‘Gaya,’ a Surreal Adventure–Chapter Three

“To get to the stomach, we’ll first have to pass through the tunnels of the large and small intestines,” Tesel told his army as they passed by the rectum. From there, one could see passing out of it the bodies of the slain in the battle they’d just fought against Aisa’s men. Groans of annoyance from Tesel’s troops behind him were his only reply.

“And after the stomach, to Gaya’s breasts to feed from?” Lia asked, hoping to raise the soldiers’ spirits.

“Yes,” Tesel said “Then we can finally be nourished.”

The fecal smell of the area was overpowering.

“I can smell that nourishment already,” Fil said with a scowl.

The soldiers continued grunting in disgust as they left the rectum and entered the large intestine, trudging along in all reluctance. Their feet often got stuck in the thick, knee-deep mud of this anatomical sewer.

“Patience!” Tesel called out. “We’re almost there.”

Finally, nearing the upper end of the small intestine, where they’d soon enter the stomach and leave the worst of the smell, Tesel’s troops were beginning to revive good spirits. But they noticed a gigantic, long, worm-like animal lying immobile along the side of the tunnel. It seemed to be sleeping.

Lia looked back at the others with her finger to her lips. “Don’t wake it,” she whispered to Fil, who passed the quiet message on to the men behind, who passed it on, and so on.

They all crept by as quietly as they could. They could hear it breathing and softly snoring…or was it snoring? Was it eating? No, it wasn’t snoring, it was making slurping sounds.

The soldiers looked in awe at the size of the beast. Its length was almost the entirety of that of the small intestine. Its diameter was almost twice the height of the average man among them. Even the slightest noise any of them made would cause all of them to shake in fright. If they drew its attention, would it find them appetizing?

Tesel, Lia, and Fil reached the far end of it, by the exit of the small intestine. They saw its head. It was huge. A man behind Fil made an accidental stomping sound of his boot on the muddy floor, loud enough to attract the worm’s attention. It turned its head around to face Tesel and Lia.

“Kappitta,” he whispered to her. “I’ve heard stories about this monster. It’s been eating Gaya’s food…starving her.”

Of a puke-pinkish colour, it had huge, black balls for eyes, and a toothless mouth large enough to fit a man inside it. In fact, just then it demonstrated this ability with the one who stomped on the ground. His scream when put inside was muted as soon as Kappitta closed its mouth. Now the giant parasite was looking at Lia.

“Attack!” Tesel shouted, flailing his sword.

All of the soldiers standing along the great length of the worm stabbed their swords into its side, causing it to let out a deafening wail. It then used its tail to slap the rearguard of Tesel’s men, smashing their bodies against the wall of the intestine tunnel and crushing many of them.

The survivors rushed up ahead to get as close to the front as the space in the tunnel would allow. Tesel, Lia, and Fil were thrusting their swords at Kappitta’s face to keep it from taking another victim into its mouth. The men behind continued stabbing at it with their swords, and it responded by pushing its body against them, crushing more of them against the wall of the tunnel.

It managed to fight past the jabbing of the swords of Tesel, Lia, and Fil to get another screaming soldier in its mouth. It sucked him deep inside its body. As his body traveled through the first quarter of the length of Kappitta’s body, he could be seen punching and kicking bubble-like bulges at the side facing his surviving comrades, all of whom shuddered at the sight. Soon, the punching and kicking stopped, replaced by a disturbing stillness. No more bulges.

Tesel, Lia, and Fil were jabbing and slashing at the worm’s face with greater ferocity and intensity, not only to prevent another soldier from being eaten, but also while stepping closer to it so the rest of the soldiers could pass behind their three leaders and get safely out of the intestine and into the stomach. Not all of the warriors were able even to get to the head: Kappitta kept undulating its snaky body to crush many of them against the intestinal wall.

As the three continued poking their swords at the giant monster’s face, one more man got sucked into its mouth, screaming, kicking, and flailing his sword in all futility. Lia grabbed him by the feet and tried to pull him back while two of the women fighters replaced her at jabbing their swords into its face; but Kappitta gave one huge suck and pulled the man all the way in. It almost pulled her in with him, too, except that Tesel pulled her back with all of his might.

After falling back with her against the wall of the tunnel, he shouted, “Run! Now’s your chance, while it’s feasting on our poor comrade and is distracted! Run!

They all ran out…except for one of those two women fighters, who got sucked into Kappitta’s mouth. Its mouth closed before she had a chance to scream. She traveled through its body, her life fading away without any struggle, for she was content to have sacrificed herself to help save her comrades.

The last of Tesel’s men scrambled out of the intestines, and the survivors got into the stomach. They collapsed on the swampy floor in exhaustion and just lay there, panting and gasping. As they looked all around the large, dark, empty cave, they noticed the conspicuous absence of something–digested food.

“Kappitta must have sucked all of Gaya’s food into its body,” Lia said. “It didn’t just kill our comrades; it’s killing her, too.”

“And look around us,” Fil said with despondency in his eyes. “Look at what else is lacking: so many of our comrades!”

Tesel was counting the heads of all the survivors with a frown on his face. “We must be reduced to about half of our original number,” he said with a sigh. He heard a loud collective groan from his men. “Yes, the rest of our campaign will be harder…but not impossible!”

He now heard an even louder collective groan from them.

Then, they all heard voices from high above:

Damnissheevergonnawakeup?Ineedhermybusinessisgonnatakeadivewithoutherstarpowerifshedies.C’monGayasnapoutofit.
Isthatallyoucareabout,Asa?Makingmoneyfromfilminghertitsandassandfuckingandsucking?Youaresuchacreep!
Shutup,Lila.I’mabusinessman.Ihavetocareaboutthosethings.
AndGaya’smyfriend.She’salsoahumanbeing,andIcareabouther.

“Do you hear that, comrades?” Lia said, standing up and reenergized. “The gods are telling us that we mustn’t give up hope!”

“How do you know they’re saying that?” one of the weary soldiers said. “You can’t understand their muddled speech any better than we can. For all we know, they could be saying that we should give up on Gaya.”

“I know through the feelings in their voices,” Lia said, hearing a harrumph from the soldier. “I also know that we mustn’t give up hope precisely because things are looking so hopeless. Look around you, you slothful soldiers! Look at the lack of food in Gaya’s stomach, its emptiness apart from our presence here; there’s a lack of food because Kappitta has been eating it all. We must find the strength to carry on, because if we don’t, she will die, and then we will all die!”

“We’ve passed through the worst,” Tesel added. “Now we will go up, out of her stomach, and to her breasts, where we can feed from her mammary glands. That nourishment will give us new, needed strength. Then we’ll go to her heart, to feel what she feels, to make our pity for her grow, to motivate us to fight harder for her sake. I assure you, troops, that things will only get better for us from now on until we face Kappitta and Aisa’s men for the final confrontation. That final battle will decide, once and for all, everyone’s fate: will that giant worm and the enemy die, with some of our own, or will we die, and then everyone dies, including not only our enemies, but Gaya, too.”

“Now, will you give up like the cowards that Aisa’s men called us as we retreated here, or will you stand up and fight for Gaya?” Lia asked. “There’s milk in her breasts, waiting for us.”

Hungry to be fed, the soldiers had motive enough for the trip; so they got up and marched out of the stomach and up towards Gaya’s breasts.

Gaza

Howcanwemovesouth
tosafetywhenthesouth
isn’tanysaferthere?
Howcanweleave
homesincethey’d
alreadytakenhome
somanyyearsago?
Howcanwegoout
whenweareheld
inanoutdoorjail?
Canweevenmove
aninchifweareall
crowdedsoclose
together?Canwe
cryforhelpifnoone
everlistens?Can
wedrinkdirtywater?
Canwebehumanifthey
saywe’reanimals?Canwe
fightifonlytheyhaveguns?
Howisourdefenceoffence,
andtheiroffencedefence?
Ifyoucan’trespond,then
we’llrespondwithHamas.

‘Gaya,’ a Surreal Adventure–Chapter Two

After a long march along the tunnels inside Gaya’s legs, the two separated bands of Tesel’s army reached her knees. In exhaustion, they all fell on their knees, hungry and despairing over the prospect of facing another ambush of Aisa’s army in the pelvic region.

“We can’t do it,” one of the men said to Fil.

“We’ll all be killed,” a man next to him added.

“It’s a miracle that as many of us survived as we did,” a man said to Tesel.

“Aisa’s men are sure to attack us again, as soon as we emerge from these leg tunnels,” Lia said. “Still, we can’t give up. Gaya is depending on us.”

“I know,” Tesel said to her. “But look at these men. They are completely demoralized.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“That I don’t know,” he said.

Tesel and Lia looked out at all of their tired, miserable soldiers, as did Fil in the tunnel of the other leg. They couldn’t give up, yet they could only give up.

Just then, they all heard a female voice from up above. Was it a goddess’s voice, or that of a heavenly, female angel? The soldiers all listened in total silence.

This is what they heard: GayathisisLilayourfriendpleasedon’tdieonmeIwon’tbeabletobearitIneedyouIloveyouInever toldyouthatbeforebutIreallydoI’vealwayslovedyoueversinceourfirstscenewefilmedtogetherandit’snotonlyyourbodyit’sallofyouyourmindyourheartyourpaineverythingIwanttoshareallthosethingsofminewithyoursandIcan’tdothatifyoudiepleasedon’tdiewakeupsweetiewakeup

Though it was hard for the soldiers to understand what the goddess was saying up there, the sobbing in her words voiced what language couldn’t. Tesel was inspired by the pain he heard, and he strove to translate it to the men.

“Men!” he called out in a voice so loud, even Fil’s men in the tunnel of the other leg could hear him. “I know you’ve suffered, I know you’re tired and hungry, I know you’re afraid, but you must remember that Gaya has also suffered, she is also tired and hungry, and she is also afraid, because she is dying. And if she dies, we will all die, too. This horrific reality is why we must not give up hope, as hard as not giving up will be. Did you all not hear the weeping of the goddess from up in the heavens? She was weeping for our dying world!”

The men were now looking up at Tesel, those on both sides listening with love in their hearts for their land. They were beginning to feel ashamed of themselves for their weakness and selfishness.

“Now,” Tesel went on, “if we die in our next battle with Aisa, then we’ll die; but we’ll die fighting–we’ll die having tried. If we just stay here, afraid to die, we’ll still die in the end, because Gaya will die. We’ll have allowed Gaya to die. But…if we go back up there and fight, and win…or fight, and retreat on the other side, and enough of us survive, there is already great honor in that feat alone. What’s more, our survivors can move up her body, feed on her breast-milk, feel the love of her heart, gain fighting skills from her hands, and gain insight from her mind. All of these together can be used to defeat Aisa’s army once and for all, and to save Gaya, to bring her back to health! Men, are you with me?!”

“YEAHHHHH!!!!” all of the men on both sides shouted.

This speech gave all the soldiers renewed strength and hope, and after having had enough rest, they all rose and continued their march in the tunnels of Gaya’s upper legs. Those led by Tesel and Lia, having heard his speech louder and right before them so they could see his encouraging eyes, were all the more inspired and energized, so they reached Gaya’s pelvic region sooner. Fil’s followers were slowed down all the more by his sporadic swigs of wine from a cup he’d been hiding from Tesel’s sight in a bag tied to his belt.

Aisa was watching the approach of Tesel’s men. He was pleasantly surprised to see so few.

“Is that all?” he asked his second-in-command, Lew. “Surely more than that retreated from us.”

“The other half went down the other leg,” Lew said.

“Yes, but why haven’t they returned with Tesel’s men?” Aisa asked.

“They may arrive soon after,” Lew said.

“Or they were so intimidated by our strength that they rightly don’t dare try to fight us again,” Aisa said with a proud smirk.

“That could be, but just to be sure, we should station some men to watch the entrance from the other leg.”

“Very well. Have three men wait there, and they can call out to us if the rest of Tesel’s men emerge. I suspect, all the same, that they’ll be too cowardly to face us again.”

So three of Aisa’s men were put at the other leg’s entrance. while the rest of them, grinning with ravenous teeth, watched Tesel’s group approaching.

All of them are going to fight our half of the army?” Lia asked. “We cannot take on all of Aisa’s men at once, not without Fil and the others.”

“I suspect they think the half that Fil is leading won’t come at all,” Tesel said. “Fil is probably slowing them down with his pauses to drink wine. You know how he is. After all, I’m not with him to stop him from doing that.”

“Then the drunken fool won’t lead his men into battle!” she said.

“Oh, he will,” Tesel reassured her. “Fil may be a drunk, but he’s trustworthy, we know that. He and his men will just be a little late.”

“Late enough for us to be massacred!”

“I don’t think so, Lia. Aisa’s men have a hungry and overconfident look on their faces, as you can see before you. They’ll take the fight lightly. We know Aisa’s pride. Meanwhile, Fil’s tipsiness will bring out his aggression, and his men will charge right in as soon as they see what’s happening. They’ll surprise Aisa’s men, taking them all off guard, and this just might aid us in a victory, or at least a severe weakening of Aisa’s men, which will be an encouragement to us.”

“That just might be,” she said with a smile.

“All of you back there,” Tesel shouted back at his half of the army. “Fight hard! Fil and his men will arrive to help us soon enough! Take heart! The more of Aisa’s men we kill without Fil’s men, the greater glory for us. Charge!

All of Tesel’s men yelled as they rushed forward.

Aisa’s men didn’t bother with the illusion of dancing nude women this time. They considered this battle an easy win without the need of tricks, and they knew that Tesel’s men wouldn’t be fooled by that illusion a second time in a row, as enticing as it might have looked. They just charged in as their enemy was doing.

Aisa and Tesel ran straight at each other, their swords raised up high, and their teeth clenched to show their lust for each other’s blood. Their swords clashed with an ear-splitting clang and locked together, and looking each other in the eye, the men struggled to bring the other’s sword down.

Both armies smashed into each other like colliding cars. Aisa’s men imagined they would just eat up Tesel’s but they were surprised–and impressed–to see so much bravery and resilience in such a small group of troops.

Tesel’s army managed to mow their way through a large section of Aisa’s. Blood was spraying everywhere, but Aisa’s men in the back assumed most of it was the enemy’s blood. Lopped-off heads and arms flew in the air.

Tesel and Aisa kept clanging their swords together.

“This is suicide for you and your men, Tesel,” Aisa said when both men paused to regain some strength. “You should not have come back. You have no hope of defeating us. All of this bravery your men are showing will have been for nothing. Give up!

“We still have a few surprises left, Aisa,” Tesel said, then lunged at his enemy. Their clashing of swords resumed.

Fil’s followers emerged from the top of Gaya’s leg. As soon as they saw the three men stationed there by Aisa, Fil and two others threw knives at them, hitting each dead in the chest. They fell before they could call out to Aisa’s army. Fil and his soldiers could come up and attack their enemy from behind unseen.

They all lined up behind Aisa’s rear guard and began by stabbing each man in the back. The men’s cries of pain were heard by those immediately in front of them, but when those men turned around, swords were stabbed in their guts before they could defend themselves. The next line of Aisa’s men were ready, though, and Fil’s warriors had to clash swords with them.

Aisa’s men had adjusted to fighting on two fronts now, and they were no longer taking the fight easily. They were making all of Tesel’s men feel the full power of their fighting ability. They were turning the battle around in their favour.

Aisa’s sword slashed a deep cut in Tesel’s arm, making him slip and fall. Aisa raised his sword, ready to deal the killing blow, when Lia raced over and slashed Aisa’s left leg. Aisa limped with a groan of pain.

He swept his sword in the air in an arc that would have sliced off her head had she not dodged it. Then he tried a lunge at her guts, and he would have killed her, except…

…an earthquake…

Everyone fell to the side. Luckily for Tesel’s men, most of them–including himself, Fil, and Lia–fell upward in the direction of Gaya’s heart and breasts, farther off from Aisa’s men to be able to retreat. They all heard voices from above:

That’sitletsgetheroverontothisbedoverherethenwecanreplacethesheetswithfreshonestheregoodnowlet’sgetthedirtyoldsheetsandpillowcaseoff

The earthquake ended as quickly as it had started, and Tesel’s men quickly got up and took advantage of the situation.

Aisa’s men watched them retreating. “That’s it,” one of them shouted. “Run away from us again, like the cowards you are!”

“Don’t listen to them!” Lia shouted. “We’ll be back, and we’ll be better!”

“That’s right,” Tesel said, his hand on his bloody arm. “We’re heading for Gaya’s stomach, then to her heart and breasts, where we’ll feed and revive ourselves. We’ll reach her hands, where we’ll improve our fighting skills, then finally to her brain, where we’ll learn a battle plan to defeat Aisa once and for all. Onward!

His surviving soldiers were tired and hurt, but with much more confidence and hope. They could see a real possibility to defeat the enemy.

Terraces

The upper classes
are kept up by the middle classes,
who are scared of dropping to the lower classes.

The wealthy
should be lowered to the middle,
so that we can bring the poor up from their misery.

The super-rich
will never be brought down,
so the poor must rise up to take them down.

The establishment of a temporary workers’ state
can equalize us by keeping a tight leash
on the rich, stopping their rise;

then the capable
can produce all of the things
that everyone needs, down to the neediest.

‘Gaya,’ a Surreal Adventure–Chapter One

Their world was dying; they had to band together and fight the enemy to save her. Tesel was leading his group of about fourscore warriors through the dimly-lit tunnels, caverns, and caves inside of Gaya, a planet that was a giant woman’s body (Yes, as odd as that sounds, that’s what it was, so just go along with that.).

Aisa’s army of at least about a hundred men were ravaging the planet’s subterranean world, using their swords and spears to hack up her insides. Tesel’s latest report was that Aisa was in the intestinal region, cutting through the smelly huge tubes of flesh his army was trudging in. Tesel and his fighters were dreading having to go there, less because of the foul stench and the disgusting mud they’d have to wade through–how like a sewer!–than because they knew, in confronting the larger and much stronger enemy, that they were facing almost certain death.

As Tesel’s army marched toward Gaya’s intestines, they heard voices from above, from time to time. The voices were from far off, but loud enough to be heard underground. Tesel’s fighters believed that these voices were coming from heaven, the voices of gods, goddesses, and angels, voices of comfort and assistance. They had no idea of what the celestial voices were saying, what the words meant, words of a totally different world, but they listened carefully every time they heard the voices, stopping their marching to be as silent as possible, hoping and trying to figure out the words’ mysterious meaning. Was it divine aid, given in a cryptic form? They certainly wanted to believe it was.

At one point, these were the fragments they could make out:

comapornographicactress…ketaminealcoholmarijuanaecstasy…semengangrape…glasscuts…onherfaceshouldersandbreastscarcrashalmostdrownedinalake…nofamilyIDGayaWeld…awoman…foundherandtookhertohospital

They heard all the sounds run together, but couldn’t discern any meaning behind them at all. When the talking was finished, they resumed their march to face Aisa’s army.

Tesel’s right-hand man was Fil, who wrote in a log recording the events of every day, including the reports of Aisa’s army in Gaya’s intestines. Now, Fil was a good man and a brave fighter, but he was also prone to drinking lots of wine at night, so Tesel often had to discipline Fil to make him leave the bottle alone. A woman warrior who fought in the front ranks of Tesel’s army was Lia, handy with a sword, and with a great love of their planet, eager to save and protect Gaya to the point of fanaticism.

As dedicated as Tesel’s warriors were, though, Aisa’s men were a formidable, deadly bunch. Aisa’s right-hand man was Titos, who directed the men into battle and was a crucial aide in the strategizing of battles, including how to create diversions and distractions so their army could sneak up on unsuspecting victims. The man who produced the distracting visions was a magician named Gujon; he often seduced the enemy with enticing images of dancing, beautiful nude women. Just as the enemy was most in the women’s thrall, that was when Aisa’s army would attack, usually killing them all.

Many of Aisa’s men enjoyed raping the conquered enemy, male and female alike, often in the form of brutal gang rapes. Lia was fully aware of the danger she was getting herself into, as were all of the female fighters in Tesel’s army; their love of Planet Gaya, and their dedication to protecting her, was so strong that it rendered all fears of rape to be virtually nonexistent. To these women, Aisa’s rapists were little more than aggravating, unfaithful former male lovers.

Tesel’s army knew they were getting close to the intestinal area: the smell was getting overpowering. Some of the warriors were retching; a few others were puking. It was getting darker than usual: the glow that inexplicably lit the tunnel walls was dimming. The warriors were moving slower now. They kept as quiet as possible, listening for any movement of Aisa’s army.

As they crept closer, the foul smell vanished unaccountably. It was replaced by a fragrant, flowery smell, like perfume.

“What?” Tesel whispered after a few sniffs.

“Well, thank the gods for the pleasant change,” Fil said.

“No, Fil, this isn’t right,” Lia said. “This can’t be really happening.”

And just then, a dozen beautiful nude women appeared before them all, dancing seductively.

“They’re real enough for me,” said Fil with a lustful smile.

“Me, too!” shouted several men at the front of the army.

All of these men, including Fil, dropped their weapons and ran at the women, grabbing them and putting them in position for gangbangs. The women, smiling lewdly, offered no resistance at all. Only Tesel, Lia, and all those soldiers who were too late to get at the girls, refrained from the indulgence; though Lia was looking at a nude dancer who looked identical to Gaya Weld, and wishing she could have her.

All of the nude women seemed to be enjoying their multiple penetrations as much as their penetrators were, including the one Lia was interested in. The three soldiers all having her at the same time looked like the ones at the house party Gaya Weld had driven away from.

Though the rest of Tesel’s men couldn’t physically participate, they all enjoyed watching the orgy, all of them looking on as if hypnotized. The women fighters–apart from Lia, who continued looking longingly at ‘Gaya,’ looked away from the spectacle in disgust. Tesel watched only in disbelief.

“You’re right, Lia,” he said with a frown. “This is wrong. It can’t be really happening. It must be one of Aisa’s tricks.”

…and just as he finished saying that, Aisa’s men, as if on cue, ambushed the lot of them. Of the men in the orgy, only Fil escaped death, for the nude dancers suddenly transformed into men with swords and knives, stabbing their would-be lovers. Though as unarmed as his fellow soldiers were initially, Fil managed to get a sword from one of his attackers, stab him, then slice his way out of the ambush.

Of the female fighters who were jumped and put into the same positions as the ‘dancers,’ only Lia was able to fight them off before they could rape her. She was swinging and lunging with her sword in a frenzy, stabbing, disemboweling, and decapitating her attackers one right after the other. Then she looked over where her female comrades were having their clothing torn off.

She ran over to their aid, stabbing her sword in each rapist’s back as he was too distracted by his lust to see her coming. None of the other men in Tesel’s army could help her rescue the women because they were too busy trying to fight off Aisa’s horde, if not being killed already.

Fil and Tesel watched in horror as they saw their men getting mowed down by the enemy. Blood was spraying everywhere, as were the deafening screams of those whose bodies were being invaded by swords. The deaths seemed to be all on their side only. Tesel saw Aisa from a distance, laughing at Tesel’s great losses.

“This isn’t a battle,” Fil said to Tesel. “It’s a massacre!”

“You’re right,” Tesel said, then shouted, “Retreat!”

“Retreat!” Lia and Fil shouted with him. “Retreat!”

The survivors, after fighting off those in the front lines of Aisa’s attackers, ran off with Tesel, Fil, and Lia. They split up into two groups, one following Tesel and Lia, and the other following Fil.

Their total remaining number was about sixty now, thirty going with Tesel and Lia, and thirty going with Fil, running down large tunnels going in two separate directions. As they’d started going, some of the survivors looked back, seeing the bloody corpses of the fallen slipping through the tubes of the intestines to be shat out of Gaya’s anus.

The great majority of these fallen were Tesel’s men, not Aisa’s. The great majority of the fallen men of Aisa’s army were those killed by Lia.

As the survivors were running frantically down those large, separate tunnels, they were shaking in fear and trying to treat their many wounds. They faced a long trek the way they were going, with no idea if they were going in a useful direction or not.

“Where are we going, Fil?” a soldier asked him in panting breaths.

“I’m not sure,” Fil said. “I hope we’re going along the tunnel of Gaya’s arm to her hand, where we can acquire better fighting skills.”

Lia asked Tesel the same question as they ran down their tunnel, and she got the same answer from him; but disorientation from the terror they felt from the attack made it impossible for either Fil or Tesel to be sure if they were going the right way. All they knew is that they wanted to be as far from Aisa’s men as they could.

After a long trek down those tunnels, they reached slight bends in them, at the same distance from where the tunnels began and branched out.

“Is this an elbow?” Tesel asked. Fil wondered the same thing.

Hoping they were right, relieved that they weren’t being chased by Aisa’s men, and too exhausted from their constant marching, they all decided to stop and rest there. All of the soldiers in both tunnels fell to their knees with loud groans.

As they rested, they bandaged the wounds they hadn’t had time to look at when they were constantly on the retreat. They were hungry, but they had no food.

They heard voices from heaven again:

Ithinkshe’sdreaming…peopleincomasdon’tdreamsomedo,doctor…haveyouchangedherbedsheets?We’llgettoitsoon.

Still, Tesel’s men didn’t understand a word of it.

After several hours of sleep, they all got up and resumed their trek along their respective tunnels. Tesel and Fil, leading the two groups, kept their hopes alive that they were nearing Gaya’s hands, where they’d all be sure to learn how to wield their swords better.

Eventually, after hours of marching, they reached the dead ends of their tunnels. No indication of how to improve as swordsmen was given. Also, the caverns they’d entered were too large, too spacious, to be the insides of Gaya’s hands.

Tesel and Fil realized the exasperating truth at the same time.

“Oh, no,” Fil said with a sigh.

“This isn’t a hand,” Tesel said. “It’s a foot. We went down the legs, not the arms.”

“We went the wrong way,” Fil said. “We have to go back.”

All the warriors in both feet let out despairing moans.

They all turned around, and with the greatest reluctance, they began marching back in the unavoidable direction of Aisa’s army.

Analysis of ‘The Lady Vanishes’

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White. The film stars Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, with Dame May Whitty and Paul Lukas.

Though filmed in London, The Lady Vanishes caught Hollywood’s attention and Hitchcock moved there soon after its release, for David O Selznick was convinced of Hitchcock’s talent and believed he had a future in Hollywood cinema. Considered one of his most renowned British films, it’s ranked the 35th best British film of the 20th century by the British Film Institute.

Here is a link to quotes from the film, here‘s a link to the full movie, and here‘s a link to White’s novel.

In the novel, the female protagonist’s name is Iris Carr, whereas in the film, she is Iris Henderson (Lockwood). In the film, Henderson gets on a train and says goodbye to her female friends; in the novel, Carr’s friends get on the train while she, tiring of what she feels is oppressive human company, refuses to join them on it.

Instead, Carr goes wandering on the slope of a mountain in “a remote country in Europe (in the film, it’s a fictional country called “Bandrika”), for she is a young Englishwoman on vacation. She gets lost out there, and after only briefly enjoying her solitude, she soon comes to regret it, so she returns to her hotel, where she finds the other English guests similarly annoying.

In the film, Henderson’s only dislike of social convention is the marriage she is only reluctantly participating in. There is a sense, much more pronounced in the novel, of Iris not wanting to go along with social conventions. This reluctance of hers will have much more importance when…the lady vanishes, as we’ll soon see.

Many of the novel’s English guests are replaced in the film with such characters as the cricket-obsessed Charters and Caldicott (played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, respectively), the comic relief of the film who would become very popular with filmgoers and reappear in such films as Night Train to Munich and Dead of Night (the Charles Crichton sequence).

As for Miss Froy (Whitty), in the novel, she’s just a governess and music teacher who accidentally learns of the misdeeds of the story’s antagonists, who then abduct her with the intention of killing her to silence her. In the film, however, she is a spy pretending to be a governess and music teacher. (In the novel, a character named Max Hare, who on-and-off helps Iris, imagines a hypothetical situation in which Froy could be secretly a spy [in Chapter XXV, “Strange Disappearance”].)

In the novel, Hare–a young British engineer who knows the local language–is replaced by Gilbert Redman (Redgrave), a musicologist. Gilbert begins by irritating the hell out of Iris by playing his clarinet to stomping dancers in the hotel room directly above hers. After she has the manager remove Gilbert from his room, the uncouth musicologist imposes himself on her by using her room for his accommodations without her consent, infuriating her all the more. But about halfway into the film, he proves himself the only real friend she has, in that he’s the only one who believes her that Miss Froy exists.

So a recurring theme in both the film and novel is that nothing is as it seems. Gilbert seems a cad, but he becomes not only a true friend to Iris but also her love interest by the end of the film. Miss Froy in the film seems to be a mere governess and music teacher, a sweet and innocent–if rather chatty–middle-aged woman, but it turns out she is a spy. A patient with bandages all over her face, we learn close to the end of the novel and an hour and thirteen minutes into the film, is the abducted Miss Froy. The Todhunters are believed to be honeymooners, but we eventually learn that they are an adulterous couple.

Just before getting on the train to leave the hotel, Iris becomes a tad disoriented after something drops on her head (in the novel, she suffers sunstroke). Her disorientation is used by the schemers who have abducted Miss Froy to make her doubt her memory and perception. I’ll come back to this issue soon enough, and I’ll expand on its significance.

Froy speaks, at a hotel dinner table with Charters and Caldicott, of how much she loves it in Bandrika. The two men, unimpressed with anything other than cricket, have no interest in the country or its culture, so as she is rambling on and on about the snow-capped mountains and the ubiquitous singing, the men rest their heads on their hands in boredom waiting for her to stop. (In the novel, it’s Iris on the train who is annoyed with Froy’s ceaseless chatter).

Froy’s interest in the locals’ music isn’t merely a sentimental one, though, as we eventually learn. As she is listening, from her hotel window that night, to a man singing a tune and playing a guitar, she’s tapping her hands to the music’s rhythm, for in this tune is a secret code she must bring back to England, something connected with certain unsavoury things the movie’s antagonists are planning to do. For this reason, the singer/guitarist is killed, and Froy is to be abducted, the antagonists pretending she doesn’t even exist. These intrigues for which she must be silenced aren’t in the novel, though.

Instead, in the novel, Froy is aware of “a small but growing Communist element” that she euphemistically calls “the leader of the opposition” in the country where she’s working as a governess. This “element” has accused her late, aristocrat employer “of corruption and all sorts of horrors” (which shouldn’t be surprising, since communists consider feudalism to be far worse than capitalism). Froy feels that these political matters are none of her business, so she doesn’t want to take sides. Still, one night she witnesses her employer using her bathroom to wash up (Chapter VIII–“Tea Interval”). She innocently thinks nothing of it, but later on we learn that he was washing blood off of himself after having committed a murder (Chapter XXVI–“Signature”). The aristocrat family employing her don’t know how much she knows, which she might share with the Reds, so the lady must…vanish. Hence, the Baroness in the coupé with Froy and Iris.

Now, when the lady vanishes from her seat on the train, and Iris asks the others in their coupé, they all deny Froy’s existence. Iris is shocked and amazed that they could deny her friend, for Froy has clearly been among them up until Iris, still reeling from her hit on the head (or sunstroke), needed to take a brief nap.

This denial of Froy’s existence extends to everyone on the train, though not necessarily for the same reasons as the Baroness and her family. Still, these people are lying in their denials, denying something so obvious to Iris. In this lying, we see an early example of something that would eventually get the name of gaslighting. Now, The Wheel Spins was published in 1936; The Lady Vanishes came out in 1938; and Patrick Hamilton‘s play, Gas Light, premiered in December of that year. The American movie version of his play, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, came out in 1944 (and incidentally, Dame May Whitty also had a supporting role in that film). So there is an amazing prescience in both the novel and Hitchcock’s film.

Gaslighting isn’t the only thing that The Lady Vanishes is prescient about, though. There is a political subtext in the film suggesting, in allegorical form, the lead-up to WWII. The conspiracy not only to abduct Miss Froy but also to deny her very existence is ignored by the British passengers on the train (apart from Iris and Gilbert, of course), except for when the train is detoured and stopped in a forest, where the British are now forced to confront the antagonists, who plan to shoot them all. These antagonists can be seen to represent such European fascists as those of Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini (recall the Italian magician in Iris’s cabin, Signor Doppo, played by Philip Leaver, who gets into a fight with Gilbert over the acquisition of Froy’s eyeglasses), Romania, Hungary, Poland, and Francoist Spain.

This late involvement of the other British passengers in Iris’s and Gilbert’s confrontation with the Bandrika conspirators can be paralleled with British appeasement of, if not outright support of, fascism in the 1930s (recall that infamous footage of members of the British royal family doing Nazi salutes). One needn’t look to Chamberlain‘s appeasement of Hitler in Munich, which happened just a week or so before the release of The Lady Vanishes.

[Note how Chamberlain-like Mr. Todhunter wants to avoid conflict with the antagonists right to his very death, when he foolishly gets out of the train to wave a handkerchief as a flag of surrender, then gets shot. I’m as anti-war as they come, but even I know when an enemy is so implacable, as the film’s antagonists are, that war with them is unavoidable.]

The fact is that fascism has always been used to further the interests of the ruling class, regardless of whether they’re capitalists or feudal aristocrats like the Baroness and her family in the film and novel. Britain and the other western capitalist countries began to oppose the fascists only when the latter began muscling in on the former’s imperialist turf, rather like when Charters picks up a pistol to shoot at the antagonists only after one of them has shot him in the hand.

So the climactic shoot-out in the train in the woods can be seen as prescient of, and therefore in this sense allegorical of, WWII, or of political conflicts in general, anyway. It is in this political context that we can begin to understand not only the true meaning of the gaslighting of Iris but also her sense of social alienation and Froy’s abduction, disappearance, and denial of existence. This understanding applies in both the film and the novel. In Chapter XXXII–“The Dream,” we learn of how “When she [Iris] was a child she suffered from an unsuspected inferiority complex, due to the difference between her lot and that of other children.” This feeling of being different, of not being able to fit in with other people, can lead to a tendency to see the world differently from the mainstream crowd, and to see injustice where others don’t see it.

How often are criminal acts, the ones that really matter, hidden from the public view, as Froy’s abduction and disappearance can be seen to symbolize? The ruling classes, the imperialists, the settler-colonialists, and the fascists commit the worst crimes in the world, and through their wealth and power, they usually get away with their crimes. Indeed, in the novel, Hare tells Iris that the Baroness will use her influence to evade being implicated in the conspiracy now that the doctor and his assistants have been arrested (Chapter XXXIII–“The Herald”).

Similarly, the powerful use their influence to marginalize all those who would challenge power structures and demand inquiries into any injustices committed, as Iris is isolated when she demands that Miss Froy be found. Evidence of crimes is eliminated or denied, as is the very existence of Miss Froy. Such an elimination of evidence is happening right as I type this, with the cutting-off of communications in Gaza while the genocide of the Palestinians is going on; elsewhere, many still deny that the Holocaust ever happened.

All of this brings us back to the central theme of the film, which I brought up earlier: nothing is as it seems. Dr. Hartz (Lukas) seems helpful to Iris and Gilbert, yet he participates in the gaslighting and intends to drug the two. In fact, the “nun” (bizarrely wearing high heels and played by Catherine Lacey), who under Hartz’s orders is to drug the drinks of Iris and Gilbert, never does so; our two protagonists fool Hartz by pretending to be unconscious until he leaves their cabin.

The nun is not only pretending to be such, but also to be deaf and dumb; furthermore, her loyalty to Hartz and the other conspirators is only apparent and ephemeral, for as soon as she realizes that Iris, Gilbert, and Froy are British, her own British patriotism is kindled, so she quickly switches from the antagonists’ to the protagonists’ side.

Hers is an example of the many British passengers waiting so long before switching to the good side, these Chamberlains of the film. The Todhunters don’t want to acknowledge Froy for fear of an inquiry leading to publicity and a scandalous exposure of their affair to their spouses. Charters and Caldicott won’t acknowledge Froy for fear of the resulting inquiry delaying the train, making them miss their so-fetishized cricket match (which ends up being cancelled due to flooding, anyway).

We see in these examples how selfishness gets in the way of justice, and it’s the obstinacy of our social misfits like Iris who ensure justice in spite of the odds. After all, she’s such a misfit, at the last minute she decides not to get together with her fiancé when back in England, preferring the uncouth Gilbert instead.

Making Froy into a spy, rather than just someone who’s innocently stumbled upon a criminal act without realizing its significance, was an improvement on the novel. Ending the film with a reunion of her–playing the coded tune on the piano–with Iris and Gilbert was also an improvement on the novel’s rather dull, anticlimactic ending, with Froy arriving at home and reuniting with “Mater,” “Pater,” and their dog, Sock, which is rather drawn-out and sentimentalized. The story works best as a political thriller, showing how going against the grain is often the best way to win out against the wicked in the world.

‘Gaya,’ a Surreal Adventure–Induction

Oh I’m really in the K-hole now nothing I see is what it really is but it sure looks real from here that was a wild party but I had to get away so many drugs so much booze this song I got playing on my radio saying it all…”marijuana, ecstasy…alcohol…K-K-K-cocaine!”

That and all the sex I had men pumping in and out of all three of my holes the K stopped me from feeling any pain I’ve got my foot pressed down on the gas my bare foot (Am I still naked?) it’s so dark out here as I race out into the night not like the bright light of the living room at the house party all those men with their hands all over me it’s so good to be all alone now away from them and their groping what I see out here looks like dark fungus instead of trees or bushes

Were the guys filming us as we did it I didn’t see Phil with his camera normally he films every bit of sex he sees especially when I’m involved since I 21-year-old Gaya Weld am the big star of all their money-making movies I saw Phil holding the bottle of Jim Beam I was drinking from I guess he was too drunk and stoned to be able to hold his camera steady just as I’m much too drunk and stoned to be driving

Yeah I’m no steadier behind the wheel than Phil would be with his camera I can feel myself going left and right it’s a miracle I haven’t crashed of course there’s nothing for me to crash into all I see are stars up above am I in my car or am I in a spaceship…yeah that’s it I’m in space!

Everything out there beyond my headlights is pure black except for the stars glowing up above I see no road before me no borders to the sides of it just black so I’m in a spaceship going far out there it’s thrilling to get away from Earth it’s a sick planet I feel like a sick planet myself so it’s good to get away from myself and everything that’s so awful down there

It’s fun having sex partying all the time getting drunk and stoned but I hate my life all I do is try to escape from everything from my pain from being used and abused all the time by men who take my body and ram into it and think that giving me lots of money will make up for everything they do to me

I have a great body with nice natural big tits curves and a round ass a pretty kissable fuckable face but that’s all anyone sees of value in me can people please like me for more than just cocksucking I’m tired of just being a thing for men’s pleasure don’t I have a mind too there must be more to life than what I have been doing with it

It all started the first time my dad raped me when I was a teen he made me feel as though sex is all I’m good for then all the boys in high school started taking advantage of me and a boyfriend got connections to the adult film industry as soon as I was old enough to be hired for it

and here I am now a spacewoman among the stars

It feels so good to get away from the troubles of the Earth to be up here in heaven safe from all the dangers down there in that hell of a place with no more men making me degrade myself

Oh look at that out there space the stars up above it’s so beautiful I feel free here in my spaceship no one to bother me no one to grab me

Sex is good but have you ever been in outer space on your own so free you can go anywhere you want and nobody nothing can stop you

Man I am so high from this K I’m on it’s like there’s a force field all around me protecting me like metallic armour no one can hurt me here out in space my head is swimming my brain feels like it’s getting a massage from skillful sensitive gentle fingers

I’m so high I forgot to put on my astronaut uniform I’m sitting here completely naked at my seat it’s chilly with the roof down and the wind blowing in my hair but there’s no wind in outer space I’m really stoned this K-hole is like a wormhole into the other side of the universe or into a completely different universe where maybe I don’t know maybe there could be wind blowing around in space like all the laws of nature and physics are completely different in this alternate world

In any case I’m flying in my spaceship without a care in the world ’cause I’m in a totally different world where all the rules are different and I’m free of rules free of constraints free of men trying to take advantage of me I’m free I’m happy for the first time in my whole miserable life I’m actually not miserable for once

Hey what happened to the stars I don’t see them anymore everything has gone black is that all giant clumps of dark green fungi that I see in front of me how did that all get there all of a sudden where am I?

My spaceship is shaking as if I crash-landed on some strange dark planet at night no sun no stars nothing to see but black and dark giant fungi the ground the wheels of my spaceship are running on feels rough and gravelly where am I going?

Something vaguely wavy is in front of me is that water is my spaceship going to go into it or is it a wormhole taking me God knows where

Oh my ship hit something I’m not wearing a seatbelt so I’m flying forward out of my seat my head and shoulders feel something (glass?) I’m breaking through the K is ensuring I don’t feel any pain I’m flying in the air flying

All I see is wavy blackness is this a wormhole I’m going through I’ve just hit a watery surface head and shoulders first that’s what it feels like anyway this must be a wormhole into another world another dimension I’m so high nothing feels real nothing is what I think it is I feel wet I feel cold

In this new world can I breathe water like a fish I’m about to find out