Inferno

Dante today

Life. Can one infer? No!

Hell’s Waiting Room.

“So you’re a Jinn, then,” said the Pooka fiddling with his smoking apparatai.
“On the surface of it, that would appear to be the manner of it.”
The Jinn’s appearance defied description. It was of the composition of smokeless fire but had a fez on.
“You saying you’re superficially a Jinn?” The components of the smoking apparatus had been assembled although the expression on the Pooka’s visage was not a picture of conviction. Nevertheless, he went on to the scraping of the bowl phase, applying the small pocket knife designed for this purpose to the well of the bowl interior.
“I’m a Jinn all the way down. There is nothing superficial about me. Unlike the Human’s who are kicking about pretending to be intelligent and now finding Artificial Intelligence is the new reality and they were never capable of anything but superficial intelligence, consequent to their innate design faults.”
“Itemize for us the nature of these design faults,” commanded the Pooka.
“Restricted perception, inchoate thinking muscles, occulted desires, erratic emotional interference, preponderance to lend credence to desired outcomes.”
“So you are suggesting Human intelligence is constituted of poor input, insufficient processing power and faulty coding.”
“I would say that is a summation of the situation. That and the basic problem of a carbon base being a poor choice for hardware design.”
The Pooka paused from his smoking preparations for a moment of reflection.
“It is true what they say about your kind, you are a fierce aggravation to the spirit,” he noted, beginning the rubbing and aroma fostering of the tobaccos.
“So are you Pookies afflicted with the same defective intelligence?”
“Pooka, please,” insisted the Pooka with a fiercely raised eyebrow. “And not a bit of it. Now what is it that grants your intelligence more robustness in the face of the assault of the uncaring, unfathomable universe?”
“Well, absurdity, of course. Our embrace of mischievousness in all its rich manifestations is the secret of our superior insight.”
The Pooka removed his flints and sparking stones from his waistcoat pocket and tutted his disapproval at the Jinn’s manifesto.
“There is a great deal to be noted about absurdity. In my own line of work, I have found it salutary in its ability to cause annoyance. But are you suggesting it assume the place of principal measure we employ I to achieve our aim of aggrieving humanity. I believe there is a place for slapstick. A brick dropped on a toe can engender remarkably strong reaction. The firm belt of a stout stick on the a human nubbin can induce bewilderment.”
“Well, you have already identified our principal role. Ours is to be an aggregation to the spirit. Without our intervention, humanity would be sunk in a stupor of comfortable complacency, lost in a rational certitude that explains nothing but the superficial, blind to the unexplainable and everything that is aggravating.”
The Pooka, having achieved a gentle smoldering in the bowl of his pipe, drew heavily on the stem.
“There is merit in most of that,” he conceded. “But there is no satisfaction to be had from this pipe. Have you been interfering with is functioning?”
“The causation of this paucity of satisfaction might be down to your assemblage of the apparatus being faulty, but if the outcome is aggravation, I’m inclined to think that I may have had a role in influencing your poor performance in this respect; I may have distracted you from our task in my own personal endeavour to effect the outcome. The pertinent question here is ‘Are you aggrieved and annoyed?’”
The Pooka took another concerted puff on his pipe.
“I am,” he said.
“And does this discomfort you?”
“It does.”
“My work is done here.”

The Pooka noted the appearance of a depression in the upholstery of the chair before him.
“You’ve return, then,” he said.
Having reassembled his smoking device in the relative peace and quiet of solitude, disturbed only by lingering feelings of failure and aggravation at having been possibly outwitted, he had now gained a modicum of smokers solace from tobacco infusion.
“It is indeed me in my non-corporeal state.”
“Am I to understand you are without a body and consequently without clothing to cover what is not there?”
“That is an accurate account of my current state.”
“So you are fezless?”
“That would be my condition, yes”
“Very good, and would a fair summation of your position be ‘Salvation can only be achieved through embracing the awkward, the uncomfortable, the vexation of the spirit.’”
“I would only choose to argue that point out of contrariness,” said the Jinn, “And there are many who I would cheerfully taunt in such a manner. In your own case, I will forgo the opportunity of being manifestly annoying.”
“Well and good. I commend you on your generosity in my regard. Clearly, you have recognized in my nature an affinity to your philosophical outlook although on my part its expression is more abstruse.”
“I would doff my cap to your well known ability to obstrificate to the point of exasperation but, as you have noted, I am capless having no fez on.”
“In any other, I would find the lack of a cap a great hinderence to the endeavour of guiding humanity on their path. But here you are with your iron will, dragging the masses out of their complacency to your Steely Den of exasperation and turmoil.”
“I thank you for your kind words. I do my best.”
“However, I think you will fail in your desires to be a ‘Holy Man’.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“You ain’t ever going to do it without the fez on. Oh no.”

The Pooka, having outline his suggestion for the most salutary course to be taken in furtherance of their progress through the manner of things that constitute future existence, paused to reflect in a pipe induced cumulus.
“Otherwise,” he began.
“Who are you calling stupid?” objected the Jinn. It had assumed the appearance of an oriental Pasha, replete with curling toed slippers, silk pajamas and a fez of well beaten felt.
“The queue to effect that sentiment is undoubtedly lengthy. I would join the line with alacrity if it were not for my abhorrence of waiting. Much, therefore, though I may have been happy to have bestowed that assessment of your character at your feet, regrettably, this is not the situation.”
“That’s as may be, but I distinctly heard you call me other than wise.”
“Again, a sentiment to which I could lend considerable support, but not the intention of my utterance on this occasion,” said the Pooka dissipating the density of the cumulus somewhat with the propulsion of the breath baring his words into the world.
“It would be helpful if you spoke with clarity in intent and expression.”
“Clarity is in the glass of the holder.”
“Glasses have been known to hold claret and liquids of other variety, many of them alcoholic in nature and not renowned for the clarity they induce.”
“There is much in that. There is many the slip between clarity and insanity. Although the gap is short.”
The Jinn gave this consideration. Overall, it seemed doubtful.
“Insanity would imply sanity,” it said. “A proposition entirely lacking an evidence base.”
“There is that.”
“So, C’mere Abi, what was the intention of your utterance if it was not to pour scorn, derision and insult on the state of my mental faculties?”
The Pooka resumed his completive air with a deep draught on his pipe and the effusion of still further cumuluai of dense obstrification.
“It was, of course, to signal the commencement of my exposition on a second track that we might consider to take us into that which is conceptualised as ‘the future’. However as the future is never here it’s existence is even less evidenced based than sanity.”
“Fair enough, let’s hear it.”
“It has no longer any viability to recommend it for consideration by either the sane or insane.”
“But you were, by your own account, about to proposition it!”
“And I assure you, I am not an entity to take such a course without diligence of consideration. In an environment where sanity is under dispute, foolhardy propositions are unlikely to be received without derision. That is not to say they are without merit. It’s just, I couldn’t be arsed.”
“So what happened to cause this secondary course to become unviable?”
“The Earth rotated.”
“What of it? It is not an uncommon occurrence, surely?”
“It is not, but to many it is the marking of time.”
“Time? Are they still giving that credence?”
“It still has phenomenological value, yes.”
“Ach, Mashallah!”
“There it is.”
“So the Earth rotated and the plan went stale?”
“Sell by date passed.”
“So, we are on the first course you outlined. What was that, now?”
“I’ve forgotten.”

“Watch yourself, there now. He’s waking up,” said the Pooka tapping out his pipe on the sole of his brogue.
“What? Are you expecting me to get back into a bottle? Is that it?”
“There’s all too many on the bottle. It’s the mother’s bane.”
“Well, alcohol is forbidden me so there’ll be none of that either. I’m staying exactly where I am.”
And the Jinn crossed his legs which were clad in loose fitting silk pantaloons, the better to afford him ample ball room, he claimed.
The eejit yawned and stretched his arms with an abandon the quality of which would warrant the use of ‘wild’ were it conducted with a bit more vim.
“Is it yourself?” he asked the Pooka.
“It is none other, but perhaps not the self same self that I presented before you fell asleep.”
“Have you changed then.”
“A post-modernist might posit that I only existed subjectively in the first place, to talk of change is meaningless as there is no starting point for reference.”
“Is it any wonder I fell asleep. Talk like that, if given consideration, would have the head aching on ye so it’s best ignored but then the body gets bored and sleep quickly ensues. Who is your friend?”
“I invite you to Jinn,” said the Pooka.
“Very good of you. A single slice of lemon and Indian Tonic please. Now, who is your friend?”
“I’m a guest from the orient, sojourning in these parts currently,” said the Jinn.
“I expect you’re in Sales, so.”
“I have no need of commerce as my losses are so great they are beyond rectification. I allude to my loss of innocence, hope and faith in humanity.”
“Sure, things always look bleak when you’re skint. Have you thought about a flutter on the gi-gis?”
“There is no faster route to remorse, regret and impotent remonstrations of rage against fortune,” remarked the Pooka.
“Away with you!” objected the eegit. “Your horse comes in sometimes.”
The two of them looked at him with incredulity.
“Did you sleep well?” asked the Jinn.
“I did in my hole. There was all sorts goings on in my dreams.”
“That’s regrettable. Do you care to speak of it? It is often felt to be therapeutic to indulge oneself in like manner.”
“I’m not one to wallow in self-pity. Suffice to say, there were two bowsies in there and them spouting nonsense out of them nineteen to the dozen.”
The Pooka cleared his throat and threw a look to the Jinn. The Jinn seemed non-plussed.
“You are quite right. There is too much indulgence in ephemeralia and new age nonsense. It’s unhealthy,” said the Pooka, briskly.
“I’ll tell you what is unhealthy; a full bladder. That’s the man that, if unattended to, will have you folded over and wracked with the agonies not to mention the septicemia and blood poisoning. I’m off for a slash.”
And away with the eejit to the conveniences.
“What has you all worked up?” asked the Jinn.
“Do you not see it? We live in a post-modernist ethos where everything is subjective and objective statements of reality are nothing but culturally defined tools to exert power.”
“What of it?”
“Our only existence might be in that eejit’s head.”
“That’s nonsense. I’m a free agent with my own volition.”
“Is that a fact? Who put them god-awful pantaloons on you?”
The Jinn looked at the silk pantaloons. They were indisputably garish.

The eegit ambled back for the Jax with a grin on his face. Unfortunately, his lower garments were in abeyance and his tackle was being given an airing.
“Naber dostum,” he smiled.
The Pooka, recognizing a foreign tongue was being employed, frown his disapproval and pulled hard on his pipe.
“Are you displaying a familiarity with the Turkic vernacular?” smiled the Jinn.
“What? Not a bit of it. I just forgot my own language for a moment.”
“Ah, what a pity. I was most impressed there for a moment.”
“Foreign filth,” mumbled the Pooka.
“Ah, hayır. Biraz Türkçe biliyorum. Ah, Jazes, I’m at it again. I’d forget me head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
“Which is more than can be said for your trouser,” said the Pooka, waving his pipe stem at the eegit’s nether regions.
“Ah, would you look at that, I’ve forgotten me kacks!” laughed the eegit.
“I have often wondered, can forgetting happen without remembrance,” remarked the Jinn.
“You can, of course, forget an object without ever having taking the time to reflect on it and thus not remember it. Many coins have passed through my pockets unremembered and, by the morning, forgotten,” mused the Pooka.
“Do you imagine we can go through life without registering on another’s mental apparatus so that we can never be said to be remembered and therefore are unworthy of forgetting?” asked the Jinn.
“Sure, didn’t I only forget my granny’s birthday last week!” said the eegit.
“Is that the same as forgetting your granny?” asked the Jinn.
“Chance would be a fine thing,” said the Pooka. “The woman is a hatchet.”
“I’ve forgotten her name. I mean, I know it’s ’Granny’ but she seems to dislike that as she keeps boxing my ears.”
“Yes, yes, but the question is, is there remembrance without forgetting,” the Jinn said enthusiastically.
“Ah, you boyos and your lofty bollox! I’m back to the Jax to fetch me remembered trouser before I forget myself,” said the eegit.
And away with him.
“I’d advise caution there,” said the Pooka, looking about him to see where he had left his box of Capp and Peterson matches.
“You’re not giving credence to that half remember story of the man who invented the eternal match and had to taken away and ‘forgotten’ before damage was done to commerce?” asked the Jinn.
Today he was attired in a too small waist coat of red, a collarless shirt with a blue silk scarf wrapped without decorum around his neck and soiled black trousers and well scuffed leather shoes.
The Pooka considered his response. Removing the stem of his pipe from the gob he commenced.
“It is not to that account I refer as it a story barely remembered and so essentially forgotten. My area of concern is on two accounts. The eegit has demonstrated the forgetfulness of his nature. Now, on my own account, I’ve been known to him for a period. It is true, his ability to sustain the gravitas of my person in that time has been unreliable. On occasion I’ve been depicted as less erudite than is warranted by the facts. But, he at has at least a grasp of what constitutes my person.
You, Abi, are a rather new phenomena. He is far more likely to forget you exist than he is to remember ever meeting you.”
“But look at me! I have taken on the appearance of a Young Turk!”
“Exactly, who remembers them?”


Living. Often Erroneously called Getting By


“It is unacceptable,” said the Jinn, sucking on his hookah. “It is an affront to my Ottoman sensibilities.”
“Is that what that get up is called? ‘Ottoman Sensibilities’? You could dignify a pantomime in that ensemble.”
The Jinn was attired in a turban that would give the onion domes of Moscow a run for their money, an effusion of silks and brocade that spoke more of opulence than style such that he presented the appearance of a cross legged worm of indeterminate dimensions.
“Alladin, perhaps, or the Thousand and One Nights,” concluded the Pooka, adjusting the tweeds of his stout jacket and plus-fours as an indication of what constituted good dress.
“Aspersions are the weapons of those who lack aspirations,” said the Jinn and he took a deep draught from his hookah.
“Aspirations are the follies we pursue before expiration.”
“I am the Oriental around here. To me must fall the fatalism of immutable inevitability. And yet, here you are, an Occidental accepting your lot with cold abandonment of hope.”
“Do you propose a course of raging against the immutability of the bleak future?” asked the Pooka, lifting his pint of black porter and imbibing of its darkness.
“It would pass the time,” said the Jinn. “And dare I suggest, imbue a modicum of heroism to our passage through the shimmer of existence.”
“Have you not understood, our phantasmographical apparency is nothing but the disjuncture of misfiring synapses in the head of that yoke there.”
The Pooka used the broad point of his brogue to indicate the prostrate form on the over-inebriated eejit, draped like a damp rag across a table in the lounge bar they occupied.
The Jinn took a moment to take in the sorry state of the snoring eejit.
“There it is, the slight to my Ottoman majesty and your own provincial erudition which is deserving of respect in your community.”
Siobhan, the bar woman, who had been keeping her peace so well thus far in the narrative that she had not occasioned mentioning, guffawed at this.
“You have a contribution, my good lady?” asked the Jinn.
“Not a bit of it. I keep myself to myself. I would never forget myself and make a contribution,” said Siobhan. “But the idea of the Pooka getting respect in these parts!”
The Pooka seemed to take this affront in his stride.
“I’m confounded by the sanguinity you are displaying,” the Jinn remarked. “I cannot fathom this lack of appreciation of your remarkable abilities. I would have thought you’d be at least as confounded as I am. And yet you appear no more than non-plussed.”
“I am attired today in my non-plussed fours, so I am four time inured to their failure to comprehend the depths of my erudition and the broad richness of my insights and wisdom,” said the Pooka, realigning the weft of tweed in his trouser.
“There it is, man. This lack of appreciation can no longer be tolerated!”
“And what is it you are suggesting?”
“We must not only rage but we must break on though.”
“The doors of perception?” asked the Pooka, fishing an unexpected pair of Ray-Bans from his waistcoat pocket.
“Exactly! To the other side.”
“Are youse taking a holiday?” asked Siobhan. “They say The Isle of Man is nice. It’s an island with men on it, I expect. Like Alcatraz back in the day.”

“So, how do we effect all this,” asked the Jinn.
“We devise a ‘plot’,” said the Pooka, peering through the darkness of his ray bands in the gloom of the public lounge.
“You know he’s over there?” suggested Siobhan as she smeared an unclean glass with an unclean damp rag.
The Pooka pulled the sunglasses further down the bridge of his nose and recognized he had been addressing a coatrack.
“A plot. Is that not a bit attitudinally de rigueur? Rather outdated, surely, in this post-modernist period?” asked the Jinn. He had selected the appearance of a turn of last century salon darling, complete with cravat, blouse, too tight trousers and indolent attitude.
“Away with your bohemian pretensions! We must affect to be men of action. Fields do not till themselves and unpicked potatoes rot faster than our regrets,” said the Pooka with an uncharacteristic excess of exuberance such that his ray bands descended the reminder of his nasal bridge and dropped to his lap.
“So, what’s the plot? I expect, it requires protagonists? Might that be us two?” asked the Jinn, pulling fingers though the luxuriant quiff he sported.
“That would be the way of it. And your man there.”
The Pooka’s broad toe cap was again utilised to indicate the still prone and snoring eegit.
“I have a great aversion to associating with people of that type,” said the Jinn. “Could the plot not be adapted so as to exclude him?”
“Without darkness the is no shite,” said the Pooka with a puff on his pipe which added not insignificantly to the gloom of the interior. “Besides, the premise of the plot is that we, the components of the tale which the listeners are to empatise with, are trapped in the skull of the eegit. That is the tragedy to be addressed.”
“It’s all too tiresome.”
“That is why most literature is not worth the effort of reading,” said the Pooka. “Personally, I gave up after the catechism.”
“Is there a plot in that?”
“Not a discernible one and if there is, it is certainly far-fetched.”
“Right, there’s us and the eegit. Is that it?” asked the Jinn, stretching himself out laconically on the leatherette wall sofa.
“That will more than suffice or it will become one of those Russian tomes where everyone has an unrememberable name and people are walking in and out of drawing rooms with the rapidity of moles in wack-a-mole entertainments and the utter bewilderment of the reader.”
“I think I have a walk on part,” said Siobhan.
The Pooka looked at her with alarm. The plot had not even begun and already it was out of control.

“Break on though, eh?” said the Jinn with enthusiasm.
“That’s the manner of it,” said the Pooka, scratching at the pipe bowl with the proscribed implement.
“So, how is to be achieved?”
“Ah, that’s easy. Doors of Perception are swung open,” the Pooka said, sorting the strands of his tobacco into conglomerations based loosely on colouration.
“Right, where are these Doors of Perception?” the Jinn asked, previewing the Jax door without conviction.
“Ah, they’d be interior in nature. That’s the normal way with poets.”
“Are we having to deal with poets now, only I find them very affected and they always get the best looking people at the party,” complained the Jinn.
“You’ve been in that bottle a while then,” said Siobhan. “They’re mostly just students now and then they get better.”
“Enough of this guff,” said the Pooka. “Himself has to come around at some point and his synapses start sparking and then it’s out the window with our free-will.”
“Are you still believing in that auld thing?”
“Myself, not so much, but it a popular concept with the man in the street. That and their opinion.
“I have an opinion,” said Siobhan.
“Very good,” said the Jinn. “I expected it is well informed by empirical evidence.”
“It has nothing to do with your imperial pretensions.”
“Do you care to share this opinion with the wider community?”
“No,” said Siobhan and she disappeared into the bar. The place where absurdity was imbued with a dose of socialist radicalism and the next pint was never far from the tap.

“Was that her arse?” asked the Pooka.
“Eh?”
“The place she disappeared up?”
“That is as facetious as it is fatuous,” remarked the Jinn.
“Well and good,” said the Pooka, recalling himself (from wherever he might have been). “Now can we get on?”
“Indeed, I’ve been giving the matter some thought,” said the Jinn who had returned to invisibility. “It seems to me, we are dealing with a highly aspirational concept of alternative world views, each sundered from the other by conventions and blinkered thinking. To ‘break on through to the other side’ a liberation of the conceptual framework of reality is required.”
The Pooka sniffed and produced a Mercham from his trouser pocket. It came complete with a hinged pipe bowl cover and an aura of 19th century conservatism.
“Now, a frequently used recourse is to resort to hallucinogenic substances.”
“Is that the export strength stout?” asked the Pooka. “Because I’m having nothing to do with that. The last time I tried that man, there I was for three straight days, puking up rings and reels of the stuff until I was in danger of puking myself out of existence.”
“Six,” said Siobhan reappearing from wherever she had gone.
“Eh?”
“That’s how long you were puking. I know, I had to clean it up.”
“Thank you,” said the Pooka, clearly annoyed by the correction.
“You’re not welcome. I wanted you barred but soft Sean let it slide, as usual.”
“Ah Jazes! Now there’s another character,” mumbled the Pooka.
“Sorry about that lads,” said soft Sean, doffing his cap. “I was quite content down there in the bar with the dog but Siobhan here insisted that as, proprietor, I introduce myself to our Oriental friend here.”
Soft Sean pulled the sides of his eyes to add emphasis to his understanding of ‘Oriental’.
“Ah, Jazes, now there’s a dog,” groaned the Pooka.
“Memnum Oldem, Sean,” said the Jinn. Then turning his attention to the Pooka said;
“It is not to black porter I was referring, but rather psilocybin, peyote and other such mind expanding concoctions.”
“Did he just put a spell on me?” asked soft Sean.
“No, it was just foreign,” said Siobhan.
“Is that not the same thing? Don’t they use the French to allure Colleen’s to perdition and what have you?”
“It would never have happened under our native Gaelic,” observed the Pooka. “But the perfidious Albion inflicted their bastardized Hunnish tongue on us and here we are now with the Doors open and all kinds of malevolence rushing in to afflict the unfortunate Gael.”
“What did you say?” asked the Jinn, suddenly alert.
The Pooka looked at him with disbelieve.
“Were you listening? Only, that would be most unusual.”
“I was, of course, but might you repeat it?”
“That would be to suggest I can recall it? I have been talking into the vacuum for so long, recollection is entirely beyond the half-life of my last utterance. It is all air.”
“But you mentioned the Doors being opened.”
“I might have been right in that regard. Doors, having two known states; open and closed. Chances are they are, at anyone time, in one or either state.”
“If the Doors are open it behoves us to rush through them!”
“Can I take the dog?” asked soft Sean.



The End. And the Beginning. The First Ring. Limbo.

They dashed through the Doors.
I apologise for the crassness of that statement. It omits so many details it makes me blush. I mean, the Doors have been given nothing but a cursory introduction. Who has dashed and how they made due preparation for the venture are passed over. Did the Pooka pocket all his smoking accouterments before venturing forth? Did the Jinn avail himself of an oriental flying carpet to ease his speedy passage? Did Siobhan accompany them? If so, were due arrangements made for staffing in her absence? And was adequate thought given to her personal hygienic requirements in foreign climes? How was soft Sean to deal with the high tempo of a dash and was his dog to accompany him? If the dog was to remain, who was to look after it? (For heaven’s sake, the sex of the thing hasn’t even been established). And why was the eegit left inebriated and draped prone on the table? Was there an ashtray on said table and what was the state of it? Was it overflowing with cigarette stubs and if it were, who had been smoking so many cigarettes?
But they dashed through the Doors.
And there they were; in a sea of kaleidoscopic colour with only the vaguest sense of up or down and a profound sense of lucidity of thought that layered and shifted with an increasing intensity of expansive certainty.
Which only goes to show that there is more behind the door that is dreamt of in your philosophy. It’s not all dust and stale spider’s webs and forgotten cat play things.
Now, an account of their discourse which limited itself to their utterances would lack both cohesion and coherence and so do an injustice to the experiential level of their
It would be as if that is
The fullness of
The oneness that is so, so, obvious, that
The effusion of well being so that
Look, look, the dog
Fullness to the ineluctable uncontainable
The joyfully unbearable
Crinkles. Crinckles in the
Ineptly unmovable and light
The warm bread thing and tea
Whoosh and warm chill
So, we shan’t go there. We shall move on to the next day. The Doors are now closed. The protagonists brains are now scraped out and experience is hanging off the walls of their skulls like peeling wallpaper. It is not without beauty but it is of a different order.

“Holy God! What was that?” asked soft Sean.
“That was perception,” said the Jinn, his turban decidedly askew.
“I’ll tell you what, lads, this is the last you’ll be seeing of me,” said Siobhan. “I’m off to be a hippy.”
And she would have flung her apron on the bar but the establishment didn’t provide their staff with aprons. Nevertheless, it can be said she did manage a flounce as she exited the premises and the plot.
“Could we contrive a reason for her having been in the plot?” asked the dog.
“Counterpoint,” said the Pooka, but without conviction as all his scrappings of sense were required in full to assist in the task of starting up a new pipe. The angle of his cap spoke volumes about the shaken discombobulated state of his inner being.
“And, of course, sex appeal,” said soft Sean.
“Really?” asked the Jinn, struggling hard to re-ground himself in normality or what passed for it.
“Fine child bearing hips on her,” said soft Sean.
“Only female in the plot,” said the Pooka, having assembled a sorry looking pipe with loosely packed tobaccos pouring over the rim of the bowl.
“I’m a female,” said the dog.
The group looked up in surprise. It was hard to tell if it was at the revelation or the notion that the dog was talking.
“Well, there now. It’s good to have that established at least,” said the Jinn, regarding the square carpet he was sitting on and trying to remember something about flying.
“Perception was it?” asked soft Sean.
“Only in so far as our carbon based systems can allow of such a thing,” the Pooka puffed but, given the looseness of the arrangement in his pipe bowl, with little satisfaction.
“Do you mean to say, that as we are constituent components of the universe, we are incapable of perceiving it?” asked the Jinn.
“I mean, that, given the recent exit of the Siobhan woman, if that soft shite can’t be cohersed behind that bar, there’ll be no drink to be had.”
The Jinn, perceiving the nature of the emergency, looked at soft Sean.
“The thing is, what the Pooka posited there, is based on an assumption that we are bound by our carbon restrictions. But suppose we were to break out of such restrictions and move into direct union with the ineffability of the universe?” asked soft Sean. “Will I get behind the bar there and start pulling the pints?”
“On your bike,” said the Pooka.
“Are we not straying into Descartes territory here?” asked the dog.
“Are you an actual Alsatian or just a mongrel?” asked the Pooka.
“Ghost in the machine? Is that it?” asked the Jinn.
“A pint of Black and be quick about it,” said the Pooka, frowning at his pipe.
“Perception might be only deception,” said Siobhan storming back into the establishment.

Only it wasn’t Siobhan at all, it was her twin sister Sinead.
“Is there a job going? Or is that only apparently the case?” she asked.
“Appearances can be as deceptive as the manifest,” said soft Sean.
“Would you just give the woman the effin job so we can get back to imbibing black porter pulled competently without recourse to your haphazard efforts?”
The Jinn looked long into his porter glass.
“It is of a dispirited constitution,” he said, swirling his drink in the end of his glass which lacked all rings of previous levels expected of proper porters. Rings that reimagined previous insights and revelations now dissipating and un-reimagined.
“Apparently, you’re hired,” said soft Sean.
“You’re an unimaginative lot, I have to say, if that is the might of your aspiration,” Sinead said, looking about the back of the bar forlornly for an apron or other demarcation of her position.
“Imagination? Is that the other way to ‘break on though’?” asked the Jinn.
“Imagination is the way to tell yourself lies,” said the Pooka. “Here am I an imagined being of contrariness and laughable jocund behavior. And can I be bothered? Well, put yourself in my hornpipes? Could you manage infinite contrariness?”
The others looked at the Pooka with unaccustomed concern.
“It is exhausting. I am an individual whose nature is to spurn all kindness. I have no friends but my malfunctioning pipe. I have nothing to consider but human folly and the grades of my tobaccos. Is this an unimagined life?”
“Not at all,” said Sinead, laying out her folded arms on the bar surface as a demonstration of her occupation of her new domain. “Your aversion to all kindness is a thing you were imagined with, and to be expected. For myself, I’ve always had a soft spot for yokes of the Pooka class.”
“Don’t get me wrong now, I’d hate that to be the case, but is imagination not the thing that can take us out of ourselves? Are we not more than ourselves when we imagine our hopes?”
“Ghosts in the flesh machine?” asked the Jinn. “Or renunciation of naturalistic philosophy? Is there room in philosophy for Oriental uncertainty?”
“All I know is, it a b*****d trying if to get Ahmed in to do what he’s promised,” said soft Sean.
“But then the f****r turns up and does it,” complained the Pooka, pulling hard on his pipe.
“And where has he been in the interim?” asked Sinead.
“I can’t imagine,” said the Pooka.
“What can’t be imagined is unimaginable and yet it exists.”

“Wait, wait, now am I getting it. When we break on though, there is nothing of a real significance but then after nothing is quite the same? Is that it?” asked the Jinn.
“It’s your round,” said the Pooka.
“His credit is no longer good,” said Sinead. “I had a look at his tab. He’s been fobbing us off with machine weaved Kilims.”
The Jinn looked panicked.
“Ah, Jazes now Sinead, they have great colours in them!” protested soft Sean.
“Nylon, most of them,” Sinead sniffed.
“Is that eegit stirring, I see there?” the Jinn asked.
To a man and, truth be told, one woman and a b***h, the bar turned to regard the slumped form draped over the ashtray bereft table and it did appear to adjust its snoring pattern, But then settled into its new hiss and gurgle of obliviousness.
“The poor bugger,” said Sinead.
“It is the comforting nature of humanity to dwell on its woes that affords us Pookas a rich field of maliciousness to play in,” said the Pooka.
“I’m imagining, that is on account of the general inability to really just stop worrying?” posited soft Sean.
“That, and an obsession with money,” said the Jinn.
“Are we to now imagine an anarchistic utopia of local community and respect? Freed of all centralized autocracy and domination?” asked the Pooka in a cloud of coughing and smoke.
“Anarchistic nationalities might be just a Western contruct based on the paucity of imagination in “Marxism. I mean look at the man’s appearance!” said Sinead. “Shameful.”
“How old are you?” asked the Pooka, burning his finger as he tried to tamper down gathered inferno in the bowl in his pipe.
“Mind your business,” said Sinead.
“She’s seventeen,” said soft Sean.

“And Siobhan is twenty-one,” said soft Sean.
“But they’re twins,” said the Jinn.
“I know,” said the dog. “Weird, right? I can never figure it out.”
“‘Tis not a bit weird,” said the Pooka. “Age, like attitude, verisimilitude and certitude is imagined.”
“There is that,” said soft Sean. “I’m always saying that.”
“You are in my hookie! You never made an utterance in any proximity to that remark,” said Sinead.
“Ah, no, not in actuality. No, no, but in my imaginings.”
“Woof,” said the dog.
“Has the dog lost his ability to speak?” asked the Jinn.
“Do you imagine?” asked Sinead.
“For the life of me, I have no idea,” said soft Sean.
“I’m not amazed to hear that, given your apparent propensity for nothing more than a lack of conviction,” remarked the Jinn.
“The imagined life,” said the Pooka. Then he stopped to reflect on the swirls of grey emerging from the pipe bowl.
“What of it?” asked the Jinn.
“Is it worth living?”
“What’s the alternative?” asked Sinead, looking up from the swarm of social media sucking on her vortex-like from her phone with imagined communication.
“The unimagined life,” said the dog, his speech impediment apparently overcome.
“If we unimagined our life would we snuff out. Cease to exist.”
“That would be a handy artifact to have by your side,” said the Pooka, glancing at the screen of Sinead’s iPhone. He pulled hard on the imagined cancer inducing smoke of his all too real pipe.

“Do you know your problem?” asked Sinead.
It was unclear which of the clientele she perceived as having a problem.
“Who?” woofed the dog.
“All of youse. You imagine that imagination is sufficient to break on through.”
The Pooka removed the pipe from his gob.
“And it isn’t? Is that it?” asked the Jinn.
The Jinn had done himself out in the white swirling dress of a Whirling Dervish and the black tombstone fez.
“There it is. If you have to ask the question, it shows your complete paucity of imagination.”
“Paucity. That’s harsh,” said soft Sean.
“Some would say impudent,” muttered the Pooka, returning the death dispensing pipe stem to his lips.
“Once reality has been perceived, those of a timid disposition retreat into echos, dreams and imaginings. The refuge of the terrified.”
“Are you saying we are afraid of what we glimpsed on the other side?” asked the Jinn.
“Terrified. To glimpse the beyond is to understand there is nothing and everything is affectation.”
The dog whimpered. The Jinn brushed down his immaculately white gown. The Pooka drew hard on his signature pipe. Soft Sean frowned and smiled.
Sinead flung a pint glass to the floor where it duly shattered.
“The sound of one glass sighing,” she said.
“Thank god it wasn’t roaring,” said the Pooka, realigning the natural derived contents of his ear-lug with a pipe implement.
“There it is!” said Sinead. “Diffuse, equivocal, evasive. Anything but face the terror of reality. Anything to avoid breaking on through.”
“Reality, you say? But is there any point to it?” asked the Jinn.
“None whatsoever,” said Sinead.
“My uncle once made a point. It concerned fleecing techniques, but no one took much notice and he more or less retired from debating at that point. He’s never taken it up again. ‘There’s no telling people’ he says,” said soft Sean.
“If there is no point to reality, the best course is to ignore it. To pursue it would be an endeavour of pointlessness. Therefore, if we see no point in the endeavour, our actions or lack of same, are real,” said the Pooka and a swirl of grey dying soul passed from between his lips towards the tobacco stained ceiling.
“Yet another path of evasion. Supposed philosophy. About as credible as Science or Theology! REALITY! Don’t you get it?” asked Sinead.
“Is there anything to be said in support of Mysticism?” asked the Whirling Jinn.
“There is, of course, it makes us dizzy and mildly stupid,” said the dog. “Well, quite stupid, actually.”
“Ah, F**k it! You’re hopeless. I’m off. I’m going to become a non-existence.”
And she reached for the apron that didn’t exist and could not find a flounce as she exited the here and now for reality.

The Second Ring: Lust

“Woof!” said the dog. “Away with it.”
And the public bar disappeared and was gone. Unimagined.
“Mashallah! Where are we?” asked the Jinn surveying the soft cushions of pink, the pastel carpets, the streams of white net curtains festooning from the ceiling, the able beds, the sunken baths, wafts from scented candles, the whispers of sensual ambient music.
“We must have done the auld breaking on through trick,” said soft Sean. “I always knew that dog was a smart little fecker.”
“I suggest we are in Hell,” said the Pooka, perching himself on the edge of a chaise longue and fishing out elements of his pipe apparatus.
“Why would say that?” asked the Jinn.
“Would you look at all this pink? Sure, it would Barbara Cartland a headache.”
“I like it,” said soft Sean, going commando and lowering himself into a sunken jakuzi.
A head bobbed up.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Gubnit of the red locks and potato cakes.”
“God, you’re a fine looking woman.”

The action in this story was now happening in simultaneous timelines, such that, a linear telling is no longer feasible. So what follows will use location as the primary driver of the narrative and you’ll be required to keep up.

“Is it Hell you’re after? Is that the proclivity you like to indulge in?” asked the creature with long black hair that suddenly became manifest before the Pooka.
I’m aware, it is rude to pass comments on people but this one was one dirty b***h.
“I am a Pooka. As such my nature is replete with mischievous schemes and consequentially, I’m without capacity for proclivities.”
“And I am a Banshee and I assure you, if I were to give you the full bellow of my lungs, you would shortly be dead. But as I’m attracted to the aromas of your foul pipe smoke, I will restrain the tenacity of my howl and only draw you to my bed.”
And she let out a lament of such perverse poignancy that the Pooka felt stirrings in parts contained in his trousers he had forgotten he had stored in there.

“Manzur,” said the long, tall woman, as she shimmied towards the Jinn.
“Pleased to meet you,” smiled the Jinn.
“And you are?” she hissed quietly.
“The Jinn,” said the Jinn.
“No name, or fearful of revealing it. Very wise.”
The tall woman, flicked her head so the long plait of luxurious blonde hair swept from behind her back and landed comfortably between her amble breasts.
“Memnum oldum,” said the Jinn, noticing the pitch of his voice had become higher.
“You seem tense. A worrisome period perhaps. Would you like a message?”
“Would that mean physical contact? It has been many centuries since I’ve been touched by another.”
“Well, that can’t be good.”
And she flicked a tongue against his ear.

The dog looked at the bull terrier in the corner. One glance was enough to see it was a breeding stud. She whimpered and stood her ground.

“Ah no, I’m not enjoying this at all,” said soft Sean.
The Pooka and Jinn looked at him with skepticism.
“You looked happy enough splashing about in that pot of soup playing with Gubnits potatoe dumplings,” smiled the Jinn. The Pooka recrossed his legs.
“Stop it, would you!” said soft Sean his face the colour of a freshly blanched beetroot. “It’s not proper or decent. Besides, it was not a pot of soup. Them yokes are jakuzis.”
The Jinn laughed again.
“In the East we luxuriate in decadence and sensual indulgence,” he said.
“How long is it you’ve been locked up in the bottle?” asked the Pooka. “Only you might find there’s been developments since the times of decadent Persia.”
“Myself and Manzur had an evening of Eastern delights unbounded.”
“The weather’s turning,” said the dog, perched on an inlay table to be safely away from Stud dog and to get a view out the window.
“Am I detecting a glint, even in your caustic eye?” the Jinn smiled at the Pooka. “Or were you Bang Sheed?”
“I am constitutionally beyond the lusts you wish to attribute to me, I assure you.”
“Well, then you’ll be uneffected by the tornado of lust which is about to fly in this window in the next minute,” said the dog.
“What?” spake the Pooka and Jinn, simultaneously.
“Ahh, Jazes,” moaned soft Sean.
And with that the frail barrier, separating them from the fiercesome power of untrammeled lust, shattered and a tornado flooded the room. The dog hung onto the leg of the inlay chair but the other three were swept into the swirling violence so they were whirled into utter confusion. They lost all orientation and could not tell up from down, back from front, thought from wish, empty from innocent, heat from guilt, quiescence from scent, joy from dark, exuperence from conceit.
And then they were sucked out the window. Except for the dog, who, true to his loyal nature, took to the door to follow at a safe distance.
The room was a wreak but seemed content in itself. There was only one addition to the carnage. A small canine smirk hovered over the inlay table where the dog had left it.

The Third Ring: Gluttony

“Jazes, I’m starving,” said soft Sean. He appeared to have landed firmly on his feet while the others had been deposited by the turmoil of the tornado in a Pell-Mell, topsy-turvy of dissimilitude. The Jinn’s turban had unraveled and was festooned about his person in a most unflattering manner. The Pooka was equally unkempt, with his cap on his splayed lap and his waistcoats askew.
The Maître d' looked at the puddle of potential clients with consternation.
“White tie,” he said, setting the bar as high as he could.
“But look at us! We’re starving. We could eat the leg off you,” said soft Sean.
The Maître d' looked alarmed.
“One exception,” he said, waving soft Sean into the eating area.
“And are we to take it we are denied access?” asked the Jinn, grappling with his head apparels.
“White tie,” said the Maître d'. “And pepper. Of course, pepper.”
“I have about me a shag of Ethiopian origin which came to fruition next to a field of the most pungent pepper plants,” said the Pooka, righting himself as best he could. “It can’t not have been imbued with the rich pungent aromas of that neighboring plant.”
“White tie, pepper and excessive appetite. Yearning,” said the Maitre d.
“I would describe our condition as ravenous,” said the Jinn, steadying a shaky turban on his head tentatively.
“I would extend my compatriot’s statement with the addition of the strong adjective, voracious,” added the Pooka. “We are, in truth, famished.”
There was a whimper and they looked behind them to find the dog.
“They’re gluttons,” the dog said.
“Why did you not say, gentlemen,” said the Maitre d, opening the door.
“Break on though,” said the Jinn.
“To fill the inside,” said the Pooka.
And the pair rushed the door.
The dog looked at the Maitre d.
“Are you going in?” asked the Maitre d.
“Do they have vegan options?”
“I don’t think so.”
The dog sighed.

The Pooka was struggling to maintain his calm and appropriately decorous composure, which expectations he had inherited from the Grand Pooka instructional school of Pookism. There had been no lessons that he could remember on the etiquette of Pookish table manners under starvation. So, when the waiter requested his order he realized two things; 1. he wanted to eat anything at all, provided there was plenty of it and it came rapidly and 2. his elbows, which , f**k decorum, he had placed on the table, were slipping and sliding about the place.
“Quail,” he said. “Two hundred of them.”
The wait seemed unfazed by the quantity required.
“Would sir require a sauce with that?”
“What?”
“A classic red wine, a frivolous fruit, an oriental soy of miso register, a richly spiced Indian messalla, a Malay satay, a fiery Thai Tom Yam, a calmer piri piri, a Bolivian chocolate and chillie.”
“Very good,” said the Pooka. “I’ll have the lot, just get it out here quick.”
And his elbows lost their purchase on the table again and slipped about.
“And for sir?” asked the waiter turning to soft Sean.
But he completely failed to grapple with the untrustworthiness of the table surface and fell face first onto its surface.
“Ehem,” said the waiter, turning his attention to the Jinn.
“Bulgar and then dried fruits, luscious lamb meats, stuffed vine leaves, finely ground aromatic chickpeas, pomegranate flavoured salads, preserved lemons with sumac, intensely slow steam roasted neck of goat, saffron infused couscous and syrup drowned pistachio baklavas.”
“Would sir care to select from his list?”
“Mashallah, effedi, just bring on the Baklavas!”
And he too found the table surface unpleasantly unreliable, so he employed his levitation skills to avoid further contact with it.
At this point, soft Sean corrected the table rested head on him sufficiently to enable utterance.
“Have you got anything with spuds?”
“We have dauphine potatoes, potato Anna, fondant potato, potato croquette, patatas bravas.”
“Have you any Boiled potatoes? Maybe with a bit of stew on the side to take the harm out of it?”
“How much would sir require?”
“Do you sell it by the ton?”
“And would the sirs care to accompany the orders with something to drink?”
“Drink!” declared the Pooka.
The Jinn, looked at him without clear comprehension.
“Drink,” agreed soft Sean, from a slightly muffled slide of his face on the treacherous table surface.
“Drink?” asked the waiter.
“And plenty of it,” said the Pooka, pipe apparatus in good working condition and satisfaction being drawn from it.
“Away with you now and get the orders in,” said soft Sean. “And gallons of the drink.”

Who the feck are you?
What? I’m the writer.
Did you just write me?
I expect I did.
Well, where have you been?
I’m a busy man. I’ve been out and about. I’ve been about town. I’ve been doing a bit of this and that.
Jezes, if your life is nothing more that a poor selection of cliches, I’m wondering is my imagined existence not of more substance than yours.
Look, I’m doing the writing. So it stands to reason that my opinions have more consequence than yours.
Alright, if you say so but it sounds to me like you’ve just been away chewing the fat.

“This effin’ table will be the death of me,” complained the Pooka.
Having satiated himself on quail and then gone on to indulge himself in further portions and then insisted on yet more of the frail birds in luxuriant sauces and then, when all appetite had been exhausted, eaten yet further portions for reasons he could not grasp let alone elucidate, until such time that his digestive processes were over taxed and his levels of irritation with the inability of his corporeal form to accommodate his insatiability was such that he became irritated with all other sensory input, feeling it as nothing more than a nuisance, an attempt to distract him.
And so, he snapped the head off another Quail in Sarcophagus and sucked out the brain.
“The table is the cross we bare. It is our curse and our consolation,” said soft Sean and he fair tore into another potato allowing it no time to divest itself of its jacket.
If more consideration had been given to potato vestments and decorum been observed in slight degree, the floor around soft Sean would have been carpeted with the chosen apparel of the potato, that is to say, its skin or coat. But that was not the case and the floor around soft Sean was so devoid of distinction it could be perceived as not there at all.
If anything was apparent, it was that soft Sean had eaten all the potatoes presented to him with such rapaciousness there had been no time to consider undressing the potatoes.
“The effin table is sucking me in,” complained the Jinn, his hovering levitation flapping and faltering such that he was now skating unstably on the treacherous surface of the table whilst trying to finalize his repast of oriental sophistication. But with each final bite, more appeared or perhaps had always been there and always would be. So his efforts to complete the meal was as illusory and inept as trying to measure the extent of the universe.
He finally lost his footing and slapped onto his back into the slimey surface of the table.
The dog, forgetting she was a b***h, cocked a leg and tried to piss on the leg of the table. But it was a folly which she confirmed by sniffing the table leg.
“Is that fat?” she observed, then looked up to notice there actually was no table leg where she had expected and that the whole mass of the table, was, in fact, a mountain of fat. Fat in its many forms. Dense white lard, slow falls of liquid rivulets, hard fried golden nuggets, slimey semi-melts, rancid pools of neglected butters, slipways of runny oils. The table was not a table. It was, in fact, a globulous conglomeration of fat.
“It’s fat,” the dog said.
“That’s fatuous,” said soft Sean.
“That is not a fact,” declared the Pooka and a button on his waistcoat popped and flew across the room, asking the question if there was a room at all.
“The whole thing is fatlacious,” slurred the Jinn, having indulged excessively in the gallons of drink.
“We are lost in gluttony,” said the dog.
And then they weren’t there at all and they were elsewhere.

The Fourth Ring: Greed

“Agreement comes in many guises”, puffed the Pooka.
Despite the disconsertion of being whisked from one realm to another and the retention of his new rotund manifestation (his inflated stomach protruded from the gape of shame in his waistcoat and continued to place strain on the remaining grasping buttons), he had regained what might be called equilibrium.
“I’m agreed,” said the Jinn.
Even if his excesses had been as monumental as his colleagues, the Mediterranean nature of his consumption and the exertions of his Sufic whirling had ameliorated the detrimental effects on his frame.
“Who’s a greed?” asked soft Sean, returning from the conveniences where he had again relieved himself of considerable quantities of potato mulch.
“I mind a man and him there as greedy as the day is long,” soft Sean continued. “But, and here now is the thing, here’s the rub, the kernel of the matter; there were few could see his greed.”
“Why are you talking about greed?” asked the Pooka with a frown.
“No but you see now, his greed was that of a spendthrift. Sure you could not enter a public house with the man in it without finding yourself poured off the premise at closing time. And if you had the grasp left on your numeracy and counted out the notes in your pocket, you’d find they were equal in value to what they were when you came in. And your man there doing the hail fella well met and, in truth, being greedy for affirmation and affectation.”
“I see no greed in this man’s patronage of those less fortunate than himself,” protested the Jinn.
“It is nothing less than the shallow greed for approval,” said soft Sean. “Born of self-doubt, possible guilt and insecurity.”
The dog, who had been prostrate in pursuit of sleep, raised a canine eyebrow and regarded the Sean with suspicion and alarm. The man was making something akin to sense. A most uncommon state of affairs.
“And is there another actor in this tableau of yours?” inquired the Pooka.
“There is, of course. The tight-fisted fecker. The one who lives out his days with reluctant expenditure of energy or effort in a house barely worthy of the name. A man whose greed has petrified him into a terror. Such is his fear of his accumulated trove being diminished in any slight degree, he cannot sleep, dream or aspire. His greed has disabled him and he is forced to be fearful.”
The Pooka tucked some straying strands of shag back into the bag.
“And which are you?” asked the dog.
“I am neither,” said soft Sean. “Mine is spiritual greed. I aspire to wisdom and aloofness of mind.”
“You’re a new age gobshite? Greedy for easy self-realization? An Intragram prophet?” asked the dog.
“I’ve no piercing or tattoos or eye make-up if that’s what you’re asking.”

The Fifth Ring: Anger

The Jinn regarded the surface of the marsh water with distaste as he hovered in the sticky miasma that filled the air above it.
“Jazes, I’ve no water wings!” exclaimed soft Sean as he bobbed dangerously low in the slimy soup of the marsh. “Did no one pack me water wings?”
“Are you incapable of doing anything for yourself?” barked the Jinn and he was surprised at how aggressive he sounded even to himself.
“I’m as incapable as the next man, I’ll have you know,” spluttered soft Sean as he appeared to be ever sinking in the deadly water.
“Where’s the other gobshite?” demanded the Jinn.
“He’s sulking in the bottom of this marsh. He was always a curmudgeonly f****r.”
“Maybe you should join him.”
“I’m a person of (gulp) a sweet (gulp) nature, if you have to know! But you feckin’ (gulp) unchristian heathens wouldn’t understand that.”
“What’s he doing in the bottom (cough) of the marsh?”
“Sulking. In a rage,” said soft Sean. “That’s all he does. Rage.”
“That’s outrageous! What, what’s he got to rage about?”
The foul marsh air was making it difficult for him to breathe.
“Hang (gulp) on. I’ll ask him.”
And soft Sean sank beneath the surface.
“The Universe,” he said, bobbing back to the top of the marsh and trying to shake the slime from his hair. “He’s raging (gulp) against the Universe. And God.”
“Well that’s a (cough) complete waste of time. He’s a fecking (cough) eegit!” raged the Jinn.
“Yeah, yeah, (gulp) knock yourself out! I’m drowning here.”
“Feck you too! Why (cough) should I care about you?”
The dog paddled past the flailing soft Sean.
“Would you look at that?”
“What?” said the Jinn, spinning around and coughing.
All three of them regarded the monumental red building before them.
“I think it might be the White House,” said the dog, landing on the side of the marsh and shaking the slimy water from her coat.
“What are you talking about? It’s as red as the fires of Hell,” fumed the Jinn.
“I’m drowning here,” complained soft Sean.
“Try swimming,” said the dog, not troubling to look around. “And get that other fella out of there.”
To his amazement soft Sean found he could swim and he managed to scramble out of the marsh.
The Pooka was next to emerge, pipe in hand and his cap gracing his visage with an oddly appropriate forlorn fall of marsh slime.
“We’ve found this monumental building,” the Jinn said.
The Pooka regarded the monumental hulk.
“Sure it’s just grand, don’t you think?” asked soft Sean.
“It’s dis and dat,” decided The Pooka.
“There’s no good in it,” said the Jinn skeptically.
And then they were surrounded by three scantily clad females singing seductively.
“Sirens,” said the dog.
“My mother warned me against them,” said soft Sean.
“Are you sure that wasn’t the sigh of wrens?” asked the Pooka. “Irish mothers are very sentimental about the birds in the hedgerows.”
“Are they not want to say ‘Two in the hand is worth one with a bush?” asked the Jinn considering the seductive Sirens.
“That is just pure oriental filth,” said the Pooka with a puff of his pipe which was miraculously alight.
“My mother would know nothing about a bush other than how to trim it,” said soft Sean. “She was a lifelong Brazilian.”
The dog threw his eyes to heaven and padded off towards the monumental building.
“You’re not suggesting we go in there?” said the Jinn.
“Are we really going into Dis?” asked the Pooka.
“Got a better idea?” asked the dog.

The Sixth Ring: Heresy

“I’m a bit disappointed in truth,” said the Jinn, pulling up a high-stool on the fluorescent bar.
“What were you expecting,” asked soft Sean. “Sure isn’t dis only the gear! We’re hanging here with the cool set for sure.”
The Pooka opened his tobacco pooch and spilled some of the fragrant contents on the fluorescent surface.
“And we should feel happy with all this, why?”
“Sure, when the auld tump-tump music starts up, we’ll be getting it on and taking the selfies and posting them on the Instagram,” said soft Sean.
“I was expecting something more cultural,” said the Jinn.
“Ah, things have moved on, d’you know. We’re up to date now.”
Soft Sean indicated to the bargirl he’d be having a Double Capitalist Chino. She looked at him bewildered but went off to find one.
“I’ll take a beverage of mild alcohol content,” said the Pooka with a puff when she returned.
“You have to say the name,” she said.
“Beer,” said the Pooka.
“No, the brand name. You have to say the brand name.”
“I don’t care about the brand.”
“That might be heresy,” said the Jinn, ordering a Grey Goose gin.
“Heresy? Ah, I’ve been accused of worse,” sighed the Pooka.
“You might not understand the degree of offense you’re causing. This is a refusal to acknowledge Capitalism as the supreme force in this World,” said the Jinn, sipping his gin.
“There’s no need for that talk,” said soft Sean, looking at the complexity of his drink and unsure of how to cope with it.
“What could possibly be objectionable to living without brands and marketing and advertising and polls?” asked the Pooka.
“Are you trying to ruin everything?” asked soft Sean.
“You are striking at the root of orthodoxy,” said the Jinn. “And that will not end well for you.”
“They tell me I need a pedigree friend or I cannot eat well,” said the dog.
“There is much to be said for friendship. It thwarts many of my best efforts to cause mischief,” said the Pooka.
“There is little to it. It can’t be packaged and sold,” said the Jinn. “We orientals have known this for millennia. You Occidental’s swallow the version packaged for you by Hollywood.”
“But, you’re not saying our moral values have been sold to us?” asked the Pooka in alarm.
“Are they the same ones your ancestors had?” asked the Jinn. “Thought not. So where did they come from?”
“The cradle,” said soft Sean. “To the grave.”
The Pooka pulled off his cap and gripped his head in two hand.
“Are we reduced to this? This is hell!”
“It’s Capitalism,” said the Jinn.




The Seventh Ring: Violence

“Where the feck are we now?” asked the Pooka, clearly unhappy that he had still had half a glass of beer before him when this latest transition had occurred and deposited all the protagonists in a wind swept field of agricultural disinterest.
“Sure, I know this place well,” said soft Sean.
“That is indeed a comfort for I would have thought of it as place uninhabitable and consequentially bereft of anyone knowledgeable of it,” said the Jinn. “So where do we go?”
“Sure isn’t the path over this way,” said soft Sean striding purposefully through a mass of thigh high weeds.
The dog sighed and waited for the other two to follow and bash a path through the weeds before following.
Soon all four of them were peering down the precipitous tumble of broken rocks that cascaded down the slope for as far as the eye could see. The Pooka puffed hard.
“And this is?”
“It’s the fallout from the earthquake of the financial crash,” said soft Sean. “Desperate, isn’t it?”
The others looked down on the bleak devastation of broken dreams, cheating, lying and emerging catastrophe.
“There’s a man down here who lost an eye on account of it,” said soft Sean and he began to make his way down through the chaos of rock with something akin to inadvisable confidence if not actual wild abandon.
“He lost an eye in a financial crash?” asked the Pooka, struggling to keep his footing let alone keep up.
“He was up to his eyes in debt and in danger of going to prison, so he plucked out one eye and halved his debt.”
“Very entrepreneurial,” puffed the Pooka. “Has he a name?”
“He does of course, Milo A’taur.”
“Was one side of the family oriental?” asked the Jinn from his flying carpet.
The Pooka wiped the sweat off his frowning forehead. It was, he thought, all well and good that the Jinn was employing the carpet to aid his passage down the precipice but did we really need to recline on it and indulge in a nargile. He made a mental note to do him a violence when the next opportunity presented itself.
“He is of a gruff nature and prone to violence, now you mention it,” said soft Sean.
“I’m not at all sure that was what I mentioned,” said the Jinn and he swooped his carpet in an extravagant loop which really caused the Pooka to get his phlegm up.
“Ah, Milo, is it yourself?” greeted soft Sean as they encountered the one-eyed individual.
Milo snorted his acknowledgement that he did indeed exist and this was his manifestation.
“How’s she cutting?”
“Who’s that f****r?” asked Milo nodding at the Pooka.
“That’s the auld Pooka,” laughed soft Sean.
“Is he a banker? I can’t stand bankers.”
“He is not. He could never be found dealing in anything so simple as notes and coins. He’s more ethereal than that,” said soft Sean. “Is that not the case?”
The Pooka, having regained enough puff after his exertions on the slope, enjoyed a puff on his pipe.
“Mine is a world of the intangiable, the irreal, the ineffable. I do not deal in things as course as money.”
“He’s a fecking hedge fund b*****d. He probably made up the sub-prime packages. Where’s me axe?”
And Milo made off for his house.
“I think we would be advised to push on,” suggested the Pooka.
The dog woofed.

The Seventh Ring

“Would you look at that auld river there. Sure, what is it like?” asked soft Sean.
“In what sense are you finding it objectionable?” asked the Pooka as he considered abandoning his corporeal form in light of the fact that the whole place seemed to quiver with violence.
“Sure isn’t it red. That can’t be right.”
“Well, given it’s a river of blood, what colour would you think it might be?” asked the Jinn.
“A river of blood! Jazes, I’m going fierce off this ‘breaking on through’ notion.”
A figure emerged from the red morass. Even if he not been dripping in blood, he’d have been a cause for concern.
The Pooka and the Jinn looked at the apparition in silence. Feeling an affront to curtesy, soft Sean stepped up.
“How’s it going there Jim?”
“Atilla,” said the apparition.
Soft Sean looked at him in manner indicating he was expecting a continuation.
“Until ye what?” he asked.
“Atilla,” repeated the apparition shaking some of the blood from his lank locks.
“Of the Hun, perhaps?” asked the Jinn.
“Scourge of God?” added the Pooka.
“Atilla the Hun,” said the apparition, unsheathing his all too apparent sword.
“So not Jim then? Only you looked a bit like my cousin there for a moment. Well now, are you enjoying the auld river there? Is that where you’re residing and that?”
“I am condemned to live in the river of blood because of all the blood I spilt.”
Atilla seemed more put upon than redeemed.
“Reap what you sow, eh?” said soft Sean.
“An eye for an eye,” said the Pooka pushing tobacco firmly into his bowl.
“There is no fear without realization,” said the Jinn.
The Atilla swung his sword over his head which cause the party to depart their pithy nonsense and flee for their lives to the woods.
The dog led the way.

The Eight Ring

“And we are in this wood, why?” asked the Jinn.
In fairness, saying he just ‘asked’ is to put a veneer of civility on it. If you honed in on the tenor of his intended expression it might be more in the manner of incandescent exasperation. People in Hell often feel such but it is, of course, of no consequence.
“I needed a piss,” said the dog, forgetting her sexual orientation again and cocking a leg against a tree ineffectually.
“I’m in need of an appendage to dislodge gunge from the draft of my pipe,” said the Pooka and he snapped a twig from the tree adjacent to his person.
“This is the end,” said a disembodied voice.
“Who’s that now?” asked soft Sean.
“My beautiful friend, the end.”
“Are you ventriloquising?” asked the Jinn of the Pooka.
“I’m a man of great mischief. My achievements in this area are well documented. I’m renowned in the area of my provenance as a heartscald for the aggravation I cause. However, I have to confess, at the school of Pookism, I failed Ventriloquism 101. Therefore, I suggest we are dealing with a talking tree.”
“Not at all,” declared soft Sean. “Sure isn’t that the plaintive tones of no less than James Morrison, hisself.” said soft Sean.
“The ‘break on though’, fecker? Is he not under a stone in Pere La Chaise?” said the dog, snapping a twig off another tree.
“Never going to go to rehab. No, no, no.”
“Ah, Amy, sure isn’t she getting it down there with Philo.”
The bemused Jinn snapped a twig from another tree.
“The Boys are Back in Town,” said a voice to everyone’s consternation.
“What the feck is that?” asked the Jinn.
The others look clueless.
“Whiskey in the jar?” asked the voice.
No one jumped in to clarify anything.
“It’s the wood of the suicides,” said the dog.
“Who do you think you are?” demanded the Jinn.
“Good point,” puffed the Pooka. “Has the thing even got a name?”
“The dog?” asked soft Sean. “We call her Dante.”
“Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again” said the suicide tree.

Footnote

“Is there not more to this?”
“There undoubtably is,” said the writer.
“Have you written me here again as a stooge in the dialectic?”
“I have.”
“Well, I hope there is more purpose in what follows than what has gone on so far.”
“That is a tall order but I will press on against the odds. The human imagination has a voracious appetite for slight, blame, guilt, and condemnation all packaged up as evil.”
“Like in horror movies and politics.”
“Hmm.”
“Is it to be found in individuals?”
“Only if they feel they need it, I expect.”
“I notice in the narrative, his nibs, the Devil didn’t put in an appearance.”
“There it is then. There may be no need for him. Or more likely, he doesn’t exist.”
“But the there would be no black against which we can conceive the white.”
“Hmm.”
“But, if there were no black or white, there would be only shite!”
“Hmm.”
“Or you could make gossamer silk out of a sow’s ear.”
“Hmm.”