The following is an excerpt from Jagalavak 1963

Clown Shoes of the gods

(with a little g)

Neesha, the Company archivist, has been reviewing my contract aloud, “Kokoro Jaglavak 1963″, reciting my full name and pedigree. GCC #ca2029 Dorylus Class Articulated NeCell Tractor CRDA Excerpt First Fall Epistle.

Day 5 Session sixteen Section 31. 

Humana Sapien Tolo Kokoro: Human/Machine/Insect hybrid. Genre: Three of nine in order of chronological emergence.

Order:Hymenoptera, Family:Formicidae; Subfamily:Dorylinae; Tribe:Dorylini; Genus:Dorylus Jaglavak 

GCC #ca2029 XY Male 1963: Tolo Zambia Syngh Byous…

…Copeland, Day, Recording Inxusa: Grade 1 Tolo Isis Khamyla two oh one.

I stop chewing as I think, Khamyla Inxusa is a Grade 3 now. I don’t like Neesha’s tone, they say, “Hmm? That’s odd.” then continues reading. “Grade 0 XXUASS (organic female unaugment standard sapient) three four seven, Kassidy (Tesseract Anchor)”

Kassidy Yates. She was a wonderful woman. I’m glad they pulled her out before anything happened. 

Neesha’s eyebrow raises they read, “Humana Sapien Tolo: Extra-extraterrestrial/Machine Enhanced Human Intelligence Amplified Homo Sapiens:

The result of billions of teenaged humans willfully electing to enter a state of networked stasis (drug induced coma linked by a video game engine). In order to conserve planetary energy consumption, clean harmful organisms from the bloodstreams and work out solutions for predicted problems.**For more detail on the imagined nation’s Mahia project, please refer to the life of founders Zambia Syngh and Papillon Day.”  

Thinking I know what I am and how I got here. Holding my coffee in my mouth, Hmm. Just a few days ago, I really felt rude for eating breakfast while they performed these half recital, half interrogations into something about me that intrigues somebody on the other side of the stream. They read, “Dorylus Class Articulated Necell Tractor Pilot: Unclassified. Neesha flinches.

Second Grade Alate Siafu Driver…” Neesha’s eyebrow raises

Third Grade Sculptor… They smirk

Emissary Grade Gobbledygook Chancery” They look up, puzzled.

First Grade Journeyed Mechanic. They frown

Zero Grade Journeyed Engineer… They say, “Hmm?”

Zero Grade Social Interface… They look up, “Really?” No sign of sarcasm.

Third Grade Poet Class Fighter… Decorated how many times?”

Dropping my spoon in my cereal, I answer, I don’t know. Uh?

My Inxusa says, “Mariposa.”

I smack myself in the head, say, Six hundred ninety five individual rescues. Including the hundred and eight babies on that trip to the Vista Way Magical Quean dome. Thank the folks at Hitsville for the miniatures.

Thirteen thousand plus, one-shot mutant terminations.

Two hundred six full cargo recoveries.

Zero Pilots Lost.

My personal point of pride. 

“Hmm. One on the old scale.” Neesha sounds like a phone sex operator machine, reciting from Tha BlkCorp’s Log Transcripts, “Quote, Inxusa Khamyla, Tolo, you may start reciting your track list.

The track list appears on my screen, I’m supposed to give my emotional reaction and recount the experience.

I was casting the stream to my pod. AmaDetroit: Live at Spot lite. Flight deck prep, we gear up to an old Amapiano mix, segue out with Roll Call over Ubomi Abumanga. Before our queen came on line, I was in my Dory, playing WCHB fourteen forty AM Soul Radio, an old station signal that I’d caught bouncing off a cluster of nickel-iron asteroids we captured. I took two solid weeks cleaning up this first hour. From the album, The Americanization of Ooga Booga, Bajabula Bonke, got my Dories mellow and focused. We hitched up, floated out Lempo station Gilbert terminal bay and onto jump ring 6.

Ikristle Medjool and the shift’s singers came on line at Ain’t No Way and got the builders loose and warm.

The pod fell into the groove around Little Green Apples. 

By the time Ikristle Deglet Noor got hot with This is the house that Jack Built we were completely synched, moving at a really nice clip. The whole ring was jumping off Soul Makossa. All the pod’s Singers do this Michaël Jackson flourish when we play it.

We worked until, twenty two oh five, when our Streaming Guild Navigator at Hitsville brought us on line in the tesseract, usually it was Lapis 137114 and switched us over to the regular company live feed.

Inxusa Isis Khamyla 201 issued standard greetings, terrestrial news and weather reports. Then Inxusa introduced our queen. Ikristale yekhokhonathi iswekile and the Pretoria Symphony Orchestra.

My clock read Twenty three forty eight and fifteen seconds GMT. Our queen channeled Sissieretta Jones, singing Sempre Libera. …che spero or’più?

Che far degg’io?

Gioire!

Di voluttà ne’ vortici perir!

Gioir’!

It’s the last thing I remember before she flashed us to Lafleur station, orbiting Eros. My pod lost contact with the queen, the tractors cut loose our cockpits and left us drifting, falling toward the sun like asteroids. Final destination: Point of origin: Earth, United States of America, Michigan, Willow Run Academy.

But happily, My Cookie Red Dory Ann’s playlist automatically kicked in and continued casting. “…I’m Jack Springer. Sunday night moving into Monday morning. And this is Heads or Tails. Which gave us a second to sound off roll call and sync.

…After the brake you heard, Tell Mama, we started getting our bearings, half way through Zelie, we were plotting a course. By the time we got to Love Child Chadwick’s Franklin Douglass extended remix, I was loose and driving us home to Hitsville USA

Flash! We down shifted in a gravity well around Mercury, Phobos and Deimos, we dragged the atmosphere and turned the Horizon Red, Flash! Gravity break downshift into Crown Royal, orbit twice and slingshot around Venus. Heat shield tiles flapping against my 

dory’s little tail like an old cabover diesel.  Flash! Left With a Smile. When we made our first pass of Earth the whole pod was a purple tailed comet, singing Ubomi Abumanga.

Inside that last white hot flash of pain, I heard my company Inxusa say, “You Met Your Match, I got you Tolo Byous 1963 as she took over the mix smiling, “You have earned your wings today” She tracked us in and let me enjoy blacking out.

I remember waking on board that twenty-fourth-century starship to my pod singing Pookie and Ray Ray’s remix of One Good Turn (our rescue theme) and my own voice singing Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay over thousands of voices and songs all at once.

 I recall the on board clock saying eleven nineteen twenty three EST March, 25, 1968 and their star clock saying Twenty three fifty seven, 3087.6. “That’s your voice on the monitor, sir. Not often that you get to meet someone from the future.” That lovely Lt. Charlene Masters, the ship’s Diz-Re transporter operator, offered me a peanut butter biscuit and cup of tea. “You and your company have beautiful singing voices, sir. It took the ship’s computer three hours to find the Al Jarreau versions of the songs you were singing in your sleep. It kept identifying the vocal inflection as, ‘In the style of Kem. A balladeer from Detroit, Michigan, popular in the early twenty-first century, whose style was influenced by Jarreau’s late career pop music success. 

My company Inxusa emissary, Khamyla says, “We projected an Electromagnetic pulse over the eastern United States to disable detection systems and take him out of the time stream.” Neesha smirks, then continues reading, “Then you recovered us, but we were planet bound for five years for recompression therapy. I was assigned to be Benjamin Russell, Lighthouse Keeper at Livingston playground, where I penned out my account, and Kassidy 347 was made my Temporal Anchor.”  

End Quote:

My Global Communication Company Emissary, Inxusa Isis Khamyla 201 asks, “More than two hundred thousand lines and over a thousand song references. It took your body five years to forget the ordeal. Don’t you think it’s fair?”

Quote:  Yes. Fair, but so uncool. End Quote: End Session

I think out loud, Yeah, ain’t nothing changed. Fair, but so uncool.