Chapter 4

"It has been a long time, Old Man. I remember not liking the sensations," he said to his companion. He was dreading the experience that was impending.

"You need not like it. Just do it. Think of the people. Of both worlds. Just put your head down and walk through the portal," came the retort. It was true. Much was at stake. But the fact that the prize might be in the Order's hands, and that he will be the one to wield it, was pumping his heart with an adrenaline rush.

They came to the portal. He still could not believe, after all these years, that such a symbol of mysticism in this dimension was hidden in such plain sight. It stank of the wastes of animals. "Funny how shit smells the same everywhere," he thought to himself.

"Let's get this over with."

They both walked into the sewer pipe under the New Jersey turnpike.

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They emerged in darkness. Quietly, they slipped out of the baobab tree that housed the other end of the portal. Stephen Hawkings would have been proud. His theories were true after all. As they pushed apart the curtain of leaves that hid the huge split on one side of the trunk, huge spears emerged from the corners of their eyes and ended close to their throats.

"Your pathetic daughter was no challenge to our skilled interrogators, you wretched fool. Your mission was doomed from the start, once we knew that you only had this path to return to this kingdom. She told us everything we wanted to know. Most of the rubbish we had already known anyway." He spoke with as much authority as he could muster. He had to hide the fact that she killed 3 guards and 2 interrogators before they managed to pin her down and get the smallest amount of information from her. The 10 long days in between were the worst days of his life. His master was an impatient man.

"Your fear betrays you, Mordred. And you were lucky. The 10th day was his limit."

Mordred was furious. The veins in his forehead almost erupted. "Drag them away to the dungeons! And send a runner for the Master at once!" His minions moved in and dragged the prisoners away.

"Ah....Its good to be back, Old Man. Thanks a lot!"

Merlin turned his head minutely, and grinned.

Aw heavenly pungent fecal matter, the sky is gloomy!

The Duff had just turned his head to see a foreboding sky beckoning. This will really ruin all his best laid plans, and we all know how those turn out. Blame it on the rain he says.

The reason he is so upset is because he has invited some friends over for a party on this public holoiday to celebrate his country's birthday. And to just get together to get an update on each other before they go their separate ways and gossip behind each other's backs.

Pricks of a feather.....

The Duff returned home last night at the new dawn. He has been at a session of mahjong at the request of his slave masters. He said no but secretly the inner gambling demon awoke from its long stupor and began his war chant.

The Duff lost $54 dineros. He was up though, his ego kept reminding him later.

However, it was some good clean fun. Laughs and elbows to the ribs. Ranks dissipated and the conversations were not as controlled as he usually experiences them with that particular set of company.

The Duff was thinking the other day (another rare occasion). There is a rage currently in his social circles, of changing work ethics. The rage is to have an additional source or sources of income, to supplement whatever slave pittance a particular slave might be receiving. There are many courses to teach anyone and everyone on how to be an entrepreneur, or to trade stock options and the like. Everyone is getting onto that bandwagon.

However, The Duff believes that such intelligent and dynamic environments are too much of a challenge for the robotic slavers being churned out from the slave training camps. Their minds are simply not adequately equipped with......societal skills, much less business acumen. What the smart guys are doing instead are starting all these courses, getting genuinely good ideas and doing them, making these slavers do the guinea-pigging and then gobbling up their so-called accomplishments when they fail.

There could be another smart bunch who instead strive at the slave camps, kill or step over the robotic slaves on the way to the top(because all good robotic slaves love to just do the work and not take the responsibility, thereby staying at their respective glass ceilings) and then gobble these guinea-piglets to make everybody in the slave camp look good, the slave master most of all?

Food for thought. Your Truths?

The Duff has been coming home to a welcome sight recently. There has been a bird, a small one like a humming-bird, which perches itself on a branch at his porch. It'd be there every night, sleeping, breathing, dreaming. At first, The Duff's gal thought it was a fake, eventhough The Duff told her otherwise. In the mornings, it would fly away to get that fateful worm. But every night, it returns. To the same spot. And dream the same dream.

Another welcome sight had been his gal, who had been working hard on a project but doing it at his place. For more than a week, she was practically living in his room, working so hard to meet oncoming deadlines and changes from the client. But having her there was good enough for him. A smile was always at the edges of his lips. If she was to do the project from home, The Duff would have had to go to her castle at the end of each back breaking slave day just to see her hunched over her laptop. Still nice, but just not as much.

Is all the slaving in the world really worth the pain and the suffering? Shouldn't work be enjoyable? To be cherish and appreciated for the challenges it brings? It should cater to one's needs and desires, and not the other way around. When did everybody learn to compromise, and worse still to accept it as part and parcel of all things?

Should each and everyone of the human race yearn and stretch to an ideal?

This has been another thought deluge. The Truth is within you. The Duff wants it.