16 – Veteran Safari

B: [I can too easily imagine how it happened… how Justice Raan’s Praetorian-Guard of Black Uniforms standing 200 metres back from the earlier interrogation, had taken offence at Flute’s appearance… her plucky poise beneath the Eucalyptus trees out front of The Museum. The Praetorians had taken note how she stood up for herself un-cowed, no matter the heft & height of Raan intended to intimidate her. Those Senior Uniforms, two men and two women, had no doubt brooded upon this drama… had felt humiliated by Flute’s spirit of dissent…and had themselves felt rotten with the shame of their willing-servitude to all The False Authority. No amount of polished metallic badges and chromed accoutrements could conceal their complicity with the Syndicate of Evil. In low voices, watching from the sidelines, they would have colluded spitefully: how they’d wait for their shift to end, then go arrest this surly Apprentice… arrest her on suspicion of “dis-respecting SySa”.  They’d teach her a brutal lesson in humility, while explaining how she’d brought this violence upon herself, by her behaving as if she was better than them. They’d show her that The Special Police were the business-end of SySa’s private power over The Public, because who among the cringing masses would ever dare question their Lawful Right to do whatever the hell they wanted?

No one…that’s who.

This year past had proven that.]

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D: [There you stand, Flute…in the villa’s walled courtyard …skinny & bare-skinned beneath the lose & faded denim of working-dungarees. You’re wearing a heavy-duty military gas-mask protecting your lungs and eyes from the dust as you sweep straw and poop from the terracotta tiles of the enclosed courtyard, scattering chickens and cats who mill around each other in the afternoon heat.

You are chattering to yourself…

No…I take that back. The Lady Captain at the door was quite right : you’re singing.   

When you sense me looking, you stop still and that gas-mask looks up and over at me with its glass eyes and chrome-rubbered snout

I am still panting… heaving heavily from my run here.

A small red bird alights on your plume of hair piled above you. He evaluates the situation… seems satisfied I’m no immediate threat… and so flies on as you pull-off the protective head-gear.

I’ve not braced myself for the sudden flourish of your face; your cheeks and lips are as flushed and mouthwatering as the segments of a blood-orange freshly peeled… that spray me with a smile.]

F.  “You took your time, slow-coach.”

D. [You’re only teasing sweetly, because when I arrived at the early Georgian-era villa at the edge of town here, the upsetting incident was all over.

Apparently four Praetorian Uniforms had turned up to arrest Flute, but the situation had un-ravelled in a quite un-expected way…which I’m beginning to realise is a sort of signature for the Firelight crew.

Explaining precisely what crisis had arisen, was the Army Captain who’d opened the studded wooden door to me, with her welcome way of speaking slow’n’easy. ]  

LJS: “Oh ho! So you’re the one responsible for Flute’s recent symptoms:  she’s stopped talking to herself, and started singing; and you, young Soldier, are the likely cause.” [The Captain is a handsome, slender woman in combat-singlet & matching military-shorts… and has a distinctly pregnant curve to her belly. All of this is born on gracefully strolling mechanical-legs, elegantly engineered from shiny metals and exposed pneumatics that appeared to join her human parts somewhere high above the knees.]

D: [This is as good a picture as I could find of handsome Captain LJS, who is scrutinising with those wildly experienced eyes, the dangerous terrain around her.]

LJS: “We’ve been hearing all about you… in anatomical detail. Our Flute has an Artist’s eyes for those things, and all the right medical words, too.” 

[The Captain had led me through a wood-panelled 18^th Century corridor into the terracotta flagstoned courtyard, where you, Flute, were hard at work beneath that full-face-mask and that broom in your hand.

When you sense sensed the depth of my upset, you trotted swiftly over and hugged me tight, your arms full around my middle, and your cheek against my chest.

Felt lovely.

I can smell the citrus-scent of your hair, and my palms cup your head as tears plop on to you.

I treasure every ounce of this creature…but Boy, she sure puts the “ow!” into ounce.]

F: “I’m only giving you this hug to let our bees know you’re with me. They won’t sting now my smell & electricity are on you.”

D: [Without taking your head from my chest, you ask me a question.]

F: “What would you have done, had you arrived while the Uniforms were here?” (I felt the long pause inside of you…)

D:… Broken the Rules, I suppose. You two Girls aren’t the only ones Good at being Naughty.

F: [I was meant to be me comforting him, but Danse had moved his palm to the back of my head, where he caressed me in little circles, while his other palm stroked down my spinal-vertibra, squeezing me into him.

Felt lovely.

Illy, Tinks and Shishoni will all hug me in their own distinctive way, but Danse’s embrace…his engulfing me in those lion paws… felt and smelt so particular, that I tingled and sighed in a way that I didn’t know I could. We stood wrapped in each other like this for what must have been a full minute.] 

D: [When you looked up and saw my tell-tale eyes, you sought to reassure me…]

F: “What did you think would happen to me? The Baddies wouldn’t dare mess with Jemima?”

D: [Jemima, by the way, is a Wren the size of your thumb. Here she is in the brown and buff feathers…to the left of Red Chester, who’d fit in a hand.]

D: [Flute’s right, though : you can see by Jemima’s puffed-up bearing and watchful eye that she could be quite… adversarial.]

F: “Come on… let me introduce you to the rest of the team here (and I took you by one of your big hands, which I like to do every chance I get). This gentleman is our African Grey Parrot, called Harold, who we calculate is some 80 years of age. He’s taking care of little-dog Kipper, showing him the ropes.

Harold: “Fuck-off, Sailor!”

F: “He doesn’t mean that… He calls everyone a Sailor.

And over there is our long-eared owl, Max… who mentors all the other FNG’s 

We have a family of Crows who come and go as they please, as Crows will.

You’ve met Red Chester… and there’s a Swan called Laker; and Trotter the fox… but they’re not at home right now.”

D: [A little goldfinch landed on your shoulder, and let you take a hold of him gently and then you placed him into my hand, folding my fingers around the little fellow as you told me: “This is Claudia… and this is how gentle we all have to be with each other, here at Safari.”

I could feel Claudia’s little life in the palm of my hand… so ever so slowly I opened my fingers, and she sped to the branch of an apple tree. You explained how The Safari is a place for Military Veterans, First Responders, and other Organic Creatures wounded in a wrangle with the inconsiderate world-in-too-much-of-a-rush: struck by a car…poisoned by pesticide…profoundly shaken  in some way.  But the dozen or so men & women gathered from the old school Uniformed Services, before last year’s events changed everything…that Regular Team of 12 were on an away-day training in the countryside. So here on duty today, it was just Captain Long Jane Silver  –  a former Jet-Fighter Pilot severely wounded on a combat-mission   –   whose husband is the Regimental Sergeant Major, also retired.]

D: [This shows the RSM on operation in the field… and I like how it captures the clean shaven, solid build and quiet contemplation which so characterise the gentleman. I’ll leave you to imagine the depth of voice and gravitas which go along with that physique.]

RSM: “The Soldiers among us no longer fight each other  –  we fight the Evil Governments & Corporations who connive to wage war where ever they can cause it.”

D: [He had placed a glass flagon of cool water well-laced with good salt and lime juice, and continued his explanations as we all four now sat around the shaded wooden table and its circular bench]

RSM: “But here at Safari, we apply the simple principle that Beauty is the essential nourishment that will heal mind & emotions, while also helping to accelerate ‘physical repair’.

LJS: “We’re not a Hospital, though, because the individuals here heal themselves with Nature’s help: for this, we have garden-allotments, a free-range animal farm, orchards… all on the edge of town.”

F. “We’re not a Zoo, either, because every creature here is readying themselves to live again in the wild. Meanwhile, all the animals here take care of all the others.”

RSM: “Everyone here is on a journey back to full health and beyond, which is why we called ourselves Safari…from the Swahili and Arabic word for ‘an adventurous expedition’.”

F. “It was the Captain here who taught Tinks to climb without ropes…LJS would free-solo every spare moment when she wasn’t flying fast-jets. And it was our Sergeant-Major who taught Katinks to parachute into the river.”

D: [While we talked, LJS was sewing closed the side of my torn cassock, as the RSM explained how he felt left-over from olden times….holding the fort here till Rome sends further instructions…]

RSM: “It’s been 1600 years….so I’m expecting my new orders from Italy any day now.”

D: [It was the Sergeant-Major who took-up my question about what had happened in the minutes before I showed up.] 

RSM: “There’s a thump on the door and The Praetorian Uniforms swagger in…two Men, two Women. Say they’re here for our Flute.

We Humans pretend to nod along with that.

But the birds among us…they aren’t having it.

They get agitated.

First, the hens start clucking on   –   presumably demanding some documentation.”

LJS: “Then our Red Cardinal disapproved of the surly tone those Uniforms were taking, so he summoned our family of Crows….who are always up for a scrap… and they proceed to flap around the helmet-heads.”

RSM: “Then the bees deploy their entire battalion. How they knew there was something amiss, I do not know. Is that Electricity, Flute…. or Bio-Chemistry ?

F: “Probably both, RSM!”  

LJS: “Our friend, Young Picadilly Punk, has been educating us about bio-electrical fields… so I reckon the hive received an invisible signal that their friend Flute was in peril…

even the Bloods & Cripps of the Butterfly-world wanted some of the action and were fluttering around ready to go full-bore on the Bad Guys.”

RSM: “Things came to a Mexican stand-off : the bees, the butterflies, and the birds…all squaring-up to the four Uniforms, ready to take’m down.”

LJS: “Then four Punishment Beetles ooze themselves into the courtyard here, with that slow’n’low creep of theirs. They’d prized open our front door and just marched on through.”

RSM: “The four Uniforms puff up now…on account of the titanium reinforcements.  Presumed they had the upper hand. But then the Lead Beetle pivots to address the Boss Uniform.

LJS: The Female voice tells him: “Praetorian, you are instructed to withdraw.”.

RSM: “And when the Uniform hesitates in confusion, Beetle wraps its metal-claw around the barrel of the Uniform’s weapon, and crumples it flat like it’s an empty can.”   

LJS: “The other Beatles had already grabbed a hold of the other Uniforms…at which point they all left together, real peaceful…  like dancing partners at a hoe-down.”

RSM: “I’d say it turned out for the best that the Metal showed up when they did, otherwise those four Uniforms would have come to a sticky end…

LJS… “most likely they would… since the birds, bees n butterflies were more than ready to go full bananas.”

RSM: “Oh…and there was me thinking it was you, my Treasure, who was poised to take ‘remedial-action’?”

D: [If you look again at the picture of the Captain, above, you can see in the set-of-the-athletic face, and the look in those fabulous amber eyes….how that Mother would confront with devastating ‘Speed times Mass’ anything that threatened the Cubs in her care…of whom Flute, I realised, was one.]

RSM: [Taking his wife’s hand admiringly…] “You… are my Captain Long Jane Silver.”

LJS: “And You… are my solid-gold Sergeant-Major.”

D: [And their fingers entwined in a clench. Coming to think of it, with those words as clues, I now recognised this couple from Flute’s coin-family cossetted in velvet back in Old School, and she later explained them to me: how the handsome Silver Dollar from 1923, whose radiantly Feminine-Liberty ‘trusts in God’, this represents the Captain…made of precious metal who has found her match in The Regimental Sergeant Major represented by this exceedingly rare Roman coin, struck in gold 2,000 years ago. You can see how it celebrates the assassination by dagger-strikes, in the year 44BC, of that very first Roman Tyrant to wear the name of ‘Caesar’. In understanding the coin’s inscription…EID.MAR… it helps to know, as Flute told me, that Caesar’s execution by Brutus & co… yup, that same Shakespearean Brutus we probably read about in English classes…that very real history all took place on the 15^th of March, a time in every month which the Ancient Romans referred to as ‘the Eides’.

Hearing these coins referred to, I fondly recalled Flute’s adopted Family of fine Heads & intriguing Tales, and I looked over at her now. She met and held my gaze and gave me a smile as if I was somehow of the foremost importance… her main concern. That’s quite an achievement for a Girl who’s slender neck….contained, I recall, a soft-tissue airway plus an  oesophagus for food… a set of vocal chords tuned upwards of Middle-C…  the Atlas-vertebrae and a spinal-column… plus a carotid artery and a jugular vein. I didn’t think I was much bothered with Biology, but I’ve been rather taken by Flute’s inner-workings ever since I danced with them this morning.

Sorry, I’m losing my train of thought: I wanted to say that her level of self-less attention was quite an achievement for a Girl whom all the Legal & Properly Licensed Authorities were hell-bent on capturing… so they could separate-by-guillotine the cleverly-kind head from the wisely-courageous body… and thereby prevent that defiantly ‘creative partnership’ from foiling their hidden plots & secret sabotage… their Evil All & Sundry. Inspired by her pluck, from my own private & personal places, a verse of song emerged, and though spoken only inside of me, I felt the words no less for their being held silent:

“I envy the water …you invite me to share

The endangered creatures… for which you so care

I envy the thoughts… that light up your face

The song in your mouth… my kiss could replace.”

When Flute retreated into the cottage-villa to change out of her dusty dungarees, the silver coined Captain explained that her minted-gold RSM is a Military Engineer… “builds bridges & blows things up”. This prompted him to recount something intriguing about Mr Alfred ‘Dynamite’ Nobel…the Swedish fellow who founded all those world-famous annual Prizes that bore his name… back when the world still awarded prizes for Good Works. But I’ll have to come back to that story, because Flute’s just now appeared from her shower…  the one I’d been gladly listening to through the open window, from whence wafted a few notes of song, born on the scent of freshly-squeezed fruits. You’re now in a delicate summer dress of the gentlest egg-shell blue, and nicely reminiscent of a Spartan toga: sleeveless, synched at the waist with a slender leather belt, and cut high above the knee. You wore your hair cascading down, presumably to balance your every other feature, which perked upwards. No. Not just perked… your face full fountains from your body as if a bouquet of wild meadow flowers. I had been too quick to talk of water-colours back at the Pond, because if Tink’s profile was laser-cut, then Flute’s features could be the work of a woman-artist whose one palm has held still the Girl’s head, while the other has fashioned the damp clay with precision tools, before a wet finger-tip has smoothed and softened the curves. Once cooled from the kiln, the fired earth has been painted with freckles, and those cheeks peached with the sun’s gently ripening rays. Gosh, how I wish to rest my skin against hers.]

There were warm hugs, we downed the last of that refreshing salt-lime water, then Flute and I set-off to team-up with Shishoni & Katinks. This involved us taking a discrete under-ground Exit from the walled Safari-Villa, that brought us out in another leafy suburb, from which point we could stroll through the near deserted backstreets of the town’s older quarters. In the softening dusk light, I told Flute “I really liked your friends at Safari.”

F: “Aren’t they lovely! I’m still astonished by any Soul who’s been badly wounded but can find ways to mend themselves…and so beautifully.”

D: [Here you are, not one hour on from being dragged-off by a SySa-Squad to face their acidic interrogations… yet whose story seems of most interest to you?

The lives of your Veteran-Safari crew, that’s who.]

D: “When I was working in the Library, I discovered the paper-note you’d slipped into my pocket. Thanks for writing that.”

F: “Oh, but it’s I who should thank you: your song’s been so helpful with regaining my composure after the Uniform incident. What you said to me this morning about singing and how it washes out the fear…really works, doesn’t it.”

D: [And with that, you began to la la la to my cantering-melody, a capella… And what could I do but join in … all be it only with the sounds, even though in the privacy of my head, I sang the words as well, the ones I wrote in the woods yesterday:

“Oh you’re firelight

And full-moon bright

Such life ablaze in you”

D: [As the last notes left your lips and were carried off by the early evening breeze, you stopped and turned to me.]

F: “Danse… there’s something I wish to tell you about Katinka, so you might forgive her being abrupt with you sometimes.” (I took a deep breath to help me tell you the next bit…)

“SySa murdered her beloved fiancé… exactly a year ago from this very weekend. I think you might remind her of her special chap…and those memories raise such emotions in her…. that she feels desperate to warn you… to do what she couldn’t do back then. She’s pretty tough with me, too, you’ve noticed… but only because she cares so much. She’s like that stern old teacher at school… who we all knew loved us.”

D: [I haven’t seen your face this serious since you almost chose to kill us both, back in the train station getaway.] “Oh Flute… I’d never have known…could not tell she’s known such tragedy. She’s so luminous…so quick to joke…I…” F: “Yes, those high-spirits of hers are sheer bravery… I cannot imagine what strength & skill it takes to be so much the Captain & Commander of how she behaves. That Requiem for the Dead we heard playing behind the break-in yesterday … The Sanctus by Gabriel Faure… was Katinka’s chosen theme to mark this Vendetta… and to be her Beautiful Revenge on all the Wonderfulls that were stolen from her.”

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