Beneath Unwashed Robes
Being a Prophet: Noel's autobio­graphical novel

 

Front cover

Prologue: Awakening
1: Discovery
2: Adolescence
3: Submergence
4: Preparation
5: Escalation
6: Recreation
7: Inflation
8: Prophetry
9: Preachery
10: Diary
11: Trial

Chapter 6: Recreation

"Aloha! Aloo-haa!"

Voices and sweet laughter filled my ears. I was drifting on the water, half asleep, and at first I did not know if the voices were real or a dream.

"Aloha!" No, it was real, I decided, and slowly I lifted my head. A lush green coastline spanned the horizon. Rich palm forests stretched as far as I could see, separated from the sea by the whitest beaches I had ever encountered. Birds tweeted. "Valinor", I murmured to myself as I was slowly washed onto one of these beaches and came to rest on fine, warm sand.

The happy voices approached. They belonged to half a dozen dark-skinned, half-naked and unbelievably beautiful women. They wore flowers in their hair and juggled hula-hoop loops. "Not Valinor. Hawaii", I corrected myself.

"No, Jamaica", said one of the females. "But you have a point there. This holiday facility is run by a Hawaiian businessman. Welcome, stranger."

I stumbled to my feet. My beard was still stuck in a coral reef about ten meters offshore, and I yanked it out. The pain woke me up completely, and I looked around. Beyond the beach, there were white buildings, a hotel of some sort, complete with terraces, swimming pools and colourful sunscreens. People were lying around on towels, books in one hand, beeping blackberries in the other. Young men with shrill-coloured shirts, big sunglasses and mighty dreadlocks served expensive-looking cocktails. An almost unbelievable aura of peace and tranquility lay over the scene. After years in a fortress preparing for all-out war, this seemed like paradise.

"Well", I said and cleared my throat. "This looks like a perfect place for a holiday. Do you happen to have a spare room?"

"Do you happen to have money?" answered one of the beauties.

I frowned. I had left my purse in the U-fat when Joe drove her away. "Do you happen to have a job?" I asked.

"Well, you should talk to our boss", said another woman. "But that should not be a problem. We always need helping hands. Can you mix cocktails?"

"Um, no", I said. "I'm a traffic light salesman. You don't need one of these here, do you?"

The woman frowned. "Not here", she said. "But we could use someone for these party light shows we stage every evening. If this is within your field of profession..."

I grinned. "That will do just fine", I said.

***

This evening, when the sun set and merry music and partying replaced the drowsiness of the day, I staged a little improvised light show in the yard behind the hotel. Luckily I had not forgotten anything the old Sylmarillenfaycker had shown me, and I managed to impress the Hawaiian businessman enough to get the job. He gave me a little room and promised me a few dollars as wage, not much, but I was used to a spartanic life. From now on I spent my evenings arranging and re-arranging the colourful party lights in the yard, programming sequences for them to blink, flicker, wave, sparkle, undulate and pulse. I wrote quite elaborate sequences and gave them names like "Moonlight over Doriath", "Gondorian Sunset" or "Mount Doom Eruption". The last one, after the initial panic had subsided, became quite a classic in the art of lighting arrangement.

I also made a new friend. He was a young Rastafarian named Papa Tlzotlicoatl. When I asked him about his name, he explained me that he had been a Aztec priest before, but then converted to Voodoo because it was less bloody. Papa Tee initiated me to some of his rites, and especially to some of his drugs. He claimed they helped him see Bob Marley, and I took whatever he gave me in the hope of seeing Tolkien one day. "Yo man", Papa Tee used to say, shaking his head rhythmically to the music blaring out of his earphones. "Easy, man. I don't get you. Tolkien is Babylon, yo. Why you wanna see Babylon? But have it your way, man." Papa Tee worked as bartender in the hotel, and despite his habit of occasionally smuggling chicken heads into rich people's drinks, he was a friendly and relaxed fellow.

I spent my days either fooling around with Papa Tee in the countryside, in my room brooding over new compositions, or relaxing at the shore. There was not much to do, and I just waited for fate to show me the way, as it had always done in my life. And fate did not let me down.

One fine morning, after a relaxing sleep and a light breakfast, I walked down to the beach, where the earliest guests had already claimed their towel space. Over the sea, in the east, the sun was rising, and the entire coast was bathed in golden light. Far above me in the palm trees, cute little baby monkeys were feasting on coconuts. Far out on the sea, cute little baby sharks were feasting on an early surfer. Papa Tee was mopping his bar to the sound of Jimmy Cliff. And suddenly it struck me like lightning out of a perfectly blue sky. A young woman was lying on the beach, reading a novel, sipping a glass of iced coconut milk. She was beautiful. And I knew her.

I walked up to the young woman. "Hhh...hh", I said. I cleared my throat and began again. "Ggg... ghh", I said. I grabbed her coconut milk with trembling fingers and took a deep sip. "Hello, Bombadillia", I finally managed to say.

The young woman looked up and frowned. "Excuse me, do I know you?" she inquired.

I waved towards a boy with a machete who was just climbing a palm tree to get fresh coconuts. As he came running towards me, I grabbed the machete and, with one swift stroke, cut off several meters of my beard, so that the young woman could see my face. She gulped as she finally recognized me. "Noeel?" she asked.

"Yes", I answered. "It's me. What are you doing here?"

"But... but I thought you were dead!" exclaimed Bombadillia. "Drowned by some rogue orcs. So you survived that? Why did you never call me?"

"Well", I said and shuffled around uneasily. "I had a quest... thing going on, you know. I just didn't have the time, and we had not been together anymore for some years-"

"-Oh, don't worry", said Bombadillia. "It's all right. Now you're here, and... wow. That is amazing. Do you still do that silly Tolkien stuff?"

"No. Well, yes. No", I stammered. "Theoretically. But I'm on holiday now. And I don't do anything like that on holiday. Well, not much, at least. Except-"

"-Good", said Bombadillia and smiled. I realized that she had indeed become beautiful. The cute, chubby teenager I had known had grown up. "I'm on holiday too. First holiday for a while. I work as warplane seat cover designer, and we had a lot of work ever since these mysterious, nasty, ugly, violent jellyfish things started attacking us." She shuddered in disgust, and I bit my lips and shuffled around even more uneasily. Bombie noted that I was trying to say something. "What is it, Noeel?" she asked.

I breathed in deeply. "Do you think... do you believe that two people who once were together..." I stuttered. "Do you believe they can get a second chance... I mean, I don't know, like, if you're currently engaged or something, or maybe-"

I could not continue. For in this moment Bombadillia had stood up, flung her arms around me and given me the most ferocious kiss I had experienced in my whole life. I just stood there, dazed, while Bombadillia whispered something in my ear. "What?" I had to ask.

"On one condition", Bombadillia repeated a bit louder. "You've got to shave off this ridiculous beard."

"Yo! Yo! Bob Marley! It's you! Zion is upon us!" Papa Tee bellowed in drugged ecstasy, stormed past us and hugged a nondescript mass of air halfways between us and the sea. But nobody paid attention to him.

***

In the following weeks I was walking on cloud nine. Well, not literally. In fact, the actual act of walking on cloud nine is vastly overrated. I tried it once by blowing up my belly with helium and drifting up into the sky. If you actually walk on a cloud, all you get are wet feet and the occasional electric shock if your cloud happens to be a thunderstorm. No, what I experienced was much better.

I did shave off my beard and cut my hair short, even though it felt like tearing out a part of myself. I kept a moustache, that compromise I could wrestle through. I think the result was a quite smashing look, not unlike the young Tom Selleck, but with a whiff of devilish mystery in my eyes.

Money was not a problem for Bombadillia. She took me to the best restaurants on Jamaica - and once to the less good one where I had a halibut filet that was unexplicably full of wooden chair splinters - and she bought us cocktails that would have converted Diogenes to a hedonistic lifestyle. In return, I composed a light show for her in which dozens of floodlights cast wonderful pink hearts onto the sky. We went sightseeing, visited the rugged mountains and the lively towns, let Papa Tee take us on a tour to the places Bob Marley had lived at, and stared in wonder at the massive shelters, bunkers and landmine belts the people here had erected as protection against Morambar's armies. And in the evening, we went down to the palm forest and - well, I'll leave that to the imagination of my readers.

The most amazing and inexplicable thing is not what happened between Bombadillia and me these days. The most inexplicable and unbelievable thing is the fact that I blew it. Again.

About two months after our first encounter I took Bombadillia to an open-air cinema near our hotel. It was late, and the whole afternoon a fine drizzling rain had soaked the coast, so the cinema was almost empty, even though the weather had improved again. The film was not really good, and soon Bombadillia was deeply asleep in my arms, and my eyelids were also starting to get heavy.

Suddenly I felt how every remaining hair on my head started to rise. A cold breeze made me shiver. Slowly I turned my head and saw someone sitting in the row behind me. I recognized him, despite the fur and the long, thin ears. It was Morambar Udunvagor.

I grinned. "Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?" I inquired.

Morambar seemed puzzled. "Oh, that", he finally said. "I lost a bet with Horus. Never mind."

"Oh", I said. "Okay. Why are you here?" Then the shiver crept around my head to my moustache. "You're not really here, are you?"

His voice was only a hoarse whisper. "I was wrong, Noeel", he said. "I thought I could force our belief in Tolkien onto the world without further explanation. But it does not work this way. What I need is someone who can explain to the people why it is necessary. Who can explain why they should accept me as their ruler, and Tolkien above me. I need a prophet, Noeel. And it will be you."

"Why me?" I whispered.

"You are the one I have always waited for", resounded Morambar's ethereal whisper. "You are the best. The old Board has failed. You will found a new one. You will build me a temple worthy of Tolkien."

Slowly I stood up, as if my body was controlled by someone else. A mad grin crept over my face. "Yes, sir", I whispered. For the last time I looked at Bombadillia's sweet, freckled face. Then I left the cinema and went down to the hotel.

I had not much to pack. I fetched what I had left of Papa Tee's drugs and went down to the beach. In the darkness I noticed a large mass just a few meters off the shore. The moon appeared from behind a cloud, and I realized the mass was a blue whale. It gave me a friendly smile. Quickly I clambered onto its back and held fast to the thick, rubbery skin. "Let's go", I whispered.

Instead of an answer, a mixture of air and foam exploded under my behind and thrust me about five meters into the air. I made a quadruple somersault and fell back onto the whale with a loud splat.

"Not on the breathing hole, idiot", said the whale. I slid to another, better suited part of the whale's back and grabbed the skin again. The whale thrust itself off the sandbank it had been resting on with a mighty stroke of its fluke, slid back into deeper water, and we rode off into the night.

***

"Why?" I screamed. I kicked the nightstand, and splinters of wood flew through the room. I was back in the present, back in the hospital, back at the little notepad where I jotted down my memoirs.

"I had everything! I had a job, I had a roof over my head, and I was together with the most beautiful girl on Earth!" I kicked my bed, and the frame collapsed.

"And I gave it all up. For a mad religion built around a freaking long-dead writer!" I ripped my pillow apart with my teeth and blew a fountain of feathers through the room.

"I could have married her. I could have had a perfectly normal life!" I dug my fingernails into the linoleum floor and tore out a large part of it. I rammed my toe into the power outlet, and sparks erupted from my fingers and set the wallpaper on fire. "A curse on you, Morambar!" I yelled at the top of my voice. "A curse on you!"

"Now, now", said Bqggz with a tired voice. He stood in the doorframe and watched my destructive efforts with a bored nonchalance. "You knew that getting your memory back could be painful. Just calm down, or I'll have to call the doctor. By the way, this is a public hospital, so you're only harming the taxpayer, in other words, yourself." He patted the wallpaper with a towel and extinguished the flames.

I stepped down from the Tolkien book I had been trampling into the ground. I breathed heavily, and suddenly I felt tears shooting into my eyes, tears for a wasted life. I sat down on the ruins of my bed, sobbing.

"Now, now", repeated Bqggz and patted my shoulder. "I wouldn't say it was all in vain. What about... wait, let me think... or maybe... no, you're right, it was all in vain."

"You're not making me feel better", I sobbed. "Why are you here anyway? Wait, I remember. You wanted to give me the phone number of a good lawyer, to defend myself in court."

"Oh, that", said Bqggz. Again the unexplicable, slightly uneasy expression appeared on his face, but quickly it dissolved into the normal distorted grin that orcs use as smile. "I forgot that. I'll bring it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow." I nodded, and Bqggz left me alone in my misery.

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