The Soft Machine

could see a number of workers with sharp sticks and gourds of seed planting corn—The boy touched my shoulder and disappeared up the path in jungle dawn mist—

As I stepped forward into the clearing and addressed one of the workers, I felt the crushing weight of evil insect control forcing my thoughts and feelings into prearranged molds, squeezing my spirit in a soft invisible vise —The worker looked at me with dead eyes empty of curiosity or welcome and silently handed me a planting stick— It was not unusual for strangers to wander in out of the jungle since the whole area was ravaged by soil exhaustion—So my presence occasioned no comment—I worked until sundown—I was assigned to a hut by an overseer who carried a carved stick and wore an elaborate headdress indicating his rank—I lay down in the hammock and immediately felt stabbing probes of telepathic interrogation—I turned on the thoughts of a half-witted young Indian—After some hours the invisible presence withdrew—I had passed the first test

—

During the months that followed I worked in the fields—The monotony of this existence made my disguise as a mental defective quite easy—I learned that one could be transferred from field work to rock carving the stellae after a long apprenticeship and only after the priests were satisfied that any thought of resistance was forever extinguished—I decided to retain the anonymous status of a field worker and keep as far as possible out of notice —

A continuous round of festivals occupied our evenings and holidays—On these occasions the priests appeared in elaborate costumes, often disguised as centipedes or lobsters—Sacrifices were rare, but I witnessed one revolting ceremony in which a young captive was tied to a stake and the priests tore his sex off with white-hot copper claws—I learned also something of the horrible punishments meted out to anyone who dared challenge or even think of challenging the controllers: Death in the Ovens: The violator was placed in a construction of interlocking copper grills—The grills were then heated to white heat and slowly closed on his body. Death In Centipede: The

'criminal' was strapped to a couch and eaten alive by giant centipedes—These executions were carried out secretly in rooms under the temple.

I made recordings of the festivals and the continuous music like a shrill insect frequency that followed the workers all day in the fields—However, I knew that to play these recordings would invite immediate detection—I needed not only the sound track of control but the image track as well before I could take definitive action—I have explained that the Mayan control system depends on the calendar and the codices which contain symbols representing all states of thought and feeling possible to human animals living under such limited circumstances— These are the instruments with which they rotate and control units of thought—I found out also that the priests themselves do not understand exactly how the system works and that I undoubtedly knew more about it than they did as a result of my intensive training and studies—The technicians who had devised the control system had died out and the present line of priests were in the position of some one who knows what buttons to push in order to set a machine in motion, but would have no idea how to fix that machine if it broke down, or to construct another if the machine were destroyed—If I could gain access to the codices and mix the sound and image track the priests would go on pressing the old buttons with unexpected results—In order to accomplish the purpose I prostituted myself to one of the priests—(Most distasteful thing I ever stood still for)—During the sex act he metamorphosed himself into a green crab from the waist up, retaining human legs and genitals that secreted a caustic erogenous slime, while a horrible stench filled the hut—I was able to endure these horrible encounters by promising myself the pleasure of killing this disgusting monster when the time came

— And my reputation as an idiot was by now so well established that I escaped all but the most routine control measures—

The priest had me transferred to janitor work in the temple where I witnessed some executions and saw the prisoners torn body and soul into writhing insect fragments by the ovens, and learned that the giant centipedes were born in the ovens from these mutilated screaming fragments—It was time to act—Using the drug the doctor had given me, I took over the priest's body, gained access to the room where the codices were kept, and photographed the books—Equipped now with sound and image track of the control machine I was in position to dismantle it—I had only to mix the order of recordings and the order of images and the changed order would be picked up and fed back into the machine—I had recordings of all agricultural operations, cutting and burning brush etc.—I now correlated the recordings of burning brush with the image track of this operation, and shuffled the time so that the order to burn came late and a year's crop was lost— Famine weakening control lines, I cut radio static into the control music and festival recordings together with sound and image track rebellion.

'Cut word lines—Cut music lines—Smash the control images—Smash the control machine—Burn the books— Kill the priests—Kill! Kill! Kill!—'

Inexorably as the machine had controlled thought feeling and sensory impressions of the workers, the machine now gave the order to dismantle itself and kill the priests—I had the satisfaction of seeing the overseer pegged out in the field, his intestines perforated with hot planting sticks and crammed with corn—I broke out my camera gun and rushed the temple—This weapon takes and vibrates image to radio static—You see the priests were nothing but word and image, an old film rolling on and on with dead actors—Priests and temple guards went up in silver smoke as I blasted my way into the control room and burned the codices— Earthquake tremors under my feet I got out of there fast, blocks of limestone raining all around me—A great weight fell from the sky, winds of the earth whipping palm trees to the ground—Tidal waves rolled over the Mayan control calendar.

I Sekuin

THE MAYAN CAPER—THE CENTIPEDE SWITCH—THE HEAVY METAL GIMMICK.

I Sekuin, perfected these arts along the streets of Minraud. Under sign of the Centipede. A captive head. In Minraud time. In the tattoo booths. The flesh graft parlors. Living wax works of Minraud.

Saw the dummies made to impression. While you wait. From short-time. In the terminals of Minraud. Saw the white bug juice spurt from ruptured spines. In the sex rooms of Minraud. While you wait. In Minraud time. The sex devices of flesh. The centipede penis. Insect hairs thru grey-purple flesh. Of the scorpion people. The severed heads. In tanks of sewage. Eating green shit. In the aquariums of Minraud. The booths of Minraud. Under sign of the centipede. The sex rooms and flesh films of Minraud. I Sekuin a captive head. Learned the drugs of Minraud. In flak Braille. Rot brain and spine. Leave a crab body broken on the brass and copper street. I Sekuin captive head.

Carried thru the booths of Minraud. By arms. Legs.

Extensions. From the flesh works of Minraud. My head in a crystal sphere of heavy fluid. Under sing sign of the scorpion goddess. Captive in Minraud. In the time booths of Minraud. In the tattoo parlors of Minraud. In the flesh works of Minraud. In the sex rooms of Minraud. In the flesh films of Minraud. March my captive head. HER captive in Minraud time streets.

On a level plain in the dry sound of insect wings Bradly crash landed a yellow cub—area of painted booths and vacant lots—in a dusty shopwindow of trusses and plaster feet, a severed head on sand, red ants crawling through nose and lips—