Last Copy of RRis First Edition

 

I have come across a book I had no idea I still owned, a copy of the first edition of Roswell Rising- a Novel of Disclosure. You can see it is visibly thinner, 294 pages as opposed to the current 382. This is because the font size is just 8.6; I enlarged it in the second edition to 9.1. You'll see the first edition is only £9 as opposed to the current £10. I also made a few changes to the content; added and altered a few sentences and corrected a few typos. The second edition is the one currently on sale, although I changed the cover and added some end matter twice; when I published Revealed and Redeemed to promote the sequel and then the trilogy, see: https://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2019/01/rising-and-revealed-new-covers.html. It made me feel strange to find this first edition copy. I didn't know I had any left and this is probably the last one. What shall I do with it? I'm tempted to sell it; if I do it will be for a suitable price, seeing as it's a collector's item. I might just keep it as a souvenir of the best writing project of my life so far.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2016/08/roswell-rising-is-here.html.
And: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2017/10/roswell-revealed-is-here.html.
And: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2018/12/roswell-redeemed-is-here.html. 

Everything for Everyone- PIW in Fiction Update

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2023/12/piw-in-fiction.html.
Radical literature is not united behind China Miéville it seems. In recent years there is something of a fictional movement of utopian futuristic stories that quite openly speculate about what a post-capitalist world might be like. A good example is a book I've just read, Everything for Everyone- An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052 to 2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. This might confuse you because the dates in the title are decades in the future; and the publication date for the book is August 2022, which makes more sense. In fact this is a novel which doubles up as a pseudo-historical textbook. It consists of a set of very vivid and believable dialogues with leaders of a predicted socialist revolution that takes place after an economic collapse and Third World War. Some of them were creators of the New York commune, a parallel government similar to the Paris Commune of 1871 or the Soviet network set up in Russia by the Bolsheviks. The latter eventually grew in power by attrition to the point where it overwhelmed the existing government. This fictional future revolution follows a similar path except it is far more successful. Instead of stopping at the borders of one nation, it spreads all over the world to the point where the only counter-revolution left is in Australia, the land of "real blokes"... where else? Some of the elements of this imaginary society are very woke and don't bear thinking about in my view; transgender children, brain implants and designer drugs. There are also a lot of anti-white and anti-Christian sentiments in the narrative. Despite this, the parallels that I describe in the background article to the very different Conspiraspherical equivalent remain. Some of the interviews are with people who spend their whole lives on party cruises around the Indian Ocean; others write memoirs about a war in Israel, some of the more mature ones are trying to heal environmental damage caused by the ancien regime. One of the best segments is the testimony of somebody trying to restore the salt marshes in the east coast of the former USA. This is vaguely reminiscent of the "League of the World Earth Healing Organization" in my Roswell trilogy. This book is actually part of a tradition that is older than you might think; it can be traced back to William Morris' News from Nowhere in the 1890's, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2017/03/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris.html. It is praised by some established mainstream sci-fi authors like Kim Stanley Robinson of whom I am a big fan, despite not sharing his leftist politics. Another contemporary author who seems to fit into this institution is Cory Doctorow; and it is to him I will be turning next in my research. Source: https://craphound.com. What an amusing name for a website!

Roswell Trilogy Sales Problems

 

The illustration above is a page where you can buy my book in Trinidad and Tobago. The price is 221 of whatever currency those sun-kissed beach-and-palms Caribbean islands use; is that cheap or expensive? They've got the author's name wrong; I am not
"Ben Emlyn-Jonesannette Lemaire". Somehow they've managed to create a portmanteau of my name and my cover illustrator Annette Lemaire. This means searching under that term will not lead you to any of my other pages on the site. Source: https://trinidad.desertcart.com/products/64772019-roswell-rising-a-novel-of-disclosure. All three titles in the Roswell trilogy should be available all over the world. In most countries there is a local print-on-demand supplier, circumventing the need for imports, meaning the books should not be much more than the recommended retail price of £10. Unfortunately they very often are. Prices on Amazon vary almost minute by minute, but most of the time when I look on the UK site they are £12 to £14, well over the RRP. As it happens right now Redeemed is dead on a tenner; and ironically, you can get to it by clicking on the Rising selection list. I have reported this fault to Amazon. I have since been contacted by two separate individuals in the space of a week saying that my books are very hard to get hold of in Australia. One showed me a screenshot pricing them at 38 to 45 Australian dollars, that's around £20 to £25. This must mean that the domestic POD supplier must be down. I had some problems with Australia a few years ago in which one of my titles was taken off the market until I had adjusted the RRP; which I did and the book was subsequently put on sale again. I have checked with the printers and the book is listed as currently available worldwide. Unfortunately as publisher I cannot decide what price a retailer chooses; so unless there is a distinct and manifest problem with the supply outfit I cannot solve it, and there doesn't seem to be one right now. However I will continue to investigate. In the meantime here are some links to all three titles on the best value platforms I could find, see: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295127978254 and: https://www.whiterainbookhouse.com/products/roswell-revealed-ben-emlyn-jones-9780954222956 and: https://scifier.com/roswell-revealed-a-world-after-disclosure-ben-emlyn-jones-9780954222956/. Also, if you like, just email me at bennyjay74@gmx.co.uk and, if you're okay to pay postage and packing, I will send you signed copies of the books personally.

PIW in Fiction

 

While researching my Apocalypse Soon talk, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/apocalypse-soon.html, I came across one China Miéville, an author of science fiction and fantasy novels, many with an apocalyptic theme. By apocalyptic I mean the correct sense not the popular one. An apocalypse is not necessarily a time of destruction at the end of the world, but also a moment of revelation, exposure and unveiling, after which the world will be forever transformed, possibly for the better. Miéville's apocalyptic ideas are entwined with his political opinions; he is a Marxist. As you know, I couldn't be more opposed to him politically, but I still find him a fascinating individual; I've read four of his books. In a 2016 live lecture somebody in the audience asked him: "This is a question that occurred to me. You were reflecting on the complexities and difficulties of constructing an impossible world in such a way that the reader can accept the social logic and go with the flow and enjoy it. So this has a political kicker to it; is it feasible to envision a socialist world in that kind of way? There are some classic socialist utopias and some very unconvincing ones; some very naff ones, but is it possible to do that in a way that is not just plausible, like propaganda, but complex, enjoyable and challenging in all the ways that you and we want your fiction to be. Have you ever thought of doing that; and if not, why not?" China summarizes the question for whoever didn't hear the audience member and then responds thus: "To do the depiction of socialism essentially, to do the depiction of a post-capitalist world? Okay, well my go-to answer here is no. I don't think it is. And not only is that radically different for me from saying that it's impossible that it could be created, it is constitutive of believing that it could be created. I am not a person of faith, but I don't take it as a criticism to say at all, I take it as diagnostic to say, because I am a socialist. I am someone committed to a post-capitalist social world and my relationship to socialism is, and this is by no means unique to me, is eschatological, it is part of that kind of millenarian tradition. This is a connection which has been made many many times, but I take it very seriously, very constitutively seriously. It's not just a question of saying one wants a better world, one wants the Big Rock Candy Mountain, although I do not in any sense denigrate the desire for the Big Rock Candy Mountain. (Audience laughs.) I'm quite serious. I think those kinds of dream utopias are quite important, in many cases because of their absurdity; but in this particular question, and this goes back to totality for me, and this is where there is an absolutely rational kernel to the connection between the sort of chiliastic (Christian end times) tradition and the Marxist tradition. It is that if you take seriously social totality, one of those components, along with Mickey Mouse and the exchange rates, is the human mind. That doesn't mean that we are robots programmed by an oppressive totality; but it does mean we are absolutely conditioned by that totality and that we can't think outside it, which for me is one of the reasons that politics often, and I don't mean this in a sectarian fashion, a certain type of anarchist politics, a certain type of ultra-left politics, a certain type of hippie politics, which is predicated on prefiguration is a category era for me. And it is both to honour the totality of capitalism and to take seriously the radicalism of the potential of an alternative, to say that we can't think beyond it. It is in the process of changing it that one might change oneself and start to become someone capable of thinking beyond this shit; and so for that reason no. I think any depiction of a post-capitalist totality will always banalize, domesticate, fail, be unrealistic, be trite or be dull, because it can only ever be a pre-emptively hobbled dream predicated on the now, on what Trotsky calls the social lie; and in a 'post-lie' world we won't be these people so we will be dreaming different dreams and dreaming them in a different way. So it is precisely about the importance of getting there that is why, and people often refer to Marx' reference about not writing the recipe books for the cooks of the future, which this is why he (Karl Marx) refused to describe socialism. It's a little bagatelle, it's a little bon mot, but I think there's a very important truth to it. And that is why, and I won't go into the specifics because it would comprise spoilers, but you have basically just got at the key point, the nexus, of Iron Council (one of China's novels); so no, I think this is undepictable and unthinkable." (The "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a reference to George Orwell's Animal Farm. It is the name of the animal afterlife preached by Moses the raven and it summarizes Orwell's very MBA-ish attitude to the church.) Source: https://youtu.be/HBf28LBGsso?si=0IyNnMNukwkq7IkA&t=2775.
 
This got me thinking, because I have the same fascination with comparative eschatology as China Miéville does. How would we writers of fiction, who are also conspiracy theorists, depict the post-Illuminati world? Or can we? Readers of my Roswell trilogy will know that I end Roswell Redeemed, the concluding book, with a final chapter that is a bit of a postscript, set two years after the previous one. Following the death of one of the main characters, the others travel to Roswell to explore some of their family's history. It is a short, relaxed and atmospheric passage which provides a summary of the story's themes, but also a hint that the future might not be a utopia; although I maintain a tone of optimism and hope. The final line of dialogue is: "So that's it. One story ends and another begins." I was breaking the fourth wall there a bit and addressing the reader directly, something I only ever did at that point. Also I was implying the same thing China was saying, although I had not seen his video when I wrote the end of Redeemed. Excuse the spoilers, but by the end of the story the real UFO Disclosure has finally happened and the influence of the Illuminati has been permanently eradicated from the earth. That is when this "new story" begins, the one after the Roswell trilogy which I have never written and probably never will. Rising, Revealed and Redeemed are all about "getting there"; they describe three imaginary yet feasible and predictable stages in that long process, but what is there? Will it simply descend into another New World Order because of the inevitable problems of "just human nature, mate!" Will we suffer from the "boredom of paradise", the theory that in a perfect world there would be no problems at all and therefore no challenges, no stimulus, nothing to strive for and no adversity to overcome? For most people, especially men, those things are essential no matter how negative they are as a current experience. They give our life texture and colour. However, do we know for sure that those things would be absent in a post-Illuminati world? The PIW will probably have many surprises for us. Even now I can predict humans will still get into conflict; it is not just in our biological nature, it is one of the fundamental dialectics of the universe. We will still have love-rivalries and family feuds, for examples. There will still be natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. We may face the threat of hostile extraterrestrial civilizations... real ones this time! Despite this, I predict that we may end up fighting manufactured miniature wars. These would be completely limited to the participants and would essentially be nothing more than very violent sports, but they would happen and there would be real death and injury involved; gladiatorial combat on a much larger scale. And that connection reminds us, many historical cultures have done just this. I address this set of concepts in a scene earlier in the novel when the Quilleys travel to a party to celebrate the 1970 New Year. Clane gets into an argument with his daughter Siobhan on this issue:
"Aren't great days great?" said Clane cheerily as he tucked into his Irish stew.
    "Are they that great?" Gina responded with semi-mock-dubiousness.
    "Yes!" he answered playfully and gave a litany of all the reasons to be optimistic. "The economy is booming! We haven't had a stock market crash for four years. The wars around the world are calming down; even England is stabilizing."
    "What about those outside Disclosure nations?" asked Siobhan.
    Clane waved his hands dismissively. "Oh, they'll see the light eventually. They'll probably reform into social democracies in a few years. They'll know it makes sense. I really think the decade to come will be far better than the decade we're leaving."
    "I hope so." said another passenger, a man they had been talking to during the journey from New York.
    "I know so! This could even be the start of the post-Disclosure equilibrium."
    "What's that?" asked Brendan.
    "Something I read yesterday in The Washington Post by John Fields; you know, the guy who presents History Today. He put out this dynamite piece called '23 Years' because it's the twenty-third year since Disclosure. He said that basically all the problems caused by the Disclosure revolution have now been addressed and fixed, and as a result we can now reap the benefits of Disclosure itself without having the burden of its drawbacks... He quotes me five times in it." Clane winked arrogantly. "We have the new tech well on the way to full development and integration. We're delving further and further down into the Illuminati files every day and we'll probably be at the bottom within twelve years or so. There are already development proposals for this 'post-new tech' you might have heard about."
    "I've heard the phrase." said Siobhan.
    He lowered his voice. "Well I can't say too much now, but this promises to be incredible even by the standards of what we've seen so far. It's largely to do with the medical field."
    "I'll pass judgement when I've seen it, dad." said Siobhan with a half-smile.
    "The point of all this is that we might be emerging out of the transitional period between the pre and post-Disclosure worlds. Fields quotes Winston Churchill's phrase 'the end of the beginning'; the beginning being that of the pre-post-Disclosure equilibrium."
    "Pre-post-Disclosure equilibrium." Brendan repeated to feel what the words were like on his tongue.
    "Brendan, you know about the three forms of equilibrium, don't you?"
    "Of course, dad. It's basic stuff, Newton's second law. I am going for my high school diploma in physics and chemistry remember?"
    "I know, son." He bowed his head apologetically. "Perhaps you could explain."
    Brendan smiled at him warmly. "There are three states of equilibrium best illustrated by imagining a ball rolling along a surface. Unstable equilibrium is a state in which the ball is perched on the point of a cone or dome, or a similar structure. It is only in equilibrium because it is perfectly balanced; the forces are equal on both halves and it is touching the surface on its exact centre of gravity; but the tiniest nudge either way and the equilibrium is destroyed and the ball falls off. Neutral equilibrium is a ball lying on a flat surface. It stays still until it is pushed and when it is pushed it moves, but then it simply slows down and stops due to the resistance of friction. It then returns to equilibrium in a different part of the surface. Stable equilibrium is a state like a ball lying at the bottom of a bowl with steep sides. You can push it and it moves, but then it returns to its original point of equilibrium."
    Clane took over. "And John Fields has turned this into a metaphor for politics. He claims we are now in a stable equilibrium. Every force that pushes us out of it does nothing to change the long-term state; we just return to equilibrium like the ball in the bowl. Up till now society has been a combination of neutral and unstable equilibriums, but now, for the first time ever we have stable equilibrium. Instability is the cause of all civilization's problems, with the exception of natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. Instability is generated by scarcity, therefore in a world of universal abundance there can be no scarcity, and therefore no instability; equilibrium! This can only spread over the entire world and once it's done, it will last forever."
    Siobhan frowned. "Wait a minute, dad. Are you talking about... utopia?" Her mouth twisted.
    Clane blushed and hesitated. "Is it such a dirty word?"
    "It's a word that has spawned quests that ended in extraordinary evils. There have been people through all of history who have believed that they have the key to create heaven on earth because of some religious belief or some revelatory political philosophy. What has always resulted is more like hell. What makes you any different?"
    "Because this time what we're doing is based on science, not politics."
    "Does that make you somehow immune?"
    Clane paused. He looked uncomfortable. "Siobhan... I would never be part of anything that would result in hell on earth. I just want to see a better world than the one we've had all our life and I'm happy that we seem to be heading towards one which is better. Is that so bad? Are you saying I should try to resist that?"
    Siobhan didn't answer. She looked awkward now, as if she regretted what she'd just said. Everybody else around the table was subdued by the tension between father and daughter. "No, dad... It's just that it may turn out not to be as simple as you think. You haven't mentioned one fundamental difference between the world before and after Disclosure."
    "What's that?"
    "It's not just us now. Up till now we've only ever seen the world as a planet with humans on it, an oasis of life in an infinite cosmic desert. Now we know we are just one little unit of a universe teaming with life. We can't make assumptions about the future of human civilization without taking into consideration that reality. That's what mainstream politics is still failing to get to grips with."
    "That's because the aliens generally ignore us. They fly down here now and again, occasionally they crash their craft, but really they act like we're not here. Why shouldn't we return the favour?"
    "They do not though, dad."
    He chuckled. "Oh, you mean the abductions."
    "Yes. Why, do you think they're funny?"
    "No, it's just..."
    "Do you believe they're real?"
    "Of course. We have lots of DOD formerly classified documentation about it."
    "And you'll be hearing a lot more about it very soon." Siobhan's book was due to be launched the following month. A number of governments around the world had published several reports and set up official inquiries into the abduction phenomenon. "You can't call this ignoring, dad... You used to be the kind of person who would understand that. I think maybe you've been working in Washington for too long."
Source: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2018/12/roswell-redeemed-is-here.html.
I wonder if it's worth having these discussions at this juncture in history. Some authors have attempted it, like William Morris; see the background links below. He combats the critics of his vision through the structure of the story; but how much of a futile exercise would that be for us? The PIW for us may be as difficult to comprehend as flight is to a battery hen or running through a field under a blue sky is to a man chained to the bottom of a muddy pond. China Miéville may well be right, even though I don't share his own vision for the world's destiny. We cannot truly comprehend the PIW because we live under the jackboot of the Loomies who have so warped and shackled our minds and cultures that they have forced any alternative into the realms beyond our comprehension. Those of us who think we have seen though their machinations have not shaken off their blinkers, we are merely aware that we are wearing their blinkers. We really are venturing into new territory in a way no other people have for millennia. What has happened in the last decade alone has been so unpredictable, and I certainly failed to predict it; therefore maybe we should face the 2020's and beyond with totally open minds and humility, expecting the unexpected. We should just follow the path and do our best to do what is right at each stage on the journey. Leave the journey's end where it is for now.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/09/j-posadas-at-ccs.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2017/03/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris.html.

Fake Britain High-Res

 

See here for essential background: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2023/11/map-of-fictional-place-names.html.
The article by The Londonist has been edited to allow a detailed close-up of the map. I have therefore produced a more detailed addition of my own fictional place names to it, see above.

Map of Fictional Place Names

 

It is rare that I am blown away by the mainstream press, but The Londonist has achieved something truly extraordinary. They have created a map of fictional locations and they have gathered hundreds. The map displays a geographical area roughly parallel with real life Great Britain and its surrounding islands; and it includes imaginary places from ancient mythology and classic literature to modern soap operas and children's TV. So you can clearly see Cantre'r Gwaelod, an island kingdom from Welsh folklore; along with buzzwords from today's prolefeed like Emmerdale, Wetherfield, Walford, Ambridge and Hollyoaks. Sodor is an island loosely analogous to the Isle of Man where Thomas the tank engine and the other sentient railway vehicles of Rev. W Awdry's books is set. Some places cannot be mapped like the mysterious vanishing and reappearing Scottish village of Brigadoon; and they are marked by a spiral in their rough positions. The same goes for the otherworld of Harry Potter's school, Hogwarts. Source: https://londonist.com/london/maps/fake-britain-map-fictional-locations-england-scotland-wales. The Londonist has also published a gazetteer to accompany the map, see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1djax783rILHf56Mue-huoVNkAgTL5mULyiBBY_AR5nU/edit?pli=1#gid=0. Detailed prints can be purchased from the source page. The creators know that their work is incomplete and have put out an appeal for additional names from anybody who has come across settings in the endless wastes of literature. Well, my readers and I can help them out there, can't we? There's Lancombe Pond; two in fact. The town in Bedfordshire where Evan Hughes begins his hero's journey; and the microstate in the East Midlands central to The Obscurati Chronicles. Evan's Land contains other fictional towns and villages in North Wales such as Llangeri, Nantmawr, Llanigmur and Nagelluw. There are many other real places in the story that I have changed in size and nature. I have done the same to Rockall. This is a real island in the Atlantic, but I have changed it in my novel of that name into a much larger land five miles across. I post my adjusted map below.

York Sketch

 

I have written a sketch inspired by my trip to York last year, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2022/05/york.html. It is an idea that came to me very suddenly and I wrote the whole thing within about two hours. It comes across as an extract from a much longer piece of prose, but it actually is not. That being said, I may end up adapting it at some point. Either way, I had great fun writing it.
 
Lewis stopped. He stood at the end of Cromwell Road and looked up at Baile Hill. The squat grey stone tower jutted modestly out into the street, more cuddlesome and less imposing that its fellow structures. He shifted his case over to his other shoulder. Despite its lack of weight, it felt heavy. He looked at the ducks and geese chattering as they paddled on the Ouse, and he took comfort in the innocuous natural vista. The evening sun cast glowing shadows deep into the dark water, tinted green by weeds. The summer trees were upholstered with foliage. He put a call through to Mallory. The man picked up immediately. "Lewis? How's it going?"
    "Are we on the encrypted line?"
    "As always."
    He paused. "I'm going to do it, this evening."
    "You can't now! It's Sunday!"
    "Not where I'm standing."
    Mallory chuckled. "Sorry, mate. Forgot the time zones... Are you sure? You know this is a hundred percent voluntary..."
    "McGreig must be stopped! It's now or never."
    "Not true, we'll have other chances. Don't sacrifice yourself, Lewis!"
    "There's no time, Maz! If not me, who? If not now, when?"
    Mallory sighed. "Alright, Lew... Just play it cool if you get nicked. You know the lines."
    Lewis briefly put his hand through one of the arrow slits as he entered the turret. He closed one eye and squinted, imagining himself as one of the city's defenders; which he actually was, he reminded himself; although in the modern age, not medieval. Times move on, the world has superficially changed so much, yet some things remain the same. The cycle of history is an uncorrupted file. He walked up the steps to the City Wall and paused again. Even on a mission of such urgency, he couldn't help but be moved every time he looked out over the rooftops of York. It was like looking down from a godlike position, as if the city had created the very means to know itself through divine eyes. Walking along the flagstone pathway behind the battlements always felt precarious. The bottom parts of the battlement outer wall felt too low to stop one falling off, but there was no inner wall at all for most of the walkway. There was just a sheer drop of eight to ten feet down onto earthen slopes covered in thick stinging nettles. He felt the urge to crouch for stability every time he had to pass somebody coming the other way because they forced him to walk closer to either one of those precipices. He descended to cross over Lendal Bridge and briefly entered the Museum Gardens. Lewis was aware that he was driven by many subconscious urges that he didn't necessarily understand and that one of the tasks of his egoic mind was continuously to unpick the riddles his subconscious constantly tried to bamboozle him with. He decided that deep down he was worried that he would never be able to enjoy the lush beauty of the gardens again. The Minster loomed over the skyline. Even after a millennium it still dominated the vista of York. "Look upon my works and despair." Lewis mumbled to himself as he did every time he beheld the Minster. He felt tears budding in his eyes. He blinked and turned his gaze away.
    He returned to the wall as the crowd began to gather. He didn't want to stand out by arriving up there early. To them he must have looked like a student, dressed as he was in denims, with uncut blonde hair and small spectacles. The case he was carrying was made of hard corrugated plastic reinforced by a steel frame. It looked as if it contained some kind of musical instrument, or at least that's what he hoped people would think. The sun was a crimson haze between the trees and as the twilight deepened; floodlights were switched on in the Memorial Gardens. The laundered white marquees has been pitched several hours ago and suited servants circulated carrying boxes of supplies for the party that was about to begin. A motorcade of Rolls Royces pulled up and people emerged, men in black tie and women in sumptuous dresses. Gold Rolexes and bracelets glinted at every wrist, diamonds shone out from necks and earlobes. Lewis had no idea who these people were. He was only interested in one of the guests, the guest of honour, and he knew who that was only too well. The man arrived escorted by the Lord Mayor of York in his tarmac-crushing limousine. The Lord Mayor circled his guest as they walked up to the Gardens, talking to him in a manner that skilfully combined informality with sycophancy. The guest looked straight ahead of himself as he walked, seeming unimpressed by his companion. The short rotund man waddled with confidence, unashamed of his huge belly. His hair was brown and stuck out of the sides of his head like un-styled cinnamon buns. His beard, by contrast was immaculately sculpted into lines and patches on various parts of his face. Lewis frowned, hardly believing that he was so close to the bane of his life. James Harold McGreig. Lewis felt his teeth grind. He had given up on the idea losing his hate. He had really become very tired of those life coaches who keep saying things like "let go of your hatred!" "Hate only destroys!" Lewis had come to accept that hate is a natural and healthy human emotion. It is a good man's involuntary reaction to evil. If he could not hate then he would be incapable of loving. Hate does not have to be destructive, it can sometimes be creative. He hoped that it would be tonight.
    This would not be easy. He was surrounded by fellow onlookers, they were almost touching his shoulders and there were a few of them stacked up behind him. He just banked on them panicking once it all started.
    The crowd had gathered in front of the podium awaiting their mentor. McGreig approached the podium, pausing every few steps to build up the tension. He knew how to manipulate an audience. He accepted a shot of single malt from a waiting servant with a silver tray. He was quite content to let the audience and TV cameras see this action; it was just another part of "Wee Jimmy" McGreig's" individuality.
    Lewis looked furtively to one side and then the other. There was a row of police bodyguards below in the Memorial Gardens, but only two on that segment of the City Wall; one at each end of the crowd. McGreig finally stepped up to the podium. A hoot of feedback cleared as the microphone was switched on. As per his normal manner, he had insisted on speaking first, refusing the Lord Mayor's offer to introduce him. Amazingly, just before he spoke, he made the salute of his organization with his left hand; first and second finger extended, ring and little finger crossed. He did it covertly, almost hidden by the podium. Lewis had to stop himself gasping aloud at the arrogance of the man, and then felt an added motive of satisfaction over what was to happen next.
    "Ladies and gentlemen." began McGreig in his educated Edinburgh tones. "People of York. Thank you for inviting me here." He said these words in such a low voice that it was almost a mutter. As usual, he expressed no emotion and kept his gaze downwards at the podium, even though he had no written notes. "This is my first visit to York since being elected First Minister of Scotland; however, I have been here a few times before then..."
    The waiting was over. Lewis had felt strangely relaxed during these last few minutes. He felt as if he were being carried along by a warm, cosy tide. What took place next was of no consequence really. He calmly removed the case from his shoulder and opened it. He took out the carbon shafted bow and pressed it against the flagstone to loop the string. Already he could hear some curious murmuring from the people standing beside him, but none of them sounded alarmed. He grasped one of the four tungsten tipped arrows and stood up. Now a few people exclaimed in concern as he fitted the arrow to the bow and took aim. Nobody below the Wall reacted; they couldn't hear the people near him. He didn't even look to see if the police were doing anything. Lewis pulled back the string and glanced down the shaft of the arrow at his target. This was exactly as he had always imagined it would be. Playing this moment over and over again in his mind for months, following the news that McGreig would be visiting York in the summer. He shut one eye. McGreig was oblivious, still rapping to his adoring posse. Mallory had been right when he told Lewis that "the Loomies have lost the sense of being stared at." The string bit into Lewis fingers. He lifted the bow slightly to account for the range. There was no wind and McGreig was stationary, so there was no need for lead. He released it and felt the orgasmic recoil as the arrow departed the bow and began its brief voyage to its target. It was forty or fifty yards, but the bow was powerful and the arrow hard. He heard people around him scream with alarm at the very same moment he saw McGreig falter and collapse at the podium. A second later everybody was screaming, both on the wall and below in the Memorial Gardens. People were pouring off the Wall like lemmings, jumping, braving nettle stings and rolling down the grass embankments to the street inside the Wall. Lewis was the only person in the vicinity who remained calm. Down at the podium, a huge crowd of helpers surrounded the fallen McGreig and Lewis couldn't see what was going on. An emergency vehicle siren sounded in the distance. The two policemen minding the Wall had vanished, but two others appeared at the southern end, running towards him. They had drawn pistols from their holsters and as they reached Lewis they levelled them at him. "Drop your weapon! Drop it now!" one of them yelled. Lewis smiled in a genial manner as he slowly held the bow out at arms length and tossed it away. The policemen put away their guns and lunged at him like a pair of wrestlers. Lewis grunted as the wind was knocked out of him. He fell to the stone floor under the weight of the two police officers. He was rolled onto his front and the men wrenched his arms behind his back. Handcuffs closed on his wrist. "I'm arresting you on suspicion of attempted murder!" one of them shouted. "You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
    Lewis chuckled. "Only attempted murder? Is he still alive then?"
    "Come on, sonny! On your feet!" They craned him up into a standing position, almost dislocating his shoulders.
    "Take off these handcuffs and de-arrest me!" Lewis shouted back. "Do it now!"
    The policemen scowled. "What!? What are you talking about?"
    Lewis stared at them hard, shuttling his glare from one of them to the other. "Bylaw 323 of 1297; defence of the city from possible attacks by the army of William Wallace! It's on the statute books; check it if you don't believe me."
    The policemen guffawed with a mixture of disbelief and amusement.
    "I can lawfully shoot and kill a Scottish person in this city, including one outside these Walls so long as I am on the Wall and my weapon is a bow and arrow."
    There was a volcanic pause. Nobody moved or spoke. One of the officers broke it. "A likely story, lad. Come on, let's sort it out down the station!"