Synopsis
A brilliant research student discovers a plot fulminated by demons from another dimension and kills himself in the process. The fate of the world is left in the hands of an elderly academic and a mysterious orphan.
Using the facts surrounding Ireland’s economic collapse in 2008 as its starting point, Terminal Transit is an apocalyptic adventure dealing with death and destruction in a Dublin slowly devastated by demonic intervention.
Can the end of the world be avoided?
Or is this planet simply scheduled for Terminal Transit?
Terminal Transit,
Chapter I ‘The Song of the NotBeSpeak,’
Verse 9
‘There are many privileges to being the biggest rock star this country has ever produced and courtesy of off-shore accounting and other tax tricks, the biggest one of them is having enough money to spend however I like.’
Bart smiled.
‘Some stars spend their money on sports cars and beachfront properties in California or racehorses or islands or hotels in Dubai. I prefer to collect things; not the sort of ordinary things that ordinary people collect but the sort of extraordinary things that only extraordinary people like myself are able to collect.’
Bart looked very pleased with himself.
‘After years of spending more money than you could ever hope to even see, I currently have one of the world’s biggest collections of occult paraphernalia. I have cloaks and wands and books and globes and fetishes and familiars and gems and spells and curses and any other splendid arcania that takes my fancy.’
Bart smiled as he thought about his extensive collection. He pointed at Inteachán.
‘As you also know, I have recently acquired the Flute of Thelema and of all the things I have collected over the years this is the one thing that gives me the most pleasure.’
Bart paused.
‘Do you want to know why?’ he asked Inteachán.
‘Not really,’ answered Inteachán. Bart laughed.
‘Because The5 gave it to me as a gift.’
‘The Five?’ said Inteachán.
‘Not The Five, The5,’ corrected the Rock Star. ‘I’m sure that Mac has told you all kinds of ludicrous stories about the NotBeSpeak.’
Inteachán nodded.
‘Well,’ said the Rock Star. ‘He doesn’t know the half of it.’
Inteachán said nothing. Bart was thrilled to share his knowledge.
‘You cannot begin to imagine what I have seen and heard,’ he boasted. ‘Your tiny little mind would simply shatter.’
Bart cracked his knuckles.
‘The5 first spoke to me during a late-night recording session in our studio. The rest of the band had gone home hours before but I wanted to re-record a vocal so I stayed behind. As I mixed the track I kept noticing a slight vibration in the background.’
Bart stared at Inteachán, convinced he was impressing her with his knowledge.
‘It took me a while but eventually I was able to isolate the vibration and digitally transpose it, re-modulating it as I did so. At first I still couldn’t make anything out but by further transposing across four of the channels I was finally able to convert the vibration into legible sound.’
Inteachán wasn’t sure if Bart really knew what he was talking about. Unperturbed, he continued with his explanation.
‘I first heard a series of garbled voices whispering about stones and stars and other things that I couldn’t understand. It quite freaked me out, I can tell you.’
Bart mock-shivered. Inteachán didn’t laugh.
‘I must have fall into some kind of sleep at that stage because the next thing I knew I was standing in a pitch-black desert looking up at five shiny black planets in splendid orbit. A sudden wind appeared from nowhere.
‘We aRE The5,’ the wind whispered. ‘YoU ARe OuR fuTURe.’’
Bart looked extremely pleased with himself.
‘Then I was back in my studio as if nothing had happened.’
Bart smiled.
‘It isn’t everyday that beings from beyond our consciousness ask for help and so naturally I couldn’t say no.’
Bart kept crowing.
‘The5 must have seen one my concerts and realised just how much messianic potential I truly possess. They told me about the Flute and where it could be found. They also told me how to play it and why.’
‘Why?’ asked Inteachán.
‘Precisely,’ said Bart mystically. ‘Why, indeed.’
He put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out an ornate wooden box. He opened one end of the box and took out a small silver flute. Inteachán fancied that she saw its outline shimmer slightly. Bart put the flute to his lips and pretended to play it.
‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ he said boastfully, ‘but I mustn’t play it now. I have to wait until later.’
He put the flute back in the box and placed the box upon the table.
‘Only then will the time is exactly right.’
Bart looked at Inteachán and raised an eyebrow.
‘What do you think will happen when I play the flute during the concert?’
‘Something rotten,’ Inteachán replied. Bart laughed.
‘Something rotten? Something rotten? How about more like something mightily amazingly magnificently marvelous?’
Bart clicked his Cuban heels together.
‘When I play the Flute of Thelema The5 will know that their entry into this world is assured.’
Bart rubbed his hands together.
‘As Mac has no doubt explained in his clumsy, geriatric way, The5 exist in the spaces between things,’ explained the Rock Star. ‘The white between the words on a page, lines of a book or the cuts of a film.’ Bart continued.
‘Tonight, The5 will first reveal their intentions towards the world via the specially-commissioned video that will be playing on the massive wall of screens behind the band.’ Inteachán said nothing. Bart leapt to his tiny feet.
‘As the concert’s crescendo is reached I will play the Flute of Thelema and The5 will anoint me with their magnificence and then turn their attention to the audience. They will also be anointed by The5,’ said the Rock Star, ‘but obviously not quite as much as me for they have chosen me especially. The crowd will go wild and this dirty old town will be taken by sunrise.’
Inteachán didn’t see the fist that hit the side of her head and knocked her to the floor unconscious.
BARNABY TAYLOR: Curiosity is Currency 