning from their holiday to the Americas, he has successfully auditioned for a part in a local TV program and is now in the midst of rehearsals; a good enough reason for the lack of letters, Polina thought.

Behind Polina, the huge TV screen--easily the size of any cinema screen-- showing the U2 video in which Genisis Jones had a walk on part. In front of Polina, between her and the dark recording devices, is Genisis on her left and Arley on her right. Polina feels obligated to bridge the gap, fill the void, replace the silence; so her question is carefully placed in the middle, like a comic strip balloon appearing between the two women. Both the women have black bobs, the wigs made from human hair; “from China, but not made in China--where were the wigs made?” Polina quietly masks her concern that although the two beauties stand almost shoulder to shoulder, they share nothing else apart from the same hairpiece they wear on their heads, held very, very high, up there in the air.

Lazoo enters just as he is most needed; behind him can be seen a camera, and the boss drilling the MC as usual. Lazoo catches every innuendo, palms off every slippery one and then feasts upon a dumb question with an array of one liners mangled into such a ball of fury it disintegrates into morsels for consumption long after it hits one in the guts of his or her ignorance. “The devices capture the rapture, digital formats are becoming warm, not too far off in the future coldness--colder than this front that has hit us--will have to be manufactured on video cameras.” The boss shouts out, “CUT!”

No sooner is the order given than Arley’s daughter is next to her mother. Genisis steps out of her heels as two wardrobe people appear around her holding a pair of high leather boots. “But that’s not what I wore,” she says as the two assistants each take an arm, lead her to a chair, sit her down, and then begin sliding the long leather footwear onto her long limbs.

Out on the balcony, the musicians are entertained as Metofeaz and John Page take turns at being the conductor with first the most absurd and then the most offensive conducting styles they can improvise. Le Mac, in the style of a golf or tennis announcer, offers a running commentary of the impromptu event: “Now John Page, a strangled chicken with a bottle of Tabasco sauce in its rear end, will conduct Motserella’s Passing of Wind in a minor key of he…” John Page’s face contorts and then his lips are stretched to make a duck’s face as he waddles on the podium and then lifts a leg in the air; all the while, the needle being dragged across the record by Le Mac leaves nothing more to the imagination.

The call comes to take their places, and Metofeaz reminds Page and Le Mac: “Careful. He may read something into that.” The three of them laugh as they pass the bottle of tequila amongst them till the Tourist, on her way to center stage, reminds them of the liquor ban while working. “Careful boys. Someone may not rise to the occasion.” Her smile is enough to send Feeaz wild. “Close that trap of yours till it’s time to squeal, okay?” He says.

Jon Le Mac and John Page look at the ground, their smiles barely concealing their need to laugh out loud. Metofeaz is annoyed. The sounds of the band and the small orchestra mingling, samples and percussive pelting of strings, tits and tats on wind instruments, form a whirlwind of song and atmos, drowning the boy's now uncontrollable laughter.

The streetlight, which Page and Feeaz lean against while they drink the tequila which is supposed to be water, comes on. A few meters away, center stage, the Tourist checks her mic, “Muwah, muwah.”

In the ballroom, Polina feels the hairs on the back of her neck literally stand on end as the video on screen begins to roll. The mic, attached to the neckline of Genisis’s two-piece purple mini suit with a white trim, is “on” as she clears her throat and smiles at Lazoo who winks back at her, the camera catching it all. The two frogmen cameramen come to life, their rhythmic movements mirroring each other, their cameras attached to their torsos as they begin to wave their bodies and then lock them and make waves with their limbs; all this causing a floating like experience on screen as they reverse in front of Genisis and Arley, who wears an identical suit only in navy blue.

Polina, wearing a white mini two-piece and white high leather boots, begins the event.

Santina San Fe, wife of John Page, saunters up to her man under the lamp post.

Afamasaga, standing behind the cameraman shooting over Lazoo’s shoulder, is in contact with Le Mac on the console where he cuts in between the cameras and Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and the drummer.

A voice pure and perfect with a hint of a European accent says, “Genisis, did you meet the band?” Polina winks at the camera.

On screen is Genisis, her smile and her eyes sparkling even more now as they are set off by the deep, deep black hair of the wig that she wears atop her noggin.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 3:

Polina did the math in her head as she walked to the hit song. If Genisis were fifteen when the video was shot, which would have been sometime in 1986 or early ’87, that would mean Genisis was born in ’71 or ’72. She wondered about Genisis’s early years on earth. Polina herself had vivid memories of the orphanage and of her first year in this dimension. She remembered that from her bassinet facing the high windows, she could see the snow falling. It seemed the snow would fall down on her, but the walls, the ceiling, and the glass in the wooden window frames kept her warm and dry from the elements that held other memories and meaning for the baby without her mother.

The sound from the live musicians coming through the doorway Polina, Genesis, Arley and the amphibious cameramen are fast approaching intensifies the experience all the more for Polina. A glimpse of the PACIFICAN gives her confidence in the task at hand and in her ability not only to remember her many lines but also with an irascible trepidation to flounder when required as to fool Lazoo into letting her in on the plot--and with poise to undermine the master when the limited opportunities present themselves.

Now there is darkness, and then there is a light, under which John Page coerces Santina San Fe, dressed meagerly into some kind of human interaction, which the sexy whore rejects with a soft palming off to his chest. Then there is darkness again, footsteps from the east, left of stage--belonging to Genisis, Arley, Polina--keep coming.

The familiar guitar riff is rousing; the funk classic “Picking up the pieces” enforces good vibrations upon the proceedings. Lazoo, with the hand bound leather book, bigger than a dictionary and heavier than an encyclopedia held to his chest, slides in from right of stage. The Funkster, with white skin and in his country heels, begins to shave the floor of any decency. The sometimes paltry demeanor is once again flamboyant and flabbergasting to say the least. The Minister of Enjoyment is in the house and is ready to preach what he has practiced and is eager to pronounce as his own.

In the shadow of this buffed-up brightness, not quite off stage, Metofeaz and the Tourist stand toe to toe. The music stops. There is darkness again, footsteps keep coming, and Lazoo’s breathing is mixed down. Metofeaz and the singer’s lips touch, the skin of her well rounded lips clings to that of his defined lips like her hand’s grip on his undershirt that does not want to let go. They are caught in this regretted loving pose till Lazoo’s opening line “In the beginning” forces her to push him hard out and onto the middle of the floor where he lands on his backside as he arrives center stage. The frogmen with their cameras move over him; Genisis and Arley tower over the writer; Polina walks up to him and lifts his bowed head by the chin.

Genisis tells of her experience. “Obviously we didn’t make the cut…” She points to Arley who is playing the part of her best friend Danielle. “But I did meet the blonde girl in the black dress…” Polina’s voice cuts through with her line, “My, my Metofeaz; what have the gods not done for you? Did you not stare into a night once upon a time and marvel at the moon? Did you not pen with ink from elk, Love’s thoughts and freeze hell with glee from a heart so loved it fountains to this day feelings from your works?” The reply is mumbled and weak as he says, “My hope was that the love would be protected and remain supple through whatever time and reality would do to the love.” Lazoo walks in and amongst the players on stage. Everyone is ready for what one presumes could be only from him.

“A love would never last in an evil and stupid one-sided game like this,” John Page whispers into the ear of Ms. Santina San Fe. It causes her to stop smiling and slowly open her eyes to see the reflection of Metofeaz on the floor in the eyes of her man.

Metofeaz violently shakes his head, as if the action should rid him of what we know to be voices.

Polina is careful of where she is to place her hands next and tries to touch the troubled man on his left shoulder, but his shaking has spread to his body and from down stage where Lazoo is now seen to be standing in front of Feeaz, the audience may witness an act of savagery as Lazoo kicks the writer, who is struggling to find some sense, in the face. He is thrown backwards onto his back where he lays twitching. At which point their gaping holes--their open mouths—fall open as they gasp from watching the conductor administer the only medication required for such weakness in character.

Arley is the first at his side. The orchestra maneuvers its way from the illiterate feel of funk to a morbid piece that embosses the scene in the air that it is first uttered and now lays bare to breathe for itself. The soft notes of the Tourist’s voice are there also next to him as Polina begins to feel what an antagonist must feel about a protagonist. She begins to feel a fear from which anger could come, on top of which an evil could find a home.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 4:

The call to stop the action has been made; this Polina can tell from the many different bodies belonging to people with no names in the frame of the ultra blue picture she stares at. John Page has her close by his side, his arm around her, while Santina crouches to be lower than the tall girl. Polina is obviously distressed from the realism of the scene she had just worked and witnessed. Now she watches over the shoulder of Afamasaga. She is numb and dumb. Her ears feel as if they are only painted on; plus, every single one of her seven senses is deafened and her energy drained by the awesome bolt sent via the frequency by the Hit Man. The blast hit everyone on the MindMorph Dimension’s (MMD) F3quenZor (F3QZ), pronounced Free-kwen-Zor. This frequency in this dimension is shared by only a handful of humans, Shapeshifters, Witches, Warlocks and creatures of Lazoo’s kind—a mutt, a mutant of a man, a deliberate mistake of society and a creature without habit whom some say has not a heart.

Santina’s lips move in slow-motion, and her Dad’s arm around her is beginning to make her sweat. She feels an attack coming on, but she cannot let it happen as she is around “others” and does not want to draw attention to herself especially around the more mature members of the Semi-System (S-SYS). She had promised each and every one of them she was ready and up to the task of interacting with humans on record for the sake of Life Form Reproduction (LFR) on the SenFenide Dimension (SFD).

Polina remembers the faintness of an imminent moment when an untamed horizontal heat rose rapidly, suddenly sending her head vertically, with such force it would have snapped the neck of a mere mortal male. Then she sinks into the depths of what the boss calls the “Endeavor” because of the way one fights to escape the drowning of all senses in a whirlpool of a liquid derived from the brain’s endorphin molecule. The harder people fight, the deeper they are dragged down into the pool. Polina is carried by John Page up to the bedroom where there is monitoring equipment to measure the girl’s brain activity so all sorts of calculations can be made of what her threshold will be and how quickly she will adapt to the Ultra-Currents flowing through the F3quenZor. Afamasaga is aware of Polina’s abilities as she was a co-designer of WIPE’s environments; implanting an image of one’s imagination onto digital platform for a code emulator to ghost is a natural thing for Polina to have done; she only needed minimal coaching. But deciphering data from Lazoo not in byte size packeting was a whole new ball game even for the blessed child from a moon in the AmalgaMension Dimension (AMD).

Her parents are bed-side in case Polina gains consciousness, both wanting to be the one their daughter sees first. The boss and Lazoo are in the corner quietly discussing the data from the monitor she is hooked up to.

John Page’s mood is as dark as the dim lighting of the Art Deco house last renovated around the Second World War by Rozelle Zofen. The room is mainly lit from the stage lights outside. Santina stands opposite him and offers him her hand as a comforter. The bed made from a dark wood is solid while the white bedding is soft and sunken around where the girl lies seemingly peaceful; only she knows the troubles of those connected to her on this F3quenZor, and their dreams.

Outside, poolside and under the eye of the orange Thinking Creature, Arley Evon sits alone, her wine glass half-empty. She imagines Rozelle making her way down that staircase in one of her lavish gowns, and then how the singer would make the giant statue sit for her. Now the middle-aged model conjures up the way the creature felt when he would have to stand to face the sun and watch Ms. Zofen leave him for a day in her long life that he watched with pain from his stayed position.

Afamasaga stands at the top of the stairs watching Arley, who is deep in thought. Seated at a table in the middle of the balcony are Le Mac and Metofeaz who talk with a number of the crew.

John Lazoo sneaks into his quarters, causing Genisis to turn in her sleep.

The Tourist is on her way out to the balcony, where she can hear Metofeaz laughing. The look on her face is a concerned one, which is overcome by a smile she tries to resist. Her footsteps can be heard.

The Rhythm and Blues track playing makes everyone outside the bedroom where Polina is now awake feel light and breezy on a midsummer’s night. The bass line runs, then meanders off somewhere else for it to be brought back into line by a player who cares but is not scared to let his imagination run away.

Maybe he wants to go to the park?

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 5:

PART 1

Polina smiles as she closes her brown eyes. Then she smiles again and finally she decides to remain tight lipped in reply to John Page’s question. So he asks her again, this time choosing to smile so as to lighten his tone, “Did the packet exceed the limit, or did you multiple-pose as receptor as well as originator?”

Santina holds Polina’s head closer to her, looking up at John. The look says what has to be said. John Page bends down in a look of admission to his woman, as Polina slowly opens her eyes. He kisses both of them on their foreheads, the gentle touch almost like a switch, both of them closing their eyes, and by the time he has reached the door, Polina has sighed and Santina holds their little girl closer.

Outside on the balcony, Metofeaz is center stage with the Tourist in one arm and a bottle in the other. Genisis, looking for food, comes out of the kitchen as John Page passes through the foyer on his way to the small party brewing, its epicenter wherever Feeaz was standing, who is now moving down to where Arley is relaxing.

Genisis enquires about Polina, “How is she?” Page mumbles “Fine” and they walk together out onto the balcony. Page clears his throat as if to change the mood; next he sounds as if he has an overly enthusiastic reply to Genisis’s very interesting question, which she has not even asked, “I was in Vegas when they shot that video, I was!”

Genisis pretends she did not hear him, pulling back her hair and tying it with an elastic band from around her wrist. Page lets her walk ahead; he smiles at the sight of her and how her long shadow is cast by the lights from the balcony.

The sound of her footsteps becomes a deeper tone, her next step louder and further from her last. Genisis is long gone, out onto the balcony, where other figures move about. John Page, a GuidingMaster from the AmalgaMension Dimension whom Lazoo, Le Mac and Metofeaz believe is a Shapeshifter in earth terms but Afamasaga knows is a Warlock with an Angel’s heart, stands in the same spot. Afamasaga stands a meter behind Polina’s bodyguard. The time is coming when Polina will assume her mantle and PAGE1 will be surplus to requirements. “What to do with such talent?” is a burning question for John Reyer.

John Page’s landing in the MindMorph dimension is a worthy story Afamasaga thinks.

Afamasaga lets the star of WIPE leave the CirConference he folds back into himself. Page trips as he leaves the density of heavier atmos the boss brings back through his nostrils. John Page turns quickly as he finds his feet; gaining his balance, he catches the mentor laughing, not in a cynical or demeaning way, but more out of admiration for the way Page absorbs all that is hurled at him. The laughing is now reciprocated by PAGE1 as the two boyish men shake hands and head out to where Le Mac is getting started, and where Feeaz is already warm and nearing hot on the thermometer.

PART 2

Lazoo lies wide-awake staring at the shadows that move and then dart across the ceiling, the jostling figures cast by the crew downstairs, letting off some steam after a frustrating day that yielded nothing.

On one hand, he counts the times in his life when he could have used means other than his hands to save himself from danger. He can only think of a couple other than when he was beat almost to death by the guards on his eleventh birthday, which was the last memory his mother Janine has of him in this dimension.

On the other hand, Lazoo counts the times entities have used their abilities against him, a human, whoever, or, whatever his parents were. Shuggit, during the trial, was the most devastating case along with this evening, which could have been much worse had it not been for a warning from a node that sensed a pre-pulse prior to the delivery of the bolt that hit Polina. Genisis had absorbed most of the shock from the blast and was now wired from it. But was it Polina or one of the others? Lazoo grabs the pillow still indented by his woman’s head and holds it to himself.

Afamasaga passes Ms. Jones the dish of brown rice; the seafood she devours is not enough to fulfill the opening that is her mouth, which she wishes to stuff to no end. Now the catering crew members are summoned, one of them—slow dancing with Ms. Evon to the Tourist singing the classic “Summertime”—drops the dark haired babe immediately and heads for the table where Ms. Jones is feeding herself under the watchful eye of the PACIFICAN. Arley’s comment is indicative of how she feels about the attention her rival receives. “Damn, if Genisis were constipated, they probably climb up there to assist her, damn…” Her reaction is justifiable, as, in her mind, if this princess hadn’t been sunbathing in Central Park one summer’s day then she would’ve been the leading lady in this noodle pseudo whatever it is that she was caught up in.

Arley stands still in her own dense silence, not completely stunned, but nor is she quite coherent enough even to launch an attack that could perhaps demoralize a homeless person whose shopping cart a dump truck had just reversed over. Above the bed of heads, Ms. Evon’s tired eyes can see the Tourist, sultry and voluptuous, singing a song. To her left is Genisis Jones, with her mouth full of food, still stunning and a star. Upstairs is Santina, who will star in the stupid Video game story, and then Arley not much more than an extra. Yes, she did appear above Times Square on a billboard, but only for a total of forty-eight hours over six months in five second bursts, once every two hours as a model for LMLA-ink’s fashion label Charley Stevonsen worn by all the subjects in the Tongue Murder saga.

Le Mac had promised her a lead role in his story, which will be the second documentary, to be shot six months after this one. Metofeaz had already shown her a manuscript for his autobiography with her as one of the lovely leading ladies, and had also promised that when the book about Lazoo’s case was written, she would have a huge part in it.

Metofeaz seizes the microphone from the Tourist, as Lazoo enters the party.

Lazoo seats himself next to Afamasaga, and they both watch the crew under the spell of Feeaz who now decides to incite a chant “dada da da da…” The drummer leaps up onto the platform as he produces his sticks from nowhere. The Latin looking guy replicates the rhythm using the sticks he holds above his head; the chant becomes louder as Mr. Litigatti stands with his arms open in the direction of Lazoo who is deep in conversation with the boss.

Lazoo pretends he does not notice what is going on as he asks, “When are you going to tell them?” Afamasaga smiles at Metofeaz, who now uses his open arms to rouse the small crowd, raise the volume and enlist the audience’s help in getting Lazoo to the stage.

“I don’t think they’d be that interested; they’re just here for the ride,” Lazoo offers another angle. “We could build it up into something?” Afamasaga smiles even brighter at the crowd now facing them. “The guy was an out and out loser. I made this thing what it is today, along with you and those two.” Lazoo chooses to change the subject as he reaches out to hold Genisis’s hand held out to him. “The morons want a dose; I’ll get up on stage if you get on the guitar, deal?”

The drummer is already behind his kit and setting a groove as Lazoo takes the mic, annoyed but smiling at the boss still on his arse next to Genisis. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a poem called ‘She comes to him.’ from the POEMBOOK ‘Moon, man.’”

Arley is suddenly freed from her cauldron of fear, and instantly swept up in the frenzy Lazoo and Litigatti have created; she glances over at John Reyer who smiles at her.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 6:

PART 1

It was nearing midnight and the reality of loss was presenting itself to the organizer, pestering him with deadlines and the budgets they protect. A tap on his shoulder snaps him out of a state he promised himself a long time ago he would never enter into, and if he did he would escape quick smart—worry. It was Polina with Arley’s daughter; the sight of them he accepts and believes it will bring the party to a civil ending sometime soon. They’re dressed in their pajamas, and are wrapped in blankets.

Polina is about to ask something when John Page pulls her pony tail from behind “Ouch! You, that’s my hair.” She’s now giggling and Arley’s daughter is trying not to laugh. “As I was about to suggest before I was rudely interrupted,” the little actress now cuts her eyes, with the knowing of a cat on her ninth life, up at John Page who smiles down on her and offers advice, “people shorter than me should never try and make me the brunt of their jokes.” Afamasaga now begins to wind his hand in the air to bring the little Miss’s request. She clears her throat, looks at her friend and is happy that she has everyone’s attention and so she asks to be told the story of John Page.

John Lazoo, as if it were planned, thanks the crew for a day’s work and advises everyone of tomorrow’s start time of 11 a.m.

Seated at the boss’s table are the two children, Genisis, John Page, Afamasaga, and one of the frogmen cameramen still in his suit, with his cap off and his camera still “on” as the red light in the middle of his chest suggests.

Santina pulls up a seat in between Genisis and John Page, as Lazoo and Metofeaz carry over another round table to place next to this table. Metofeaz continues to mumble, as he grumbles disgruntled at the party ending so abruptly, “Could’ve given everyone notice, bro.” Lazoo just shrugs his shoulders after he places the table on the ground, and then he intercepts the bottle of Tequila the Tourist is handing Metofeaz, who now tries to grab at the bottle Lazoo lifts above his head and passes to Le Mac who has now stepped in between the poet and the writer.

Afamasaga waves at the props person and types on an imaginary keyboard in the air. Le Mac, the dark skinned peacemaker, eases Metofeaz into the seat as Lazoo watches on. Once he is seated, his head is hung for a moment until a ThinkPad is placed in front of him. Lazoo starts walking toward the platform with Le Mac quickly making his way to where his turntables wait. Lazoo’s step onto the slight elevation is picked up by the microphone, amplifying the vibrations up into the Public Announcement system.

While the writer lifts his head to notice everyone, including Polina and Arley’s daughter whose mother has gone missing, staring at him in silence, the props person is busy connecting wires to the portable computer. Her exclamation, “There it’s done!” is confirmed when she pushes a wire further into the ThinkPad, her body all over Mr. Litigatti who tries to look uncomfortable about the situation as the Tourist tosses him a throw away smile for his efforts to make room for the young woman trying to do her job. Finally there is an image on the plastered wall of the house; it’s a WordPerfect window.

Metofeaz rubs his hands, not with glee, but with trepidation as once again he is about to put his ass on the line for this irascible mob waiting for him to falter, or fail.

The boss readies himself by sitting up straight, then pushing himself away from the table; he then leans forward with his elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands.

Metofeaz’s tapping on the keyboard moves the table he is on; occasionally, it rocks the one next to it. Eventually the process is completed as the words line themselves up in the window on the wall of the châteaux.

The needle Jon Le Mac places upon the spinning vinyl record introduces the analogue warmth we want. As people in places wait to hear another story about a John, we all wonder what wonderful record is about to be thrashed and trashed in the making of a sour son of a bitch mortal, and manly for all people to admire, loathe and love?

On stage, Lazoo is looking down at the ground waiting for a question from John Reyer, who is deep in concentration after reading the words.

Le Mac tweaks the knobs on his mixer as Feeaz continues.

Psychedelic Furs come as a new wave and while there has been time since they first landed, we look back with nostalgia at the way they fooled us, for now they are nice and old and memorable and most importantly, comforting. The guitar is played rigidly and as stiffly as the way the wiry figures stand straight and still up on a stage built by people who will never, ever be fucking famous. Their words are meaning many things to people now, but nevertheless, here they are for what they were originally meant:  There's an army / On the dance floor / It's a fashion…

Afamasaga clears his throat and asks his first question of Lazoo, which turns out to be more of a suggestion, “Location, action, attraction, and the poor sod whom he inhabits?”

Metofeaz is unstoppable…

Sometime in the eighties, just past the halfway mark of that decrepit decade, an entity without an entitlement landed on the crust of this planet with every intention of making a difference that would soften everything, including the heart of a heathen, the ugliness of a racist and then the core which is the home of the seeds of this evil earth, it would melt…

Lazoo nods to Le Mac who cross-fades into an atmospheric track as he begins.

PART 2

Lazoo: The Nevada sand mass is no mess for the Sahara, but nonetheless finding his pill amongst those granules of silicone was definitely a task for none other than the just flown in, and the sometimes flighty Mr. John Page, his code on all F3quenZors on the AMD, MMD and SFD is the soon to be famed PAGE1.

Polina smiles at Arley’s daughter as she whispers in her ear, “That’s my dad Lazoo’s talking about,” pointing to John Page who smiles with tight lips and then makes a monster face at both girls, before he takes a cup of tea from the tray of steaming cups being placed down on the table.

Lazoo: After consuming the life changing, form finding and human endearing capsule, PAGE1 encounters an “Endeavor.”

Metofeaz’s tapping is like a counter action for the soft and almost strained voice of the Maestro.

The searing sun careers overhead. It is followed by a puffing of white fluff, and then comes the dark stuff. Luckily, the moon wasn’t so moody tonight, and it decided to be a crescent up there in his sky. This is the sum of one whole day here on earth. If he rode a camel, he would probably be aroused by the hump upon the creature’s back, so the creator makes him walk to the nearest town right after he has his mini-episode that the lucky bastard receives from downing his tab he finds in the sand.

Polina interrupts, “Was his ‘Endeavor’ like the one I had tonight?” Le Mac puts his finger on the record to halt it; Metofeaz is still tapping; Afamasaga answers quickly, “Same concept, for different reasons, emotional growth all the same, to adapt to humans and the way they are.” Then the boss nods at both Lazoo and Le Mac; the record is let go as the illiterate elaborates so we may comprehend.

Lazoo: The oasis in the second to last decade of the twentieth century flourished through the abundance of wasteless cash thrown away by the teaming gamblers who flocked to the neon gem in the Nevada desert that is Las Vegas.

This is where John Page is heading; he can see it now off in the distance.

John Page walks down the highway. Cars, trucks and busses run through him; when he does manage to inhabit someone, he is immediately knocked to the ground. In his wake is now a trail of bodies, maybe twenty. The ambulance heading toward him goes through him, and then he is a medic, only to be steam rolled by a MAC truck, which leaves the colored man dead in the middle of the road.

Page stands still.

Polina has her hand in the air indicating she has a question, as the tapping by the writer has stopped; now Metofeaz’s head is hung again. Afamasaga waits for Polina’s question that she hesitates to ask from anticipation of what might happen next.

Lazoo looks down at Metofeaz, who looks up at the guy who cannot read or write a word. The look is venomous from both men who are vital members of the team. Lazoo shrugs his shoulders and adds, “I only have a handful, remember, Feeaz? Give a little, ah? All that language and nothing to say, must be demoralizing to take the lead from a guy who can’t read, ah? Go lay ya head on a pillow; it’s soft to match your mettle, mate!” Lazoo’s last word is accentuated by the accent he said it in.

What happens next is pretty predictable: the table is flipped into the air and the portable computer is sent flying, which Polina throws her blanket on the floor for; the machine lands on the woolen sheet with a thud, and the battery comes loose.

Afamasaga is on his feet following the writer stomping out of the scene. Lazoo’s head is now hung as Le Mac offers a commentary in the style of a Monday night football commentator, “Ms. Rada made the catch, with no regard for her personal safety, while the mature adult stormed out of the match, after chucking his toys…”

This brings some light relief and presents a chance for everyone to grab a cup of tea. Lazoo steps down from the platform and asks Polina about her question, which she is still thinking about, and then she takes a deep breath and asks tentatively, “If John Page is my GuidingMaster, why was he involved in those people being killed?”

Afamasaga is walking back. Lazoo is about to answer the question, until the answer is given quickly by the boss. “Yes, PAGE1 is to inhabit someone, but those people were actually entities here from the SenFenide Dimension looking to inhabit PAGE1.” Polina thinks for a second then confirms for herself, “So it was their choice to inhabit him, and not the other way around? The PACIFICAN smiles at her and quickly adds, “This lot were different, Polina, especially PAGE1; an anomaly, shall we say?”

Lazoo is now nodding his head as he heads back up to the stage with his cup of tea, and another for Le Mac, who comes down to meet the MC. They share a quiet joke and then they take up their positions.

Afamasaga quickly says, almost whispering, as if he is the reason for the disruption, “Listen to this; Lazoo will cover it.”

Polina looks to John Page who winks back at her as Le Mac lets go a track for Lazoo to talk over.

Lazoo: The open door to the hotel room lets seep the sound of a television, and perhaps a body fit for a heart of gold.

Up further, another room, from its door wide open, laughter belonging to two girls by the sounds of the conversation. Down the end of the hallway carpeted in a grey synthetic material with darker grey speckles, two more doors lay open almost opposite each other.

Then as if swept by a sudden gust of wind, one by one they close, starting with the girls’ door—“SLAM”—and then the other two.

This door is still ajar. Something about a door in that state is intriguing. Was it left that way? Or was it meant to be closed?

The room is empty, and after encountering the force field from electricity, the radiation from the TV is almost ticklish. The single seat directly in front of the TV would mean that this person was here alone, or trying to be alone.

One thing about the MindMorph Dimension was the persistence of its controllers; either humans were just downright stupid and could not remember what to eat, or there was some serious reward for reminding the average cretin of their favorite poison.

On the AmalgaMension Dimension, it was considered obscene to suggest to someone else food to eat, let alone trick someone into consuming toxic chemicals and riding destructible, but non-degradable, carriages that emit poisonous gases.

The woman sprawled across the carriage is edible; this is the thought that PAGE1 has before he realizes he is now sitting in front of the TV, in the seat he was previously looking down on. Now his thin hand is inside a bag made of thin acrylic fiber, in which he finds a thin object he now puts into his opening mouth.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 7:

PART 1

The year is 1986, the year the United Nations branded The International Year of Peace. Afamasaga is twenty-one years old, same as Metofeaz and John Le Mac. James Elton is released from Juvenile Hall at the age of sixteen. PAGE1 has found a shell, the term for a body, which an entity treats as a house and not a home, in this case the unsocial and or unsavory character he now carries on as in the MMD.

They say that in every dimension there is an image of us, and what are the chances of all three images wanting to escape to the same dimension and then all three of them meeting in a hotel room in Las Vegas, USA in 1986? In theory it could not happen as this would cause skewed points crossing all points which are meant to be parallel, creating, if at all possible, sub dimensions, whose miniscule subjects of existence could not support its reason of existence, which in this case was John Page, age seventeen, unemployed orphan of LA living off of his wits in LV.

The dark club is sweating from the heat. There is sweat on the skin of everyone, and on the walls that have felt the heat from the bodies that flesh it out against each other in the pit. This place tonight drips condensation.

The little known band render a ridiculous but raunchy rendition of the cult classic covered by everyone from Sid Vicious to Elvis and Sinatra. The two chicks over by the bar are the same two from down the hallway. John Page says to the lesbian drug dealer for whom he is here as a bodyguard tonight, “Hey, you reckon you could do me a favor? See those two over there?” The client is larger than the bodyguard, so she has to look down on him as she says, “Whatever you want, honey; ’cause you’re so cute I’ll do whatever for you.” Page smiles and continues, “We take them; we can’t lose. If I win, you win! If you win, I watch?” And off he goes; the byline he claims is in the beeline he skewers to acquire some sort of intimacy he mistakes for a mixing of fluids found floating close to some membrane covering a vital organ of influence.

Quite sometime later, PAGE1 can be seen standing on the balcony. The neon lights of the strip offer a hazy glow to the dawn darkness immediately in front of him. The sun is innocuous in its slow rise, and majestically it will take down the almost full moon who has had enough for this night.

Inside the two girls are asleep with the client, on top of the bed; only their wigs have come off.

John Page laughs; he is actually unsure whether to laugh at how he lucked out, or how he is considering finding a job, like one in a supermarket.

PART 2

The dark hair is silk like—the sheen of the finely placed arrangement is misleading as it is not wet. And as the camera pulls away from the back of Polina’s head, there is movement around her. The crew are done for the evening, Afamasaga wipes the table with his hand as a cleaner copies his action in earnest with a wet rag. Polina’s big brown eyes are transfixed on a light in the distance. Everyone at that moment is busy making his or her way to bed after a long day; Afamasaga acknowledges this, “It’s 3 a.m. Breakfast is at 11 a.m.” Polina still stares.

At the banister stands Metofeaz; quietly going through the motions, he stares off into the distance. As the help hurries to clear the area of the equipment, Polina walks to where the writer stands.

John Page, Lazoo, Afamasaga and Santina watch her with concern. Metofeaz smiles when he looks down to his right to see the little miss looking up at him.

Metofeaz’s voice finds supple soil to lay his words as he begins to wave his right hand at the night, making Polina want to copy him. “Who are we waving at, Feeaz?” Polina asks as she begins to laugh at herself and the moody and sometimes blue guy she is mimicking. He laughs too, “The old lady, who introduced John Poet Soldier to Rozelle Zofen.” Polina laughs louder now and says, “The one who wore no brassiere?”

Polina suddenly stops. Her hand is still up in the air as her eyes are now fixed on the Thinking creature. Le Mac aims the spotlight at the huge orange, half-man, half-gargoyle; the bright light, singling out the large and gothic looking statue, gives it a sense of isolation, only associated with something that could feel loneliness, and not a stone idol erected by Rozelle for her company, and other reasons.

Metofeaz notices this and stops; he now stares at the creature too and offers an explanation for one of the many questions that may spout from Ms. Rada at any given moment. “Ms. Rada,” he begins. Polina shivers, shrugging off time’s cobwebs that drag and then drape themselves over her, and then she looks up at the man who is possibly the creator of this scintillating, yet still very sensitive story. “Yes, Mr. Litigatti?” she replies. Metofeaz smiles at her, and then at the creature and then back at her. “Love melts everything, Polina, yet love can also freeze time.” It was as if his words were what she waited for. She is quiet for a moment, and then she says, “I’m real tired now, Feeaz.” He laughs, “My words are that boring, are they? That they make you want to sleep, ah?” Polina rubs her tired eyes as she also wants to laugh. Afamasaga is now standing next to the writer, who has a look of contentment in his eyes. Polina moves in between them, just as Afamasaga reminds her of the time, at which point John Page calls out “Bedtime, Ms. Rada.”

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 8:

The props person, the frogman, and a cook are the only ones left. The three of them park themselves at a table and uncork, to unleash and then unwind themselves from the coiled condition they incur on a daily basis from having to deal with LMLA-ink and their shit.

Lazoo, Metofeaz, Le Mac and Afamasaga sit down to assess their day’s work and plan for tomorrow, which is only hours away, as their day is measured in the time one works.

The sit down lasts as long as it has to and then they give in to tiredness.

Lazoo makes his way up stairs, while Afamasaga follows Le Mac who follows Metofeaz downstairs to rooms where the doorways are boarded up.

They bid each other goodnight and then enter into their rooms leaving the hallway empty.

Now the sound of footsteps fills the damp air—they sound like high heels on stone slabs. Upstairs, the help begins to impasse its conversation, as if they each speak different languages; then the lights they sit under suddenly blow fuses.

The only light left is that on the chest of the frogman slumped back on his seat. The girl from LA and the cook from Rome are slumped forward on the table, as spilled red wine runs amongst their fingers.

Rozelle seems amused, but she is more concerned about the thinking creature whose head from the balcony looks as if it is bowed. She looks about the place with her hand on her chin and then she smoothes the front of her velvet gown.

Rozelle Zofen, an embodiment by a select entity with an entitlement like Polina, had her MMD image or ID identified at conception; however, unlike Polina whose GuidingMaster located her and bonded with her, Rozelle’s either did not attempt to locate her, or she had disembodied her GuidingMaster by disembowelment.

Also when Rozelle’s entitlement was lifted, which usually happens when an embodiment’s AMD ID is returned to that dimension, her MMD and SFD IDs dispersed into this dimension and inhabited others.

Rozelle is about to head down the staircase to where the orange beast awaits, till a thought crosses her mind, making her do an about turn and head into the house. In the hallway at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the guest rooms, she stands and looks as if she watches the portrait of herself that hangs at the top of the staircase.

All of a sudden, she is standing in front of the mirror beneath the grand painting. Her image is seen in another mirror, one suspended in mid air behind her but not seen in the mirror on the wall. An ArtificialFact, or AF, the mirror prop is known as. Through the hanging mirror, Rozelle smiles at herself and at her image in the AF mirror that does not rebound countless images in the hanging mirror.

The second Ms. Zofen takes her eyes off the suspended mirror, it drops like a heavy object, only to disintegrate into a thousand eyeballs. The thousand eyeballs dilate, contract and melt as if they burn from a sudden and extreme heat. What the thousand eyes have seen is flashed all around the room in interlacing holograms; it’s as if she had seen it all before; she patiently waits till the last purple tinted fiasco withers in its aged and stale state; a younger man pulls from an older man’s mouth a book, which then flies off, as the pages begin to flap in a wind. Rozelle checks her nails, but soon she senses someone and then a smile comes across her pale face. The voice is calm, “We look in man’s mirrors and we are able to lie to ourselves, Rozelle. We glance into the Mirror of All Points and we find a correlating line that maps misfortune, lust and love with contours that remind us of how backward and naive we are; that we trust ourselves with our greed.”

Rozelle hurries down the stairs; she enters into the ballroom and it is empty. Out on the balcony the three that were seated at the table are now naked in fetal positions on the cold floor.

Her rushing stops when she enters her quarters. She sits at the head of the bed; the likeness is not uncanny, but eerie. The blonde hair that masks her face is thick and shiny. On the floor naked in the fetal position is Metofeaz Litigatti.

Where there is usually a knock there is a lion’s yawn and in steps Polina and John Page, who begins immediately, “I came to ensure Polina’s DimensionalEQ.” Rozelle scoffs without hiding any mockery in her tone, “Equilibrium for a woman? Huh! Doesn’t exist in this Dimension; she’s a hunchback with a princess’s appearance.” Polina shivers at meeting an image of her, if her entitlement is taken from her. “It’s my birthday today; is that why you’re here?” Rozelle pats the Tourist’s mane and points to Feeaz on the ground. “I came to see who Metofeaz had brought here; she’s been here for a week and he seems to be still infatuated. She also ruined my favorite party dress. I just had to touch her myself.”

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 9:

Sharon Smith stares at the piece of paper on the bathroom vanity unit. The cigarette burn she can see just above the document reminds her of where she is right now. A door slams and it makes her think of her new husband out there in the room watching ESPN.

The newly crowned National Karaoke Champion is also newlywed Mrs. Robert Smith. Bonus number one, she didn’t even have to change her last name. Bonus number two, is coming and as she waits for it, the just turned sweet sixteen honey blonde waitress from the south begins to cry. The wedding certificate takes the shape of her clawing hand which then crumples the paper and ensures it is nothing but pulp as she screams within herself, shaking her fists as she slides down the greasy hotel bathroom wall.

Lilies, lilac, and lavender grow lovely and wild around her ankles, knees, and thighs as her feet walk her body across another field, finding new feelings and forwarding them onto what she now believes to be nowhere… (From Illicit Blade of Grass – Page 66)

The text is soft and italic for it to be more cursive; so true and less corrosive in the ceramic acoustics of the room, she lays spread upon the floor. This is a dream sequence to her dream of dreams she has been having since her father left her mother and her; she had been seven and he went to be with their next-door neighbor’s Russian catalogue bride of twelve and a half weeks.

Today’s installment is light and breezy as if the object of the poet’s desire, admiring and all his life is afloat in a paddock of wild flowers on some summer’s day when all of nature’s treats meet in this one field of infinite feeling.

“Ron, Ron, you alive in there?” Her new husband’s black Mississippi drawl is hurried, out of concern for her, causing a more catastrophic clash with the foreign accent in which her dreams are imagined.

The summer frock she imagines the luminous figure wears is a singlet and 501 Levis faded and tight when she pulls herself to her feet and she checks herself in the mirror. “Yeah, Bobby; Ron’s OK,” she shouts out, and then quickly offers a softer, “Yes, honey; I am all right.”

In the space of forty-eight hours, she had met him, become his best friend, and married him whilst wired in midst of a drunken stupor, then lost him as a new best friend.

She now remembers what the ball of paper is, lying on the floor. She bends down to pick it up. The person on the other side of the door walks away and then the channels on the TV start changing. A montage of quick fire dialogue comes. It is not at all random, all of it selling something. It coerces the numb, the nimble and the nutty nonsensical ones. And over time, the barrage of messages have humbled many minds into submission; it insinuates and the feeble ones masturbate to the dumb stimuli.

After five minutes, she is ready to face him. The crumpled piece of proof is best flattened by the palm of her hand, which she now uses to smooth the font of her green singlet; she likes feeling the contours of her curves as she repeats the action as if shooing away the event that just took place in her head. “It’s all in the head,” she says to herself. “It’s all in there, ah?”

She scans the seats each time she wakes; still the same stench, still the same expression from the five-year-old boy watching them from the seat behind the driver. Sharon nods at the giant African American bus driver whose nose fills the rearview mirror.

Robert’s head is against the window as he sleeps; his arm next to her arm offers an explanation why the boy is staring, and she pokes her tongue at the boy, who now seems uninterested. He sits down facing the front only for his head to pop around the corner of the seat by the time she counts to “…forty-two, forty-three.” She now offers a gentle smile, which has more of an affect on the child than the poking tongue from an adult; the child smiles back and now waves to her to come up to where he is.

The radio cassette player, their only other belonging, is almost the size of a small suitcase; Sharon lifts it up and places on her lap the metallic silver color of the boogie box, and its flashing lights mesmerize the boy as they twinkle while she tunes it into a station. Rick Dees’s sleaze hits a high note with a couple of girls about the same age a few seats back.

The little boy wants a closer look; now Sharon does what he did to her and the little boy is coy, but he is much too interested in the large radio. His father tells the boy, “Go on, son.”

The music is by the Rolling Stones; a whack black disco bass line, an electric piano that harms no one, and Keith Richard’s tamed, subdued, riled guitars bridge the rift that some say exists. Mick’s dysfunction lyrics make it one beautiful fucking mess, “Oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh… …I’ve been walking in central park / Singing after dark / People think I’m crazy…”

“The Tourist”—, a name the drunken writer in the bar had called her—she smiles remembering it as the little boy stands in the aisle looking at the radio. Robert turns on his side and pulls his jacket over his head to get some peace.

On arriving at the bus station, they are torn as to where they will live. Six blocks apart, at her mother’s place? Or in his grandmother’s garage? They figure the privacy of the tin shed is what a new couple requires.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 10:

PART 1

Polina yawns. Her eyes widen and seem like they are about to pop out of her head and then she remembers what today is. She now closes her eyes as she thinks deeply and looks at John Page sitting at the end of her bed. “Yes, Ms. Rada, it is your birthday now in both hemispheres.” Polina quickly corrects him. “Sectors, Mr. Page. Sectors.” Before he can retort, Ms. San Fe is there with her toothbrush and dressing gown. “Where’s the Tourist?” Polina asks as she steps into her slippers and puts her arms out for her dressing gown. “She’s probably getting her makeup applied,” is Santina’s quick reply.

Le Mac signals the start of a new day; he blows on the needle he is about to apply to the spinning vinyl and smiles.

The kick drum and then that phased snare drum come; the familiar rhythm floods the floors of the once ho hum house. The classic eighties bass-line pounds into reality an ambiance; it makes Metofeaz smile as he zips up his boots.

John Lazoo straightens the noose of his necktie as Genisis turns down the back of his black collar.

And the PACIFICAN talks to someone on the phone as he takes a sip of his first cup of tea for today.

The help are bright and cheerful for this is the day they had come here to be part of.

Soon the gleam of the occasion shines over the once overcast and daft feeling festival with its glittering arrival. The help are lined up all in cream with a dash of orange here and there, carefully accessorized, where most appropriate; a sash, a ribbon, a wristband, or a white spotted bandana, all add to the overall effect. Afamasaga in black walks by once and then he whispers, “Spring forth the fine features, one wishes one had,” and with that and no more, their heads are up and their steps never more broad or with more bounce.

They disperse to their perches and quarters, as the musical ones take their places in their harmonious formation, quickly so not to be sprung out of place.

A hush sweeps over the area cordoned by all three of the dimensions, and then in the instant of a two-finger clap, the band, the horn section and the string quintet burst out as a combed collective cohering to compound feeling.

The frogman now in a white suit does Al Jarreau better than he would admit himself. “Oh, yeah… Does anyone want to go waltzing in the garden?” The question is asked again, and again, until the horn section exclaims an answer in magnificent and crisp stabs, as the Latin drummer boy twirls his sticks in the thick air. This makes the birthday girl in a plain white silk dress, and ribbons in her hair, smile, giggle, and then place both her hands on her knees; her knees are together; they bend this way, and then they are dragged that a way.

“FEEAZ!” she says. Lazoo says, “Who?” Polina skips a step or three, and then she stops and puts her hand up in the air. “I do, LAZOO!”

The frogman smiles at her as he begins to scat; the Latin drummer sits on a fat four by four groove of snare and bass drum. Lazoo is dressed in black head to toe; now he is in his open arm pose as he begins to move.

Metofeaz feels he is now ready, all in black too; the smile becomes real as he begins to step along the runway to where the hit man is in a grooving state, zoned, as his moves soothe any discrepancies in their friendship. “Does anyone want to go dance up on the roof?” Mr. Litigatti is there, he and Lazoo together in the middle of the platform, shoulders only; this makes the invited guests laugh and clap; the frogman is hitting it, just as Ms. Rada is halfway down the runway; she skips and then stops to take a bouquet of flowers, one from Arley, then another from Santina and a third one she adds to her clutches from a beaming Genisis Jones. The band is now ruthless in the way it belts out the classic. Horns accentuate Jarreau’s soul, and the rhythm counters and flatly punches them in the mo, and then pinches the hearts and minds of those who witness the Semi-System in action. Le Mac says, “WOW!” Afamasaga, says, “Yeah!”

The party starts proper when each member of the crew present Polina with a gift. Each gift she accepts graciously and exchanges for a kiss and a hug.

The house is fully transformed into a tropical rainforest; with clever editing, it looks like they are on a rooftop garden in a concrete jungle and not in a valley of vineyards somewhere in the south of France, according to the visuals on screen.

PART 2

Metofeaz Litigatti is twenty-one years of age today according to the passport he examines closely before he hands it to the woman behind the counter at McCarran International Airport. Dressed smartly in black and still sober for today, he manages a smile and then he swipes the article off the counter, once the girl places it back down on the counter. Without a word, he picks up his bag, dons his sunglasses and heads off into the terminal.

The old fellow had promised him that if he showed up in Vegas on his twenty-first birthday, he would find family. “Celebrate your third significant milestone in this Dimension at an oasis where money is water.”

The party with the roadies is starting to heat up; the Englishman and the Irishman are beginning to let their feelings be known about their American buddy, a convicted armed robber by the name of Mick Haze, who also happens to be a boxer. The Englishman reminds Mick of the Rolling Stones. “Your mother even named you after Jagger, a pom?” Mick looks down at his glass; he can see three faces in his dark whiskey, “Metofeaz, would you say my mom’s a whore?” Metofeaz, scribbling something down on a napkin, quickly folds it up and tucks it away in his top pocket and shrugs his shoulders, and then he shakes his head, and then he nods his head and then finally he laughs. The Irishman now adds his bit. “Nah guy, she probably paid them, if the facts be known.” Still smarting from what they thought to be clever, the two members of U2’s entourage are not ready for what happens next.

PART 3

“One of these nights…”

“Sharon Smith, ah?” Metofeaz smiles at the reflection of himself in the mirror. The girl next to him stirs her drink; then she places the black plastic in her mouth. Pulling the thing from her mouth, she smiles with her eyes. Now she reaches over and starts to stir his drink, twice clockwise, and then twice counterclockwise.

The Eagles in the background are of no help at all.

“…The full moon is calling / the fever is high / and the wicked wind whispers and moans…”

But he does manage to collect himself and change the course of the confusing situation. “How old are you Sharon?”

The barman places a beer on the bar; she now grabs her drink and the bottle as if she is protecting them from a thief who wishes to steal her precious goods. She saunters off and then she flicks her blonde head over her shoulder and winks as she laughs.

The writer reaches for a coaster to his right. A woman in her twenties smiles at him. He feels he has to ask her for the free piece of card. “Lucky lonely coaster, I want it; may I have it, ah?” The lady laughs, “Is that a line, or a warning?” Metofeaz clears his throat, “That’s a sign.”

“Arley Evon?” Metofeaz snorts his delight in meeting the woman who now crosses her legs his way; her hand he picks up off the thing he wants to write on. He sniffs her slender hand, not that she can detect his intent from his instinctual, habitual way.

He offers a smile that does away with her next question. It also affords him the right of way to give her back her hand. “Waste not, want not. Your lips are a better place, wouldn’t you say?”

The lady in a purple dress lifts her glass to her lips as he waits for some sort of recognition for his approach, either one of disgust or of interest.

Silence is a weapon both use with ease.

“…You got your demons / you got desires / well I got a few of my own…”

Side on, he is lean, primed, wearing black jeans, a black sweater, and sporting cowboy boots imported from nowhere; his black hair is messy as he leans on the bar for support.

She sits on a bar stool; she is interested, as her hanging white high heel suggests, but at her waist she is twisted, facing the mirror where she can see his profile. From his calmed expressions, she feels warmth, while she sees the side he cannot hide or control. Every once in a while, she’ll turn her head for a view of the real thing.

“…Someone to be kind to / In between the dark and the light…”

He traces her profile using his eyes, storing away in his memory the angular but inclined way it all means a place made for his weary gaze. Her skin is tinted with blood from somewhere exotic. And when she turns her head to see whether he is still standing there, her smile is as bright as a light that finds you in the darkness, with eyes that are deep for a pleasurable pursuit one persists with in search of a soul, akin.

“…Swear I'm gonna find you / One of these nights…”

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 11:

PART 1

As they wait for the signal, the frogman and orchestra play another chorus of the song Shadow Dancing, which makes Polina’s head swing.

Seated at a round table in the middle of the balcony to the right of the runway amongst a handful of other tables furnished with lucky locals in dinner attire are the girls in gowns.

Ms. San Fe confirms for Ms. Rada that she too had a crush on Andy Gibb, and Arley, “Yep, me too, honey.” And then the Tourist adds, “Bit before my time.” Genisis rolls her eyes for the singer to catch her in her compact mirror; she plays within the roving spotlight that scans the stage, and the tables on both sides of the runway, “Tut, tut, Ms. Jones; he’s a bit normal for Mrs. Lazoo, isn’t he?” Now Santina rolls her eyes, at which the Tourist, who is now standing as she is about to take the stage, pouts and leans on the opposite hip as she makes her exit, leaving her mark for the others to reside under when she says, “You can turn the clock back, but not the time, my dears.” Arley takes a sip of her drink, while Ms. San Fe is tight-lipped as Genisis looks at Polina in a confused manner, at which Polina shrugs her shoulders and turns down her lips.

Offstage, John Reyer asks John Lazoo, “Is she ready?” Lazoo confirms with Jon Le Mac that Polina is ready; the affirmation they wait for they receive from John Page approaching the table, via Metofeaz Litigatti who says, “She is bro; she is…”

The hum of the public announcement system, coming through the speakers he stands next to, is comforting for Afamasaga, who checks the infrared remote in his grip; this he does by changing the applications on the ThinkPad that waits for LMLA-ink on the table in the middle of the now dark and empty stage.

PART 2

The musicians are on the scaffolding over the banister; their heads move as they apply their postures to their instruments, and then with a unified flex, they assume positions of readiness and imposing belief.

The Tourist who holds the silver-plated microphone on the end of a stand in her gloved hand glances over the orchestra and upon the head of the Thinking Creature. And then she looks at the others statues; all of them are a replica of the same creature, but only the twelfth one was gifted with some kind of mind, transcending the boundaries and rules of metaphysics, quantum physics and love to give Ms. Zofen what she craved.

To her right, LMLA-ink lined up ready to take the stage; the man who had got her in, Metofeaz Litigatti, was eager to take his place.

Down to her left is Ms. Polina Rada, an entity with entitlement, and her GuidingMaster, John Page, at the next table watching her, waiting to catch her if she falls or support her when she weakens.

PART 3

On a cloud swept by emotion, the musicians transport their feelings epitomizing intimacy…

Metofeaz’s shoulders sway the way the gentle breeze utters silence. His eyes are still dry as he plays the keys, sounding in words the way it was for her.

Shhh… For the love she feels for him, Rozelle Zofen watches the steam locomotive pull away from the lonely station in the south of France.

The Tourist stands alone beneath the single light of significance presenting a reincarnation of Ms. Rozelle Zofen.

Behind her, a dark blue screen; in front of that only in silhouette, Lazoo stands to the left; he is solemn. Seated at a table with a bottle of wine, Litigatti scrawls what is seen up on the screen that flashes images—a montage of Rozelle and Jon Pierre Solomon in his younger years.

“Illicit Blade of Grass”, he now has in his repertoire; the Poet Soldier leaves her, the object of the woven words still a mystery for her…

Sun seeker, fine features, promiscuous dirt, illustrious dust. How is it you know?... (From Illicit Blade of Grass - POEM / Novel)

The PACIFICAN talks with Le Mac; their conversation is unheard; he holds his chin and thinks as Rozelle begins to sing.

“Bésame / bésame mucho…”

Polina is mesmerized; while holding back the tears that house her own hurt, her heart harbors what the singer signs in hand movements that torment the atmos, that hinder her advance for the one thing her character yearned for yet had been offered by many men.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 12:

PART 1

…Polina Rada was on the back seat of a teetering car, wrapped in her bed clothes, a leather jacket, and her mother’s winter coat. Her parents kissed with their eyes shut tight…as they cocooned their Polina to keep her warm. The car creaked, and Mr. Rada accepted that the only position he could assume at that time was that of a father concerned about the transfer of his remaining body heat to his baby daughter… (From WIPE page 1)

Polina dreaded her dream of dreams. To escape the inside of the confronting cauldron, she lives for others, including this new boy from Georgia.

He refuses to speak any language, but he understands Polina’s smile and warm hand in which his little hand is held.

On the eve of her birthday, her fifth one, she is more concerned with what she can do to cheer up her smaller shadow who would tell her he missed his mommy if he knew how.

He has tears for his thoughts that now escape his flooding eyes and roll down his rounded cheeks.

Polina quickly takes herself down to his eye level and produces a handkerchief she uses to WIPE away the waterworks that begin in earnest once the girl is eye to eye with the little fellow.

After a minute or two, Polina hugs him close to her. Shortly after he has stopped crying, he takes the cotton material from Polina’s hand and holds it, examining the contents before he carefully places it in his pocket.

The Orphanage mistress is once again adamant the boy has no papers. “Polina, for the last time today, Afanasy has no papers,” she says. This usually means a child will not be here for long, which brings a smile to Polina’s face and then a regretful glance at Afanasy, as she wishes she would not want to invest too much of her time in him.

Earlier in the day, Polina had witnessed Afanasy being personally escorted to the Orphanage buildings by KGB in a state vehicle.

Polina looks down on the boy’s dark hair and imagines her own dark hair from atop.

They stand at her bedroom window looking out over the carpet of snow that covers everything, including the tree outside her room.

In her dream, a woman tells her that someday three men will come for her. “Beneath the naked tree, three handsome gentlemen will come to see you…” Afanasy smiles at her inflection and is well aware of how the words make his friend feel; this he makes known first by pointing at the base of the tree where snow is piled up, and then by laughing, which he quickly tries to conceal by placing his pale fleshy hand over his mouth.

Polina holds him close to her with her left arm while she takes his hand from his mouth with her right hand.

He is shy at first, looking up at the much taller girl, who nods at him, “It’s okay.” He blinks and then his brown eyes twinkle right before a burst of brightness is beamed from his brilliant baby smile.

The afternoon wanders off unnoticed by these two, who are satisfied to be alive and standing next to each other looking out on winter from the insides of a home for children who have no immediate family.

PART 2

John Page stands in the doorway to the bar; he scans the dive for any signs of disharmony.

He flattens his bum fluff mo, which falsifies his age to be much more than his wiry frame of sixteen or seventeen suggests.

The guy at the bar, trying it on the brunette woman who appears to be way out of his league, is the guy with the cheesy smile from the TV advertisement for the fast food chain; his smile, he is trying to put to good use.

The woman who humors him by paying him some attention is still waiting for someone important, with something to offer.

Behind John Page in the foyer, the gentleman from the last room down the hallway enters the lift to take him upstairs to his room, which he has left unlocked.

The dapper guy, who is in his thirties, pays close attention to the suit John Page wears. Page stares him down with confidence that a kid could afford such fine threads and that the suit, shirt, tie and boots were indeed his own.

The lift doors close and John Page ushers out any doubt down the shaft of the rickety elevator that now shudders to a halt on the first floor.

The Eagles lyric on the duke box harmonizes with his intent; the blonde girl crossing the square dance floor realizes Page has caught her winking at the guy at the bar, who is reaching for the wonderful looking woman’s hand. She continues toward the table where, waiting with his back turned, is the guy she was very intimate with a moment ago.

“...Were gonna find one / One that really screams / I’ve been searching for the daughter of the devil himself…”

The heavy looking character from the sweat pit the night before eyes him up and down. Page pretends he doesn’t notice him. The other two characters in the crammed booth speak in accents that add an antidotal quality to all the crap that flows from their pasty faces. “God saved the Queen; therefore any republic is only an island and not a nation...”

John Page allows himself to be spotted by the group of tourists checking into the hotel. Their luggage surrounds them. The guy doing all the talking and pointing is walking toward him. “Damn, do I look like the concierge?” Page ends it with a smile as he backs out of the smell of carpet wetted from spilt and spat booze to turn his body and square his shoulders for the approaching guy to reach out to.

Page’s handshake is firmer than usual, but he has to add so as to sure up his chances, “An off-duty one, I do admit, but I do take my job seriously, so I am always at your service.”

The group from somewhere in the Midwest gravitates toward the warmth he emits as he braces himself by straightening his arms suddenly as if about to perform some sort of operation with his wiry hands.

Page is only half ready for the elevator door opening; the dapper guy from down the hallway steps out from the cabin. The unmistakably angry older man is now eyeballing the temple of the younger one’s whirring head; Page’s mouth however continues to deliver dialogue as if the unforeseen occurrence was planned.

Page is busy negotiating his fee for tonight’s tour of the strip. “It’s a complete insight to Vegas, on the tables, under the tables and into the heart of this marvelous place. I charge according to the experience which is unique since it is authenticated by the mitigating factor that I was born in one of the casino’s myself…”

The group now crowds the young guy standing tall with his neck bent from having someone’s face so close to his own, from whence the shit flows.

“…Coming right behind you / swear I’m gonna find you now / One of these nights…”

PART 3

The hallways of the old building echo a different song; Polina recalls its words even though she has yet to hear them out in the open.

The large arched window at the end of the corridor lets in the moonlight; a shadow reaching the far end is cast by someone sitting with his knees hugged close to himself.

“…It used to be pain / but now it’s done / she’s as numb / as he is dumb / too blind / too blind to see…”

Polina listens to her pillow with an attentive ear; she hears her mother’s melody and her father’s account of the rousing guitar that accompanies the mournful lyric.

“… The moon and its stars / have been and gone / the sun that withered their love / leaves them high and dry…”

The shadow moves as if it too hears the same song Polina listens to inside her room behind the closed door.

“…committed to an end / that does not come…”

For Polina, the morning comes when the intrusive sound of the black Mercedes Benz’s engine leaving the iron gates of her home interrupts a gentler episode of her dream. She makes it to the window in time to see Afanasy looking back at her from the fast fading vehicle. He wants to wave to his friend standing at their window, but he cannot bring himself to, until she says, “Happy birthday, Afanasy.”

On leaving her room, she is again reminded of the little boy from Georgia when she finds the handkerchief outside her door.

She bends down and picks the article up; she quickly scrunches it in her hand and marches off down the cold corridor to start her day.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 13:

PART 1

Polina takes the handkerchief Santina hands her and looks around the room as if she is lost. She turns her head again, and then she finds John Page sitting at the table behind her, just to her left.

Center stage the Tourist continues to caress their ears with her song.

The PACIFICAN whispers a translation “…I want to have you very close / to see myself in your eyes…”

The audience seems engrossed in his story LMLA-ink tells with their hands, their hearts, their mouths, using the beautiful minds they have committed to his care. Afamasaga is grateful for this and his acknowledgement is a slow nod of his head Le Mac notices. Lazoo stands still; his hazel eyes are locked on the grey blue eyes that continue to shine for him from in the middle of the audience.

And Metofeaz continues to flow as his creation on screen begins to bloom.

…News of the invasion reaches Rozelle before the broadcast on the radio does. The night has been long. The people do not mind that she repeats her first set as her last. Waiting for his appearance, she warns her band that her voice is weak and that they may need to carry her. The band plays the outro forever, and when she is satisfied that the only movement left in the bar is by those leaving and the employees cleaning, she gives the signal to round it off after the next chorus…(From Illicit Blade of Grass - Page 21)

PART 2

Jon Le Mac unloads the equipment onto the sidewalk, as John Reyer, Le Mac’s manager and roadie, stands there thinking.

From a distance that’s all the PACIFICAN ever seems to do.

Le Mac, an African American kid from LA, swears his father was from a Pacific Island. “My pa was from one of those Pacific Islands, but he knew what work was. You must be the new crop.”

Afamasaga nods his head slowly and notices the guy in the phone box has hung up the phone, which he heads toward as Le Mac continues, “You must be lacking in that work gene bro; better get yourself a pair. Ain’t nothing come from nothing…”

John Reyer Afamasaga’s accent changes depending on his mood; today it is a mixture of English and Hawaiian.

The woman on the other end of the phone says, “I love your accent; where’s it from?”

Afamasaga places his hand over the receiver as he shouts out to Le Mac. “Careful of that sign; it cost us a lot of money, mate!”

Le Mac brushes him off. “Just shut the fuck up and do the bin-ness bro…”

“Let me guess, you’re Australian!” says the woman.

Afamasaga clears his throat. “Paul Hogan’s doing an interview with your station today at six. But he can’t make it; Paul can’t make it. I’m sorry.”

The siren is here before the ambulance screeches to a halt right behind Le Mac’s black panel van.

The PA system, now blocking the entrance to the venue for the first ever American National Karaoke Championships, is more of a concern for Afamasaga who hurries the conversation with the girl from the Radio Station. “He is the celebrity judge.”

Afamasaga hangs up as the Personal Assistant wants to know more. “Can we do the interview there?”

The attractive paramedic extends the ambulance trolley; it clicks and clacks into full size. Afamasaga’s attention is divided between the contraption and the woman who wheels it to where she cannot go any further.

Another ambulance has arrived and its driver and co-pilot step with urgency out onto the Vegas sidewalk and start to assemble their gear.

The heat floats on the horizon, as the sound of more sirens come closer. The black and white units that carry the cherry red lights are more than likely headed for the same address the ambulances are now queued up at outside.

Afamasaga notices the smile on Le Mac’s face; it annoys him.

The medic has her hands on her hips; the equipment in the doorway is an obstacle to reaching the accident where four males are reported to be in need of serious medical attention.

Running into the hotel with his bag, the driver of the ambulance demands,  “Who the fuck owns the gear? Get it out of here before I report it as a fucking hazard.”

The second ambulance crew and their trolley come to a standstill in front of the huge stack of speakers and lights.

Afamasaga walks to the sidewalk where he can see to his left the police approaching and to his right a News Van with a cameraman already with his camera on his shoulder, shooting the unfolding fiasco.

PART 3

John Page watches the action on TV. Outside the last of the ambulances leaves; he laughs out loud at how the vehicle doesn’t stop at the lights. “See that? The carriage with the wounded, whose health and safety should be of the highest importance, chooses to forego the law of the land and ignore the safety signal. Incredible!”

The lesbian dealer, who is also the receptionist, laughs too and shakes her head while she counts the money stacked in small piles on the orange bedspread.

The woman warns him, “They’ll be back; you know that, don’t you?”

But Page is unperturbed. He looks at the threads he is dressed in and then stands up and leaves the room without saying a word.

He slowly closes the door behind him and makes his way down the corridor.

Two figures emerge from the elevator in the hallway’s center. The darker guy takes his key and enters the room opposite the lift, while the other one enters the room next to it. Both doors shut quietly as John Page passes by on his way to the last room down the hallway.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 14:

PART 1

Metofeaz holds his jaw and moves it side to side.

Arley Evon is still there, sitting at the bar with her back facing him, ordering her drink.

“Make that two, please,” Metofeaz shouts out and then points to something behind the bar. “Turn it up, will ya.” The hit of the summer by Anita Baker “Caught up in the rapture” he wants more of. The persona he walked into the bar with is now completely gone.

He shivers and is obviously still shaken by the ugly ordeal. “Where’s the guy in the clown suit?”

The barman shrugs his shoulders and picks up a glass to shine.

Re-entering the bar are the younger woman and her boyfriend.

“Hey, babe, there it is.” Sharon Smith refers to the song playing loudly in the empty bar. The young singer’s head now slumps as she asks for her boyfriend’s reassurance. “Do you think I’m as good as she is?” The boy reassures her, “Of course you are, babe.”

PART 2

An upbeat R&B track plays.

The dance floor is inconspicuously filled with toned, tanned and turned on bodies that move with sensual motion in a self-satisfying manner.

The looks on their faces underplay their parts; they breathe easily to make sure their frowns are foreign, as they feint “Cool.”

Afamasaga utters something to Le Mac who cues the next record.

Jon Le Mac looks out on the crowd; the once empty dive bar is now fully refurbished by the clientele themselves.

The sparkle is coming from the women in shimmering, slinky, sexy wear, dripping in jewels, here seeking out the few exclusive celebrities rumored to be in the swelling crowd.

PART 3

The pounding is first noticeable in his head.

John Page lies as if splayed like a person pan-caked into a pavement face up on the king-size bed in the room slightly larger than the other rooms on this floor.

Now the pounding in his head is reverberated by the thumping coming through the floor.

The light outside is dusk and his throat is as dry as he is parched.

He turns onto his side. On the bedside cabinet, empty and half-filled bottles of alcohol line his view of the otherwise pristine room.

On the desk, a briefcase is open showing documents neatly placed in manila folders.

In the open wardrobe hang clothes of two sizes—at one end one for a larger male, at the other end suits just as fine but tailored for a slighter man.

There’s a gap in the hanging garments that disturbs the tidy arrangement; the suit that once hung close to the others is obviously gone.

John Page reaches for one of the bottles as the sound of someone knocking on the door cuts through the calculations in his head, the pounding of his brain and the thumping from the floor.

Page launches himself to be seated on the side of the bed, with his hands by his side.

The knocking comes again, as he stretches his neck to the left, and slowly to the right.

The pause is a magnificent silence as his stomach begins to churn.

He reaches over to the drawers and takes a bottle in each hand and unscrews each top with his mouth.

The knocking is now louder as he stands and takes a swig from one bottle and then the other.

With the bottles by his side, he walks slowly to the window, his shoulders relaxed since it is obvious the person at the door was a visitor with no ill intentions.

Down on the street, a long black vehicle pulls up to the front of the bar.

A character, wearing a hat and dressed in a plainer version of the suit Page wears, jumps from the driver’s seat and races around to open the door on the opposite rear side of the car.

A leg that seems to be as long as the car itself is extended from inside the cabin; then material both thin and sheer appears at the end of the leg.

Standing tall on the sidewalk is a woman who looks like the world is at her feet.

Page takes another gulp from one of his bottles and then walks backward till his legs find the bed and he collapses back onto it.

This time when he comes to, it is dark outside and the knock at the door is complete with a voice—that of the gentleman from the group of tourists in the lobby. “Hey, mister, we want our money back!” The other voice is from the receptionist. “He’s just resting. He’s good for it; I promise you.”

Page listens to the noise outside the door of the last room down the hallway.

Then he slowly rises to his feet and walks to the wardrobe and fingers through the suits until he finds one with a passport picture in the jacket pocket that he likes the look of.

GUIOPERA CHAPTER 15:

PART 1

A sugary soul track blasts from the speakers.

The help push the tables back to the wall as the affable audience begins to dance around the runway.

They smile, but no one smiles quite the way Lazoo smiles at Genisis dancing; her body movements fulfill the space between the pair.

Her grace glazes his dumb gaze, until she is suddenly taken by someone who cuts in between the beauty and the giddy guy who is gaga from the way she looks at him.

On stage, Lazoo now grins at the sight of his woman in a twirl; the unknown guy acknowledges the Maestro by standing back with one hand on his hip and the other presenting a pirouetting Miss Jones.

This makes Polina laugh, and now she is beside herself at the funny face John Page makes as he backs down the runway with his little girl in tow.

Le Mac grins as he pushes a series of buttons; the streamers from the beams fall as the balloon cradles open up.

Page’s tuxedo shines in the flashing lights; his hair is darker, but his boyish face still holds his chiseled features in place to produce a man as ruggedly handsome as he is compassionate.

The chorus of the thumping disco-like-ditty accentuates Polina’s delight.

Metofeaz smiles at the figure of Rozelle as he approaches her; her hips switch the humping movement that holds his attention.

He glances over his shoulder in time to catch Arley looking his way as she takes the hand of a reluctant PACIFICAN, who begins to laugh.

And now Ms. San Fe makes her way up the steps of the runway; her dress she holds; John Page waves her on toward him.

PART 2

The party lasted three days, during which time Lazoo, Metofeaz, Le Mac and Afamasaga performed on stage all three stories, with help