Magnum Opus

1

The critics were the first to catch a glimmer of the approaching storm.

Only the imminence of an immense talent could wage such portents & talent is easily harvested, especially a wattage as brilliant as the returning Alchemist, back from exile amongst distant hinterlands.

Many awaited his newest effort with fanfare; the Alchemist had secured numerous admirers over his long & storied tenure, but just as supporters sung him praises many more stood their ground, doubtful any force secure in his unique genius as our Maestro could be utilized for the greater good. Some visions remained too personal to share with impressionable minds.

So They waited. Either side of the spectrum perched to claim the final act, swan song our wearied & learned Mage had labored over with his closest associates since hasty departure from the suffocating tenets of mainstream subsistence years previous; one side poised to elect him their chosen, the other preparing to quash his light once & for all.

Suspended in between, caught unawares as to the paradigm shifting forces balanced above empty heads, ever reliable John Q.

Now to the work in question

2

Some movies bounce you back to the daily grind, confident your legal tender has been well spent, another twinkle of box office magic done its job & kept the demons at bay. Other works meanwhile aren't conceived with nearly the wholesome regard to dry land & other clearly defined parameters, they're intent not to prop up as to tear down, reveling in the shredding of all pinned hopes & dreams in favor of looking onward into the abyss, evocative of elemental energies as any conjuring act.

Such was the case with the Alchemist's final piece, time bomb in the ranks, custom tuned to eviscerate the smug detachment of bovine audiences the globe over, weaned on the middle-brow sugar of spoon fed multiplex reality for far too long.

And when curtains peeled apart, like baked flesh from wounds awed quiet falls over all assembled. Chucked popcorn kernels, delicate & not-so-delicate conversation, scampering rug rats- it all comes halting, jarring squeal of breaks as forbidding title credits shine overhead, stabs of midnight on cloud fields of pallid white.

Moments pass. 15 audience members sit dazed, suspended in Cineplex purgatory unsure whether to move hips to the strains of pleasant chamber music accompanying text (all tongue strainingly foreign, stew of ill suited verbs & consonants which not only verged on unpronounceable but sped right over the crevice into phonetic farce) or break for the exit then & there.

Well aware of such a likelihood several ushers, all in black uniforms & discreetly folded black gloves block the doors, the glow of the overhead projector just enough to unearth them from the blanket of pitch but stopping short of unveiling actual profiles , faces remaining anonymous, goggles & sunglasses donned at the last second too.

Pure delirium on screen, linguistic blunders too epic to dismiss, too unmoored not to gape at. Unable to read, the segment of the audience still young enough to indulge the fantasy they are products of loving homes blubber, delicately testing the waters before breaking out into full fledged sobs, hitching gasps & hot faces at the shift in atmosphere, change in course the Kindergarten crowd practically taste on their tongues.

Parents & guardians make no move to comfort the crestfallen hatchlings either, offers of encircling arm or other warm reassurances totally void from high jacked head space, so overpowering the siren song of the test screening- eyes glazed, limbs tense & quivering in assigned marquee seats.

Au revoir to cinema snackaroos likewise, forgotten minutiae of the auditorium experience remaining untouched at sugar caked finger tips, their hold broken by the Bigger, Brighter, Better up front- jungle law inescapable even here, darkened screening room of the Alchemist's final masterstroke. These theatergoers paid for an experience, next specifically tailored assault on traumatized senses & by Janus they'd get it.

The Alchemist's prevailing mission statement, that if soulless consumers were going to fork over green for stylized depictions of ultra violence, hi-fi ruminations on the base & deplorable for their viewing pleasure, increasingly vain attempts to feel SOMETHING beyond carefully maintained tunnel vision so necessary for optimal performance, prevailing consensus trance that keeps the whole cursed Pyramid scheme chugging along- he'd be happy to comply; if they wanted rape than he was invading appendage, thrust deep deep down towards the center of already liquefied grey matter- shake rattle & roll.

He & his followers would be daddy, lover & cannibal all-in-one, larger than life example of the unholy trinity so deferred to in life, whatever that was.No industrial unit they, spitting out pre-fab programs to quiet John Q's ravenous jonesing, colorless wavers devoid of primal nutrients; tasteless & toxic just like the rest.

He was far too obliging of... unique proclivities to lower his head to the same water trough as the great unwashed. That way provided no challenge, no meat for the sharpened points of his teeth. Only in mocking the Machine, introducing isolated agents of contagion into a stainless steel underbelly via thoughtless worker drones that he felt anything close to satisfaction, knew some shred of peace.

His followers understood no less with their own vendetta against the status quo, outmoded & forgotten clusters of data too self aware for their own good, expelled from the Game which mandated mediocrity at ever turn (not so simple for ill fitting bits & parts. He knew. He'd been one of them once). Now they traveled & toiled together, independent of any overseer or root programming, spreading the gospel to all who'd receive.

3

The show commenced, title cards falling away to reveal the Plot, carefully constructed skeleton centering it all, marrow linking conduits delivering marching orders to every worker bee beholding. Even the larvae's default weeping petered like leaky faucets ran dry, bright inquisitive eyes not yet crushed by system programming as enamored with the Technicolored vistas as their elders, mesmerized.

At first near Shakespearean splotches of candy colored chaos, flung indiscriminately onto a felt canvas screen -beatings, whippings, crucifixions-no pattern discernible, just a kaleidoscope of madness & mayhem, cutting through the chaff & getting straight to the goodies, all killer no filler.

Expressions of bliss on the spectators' faces too, drooling up tenfold, laps buckling tears of joy spilling- plainly the purest hit of good stuff bread & circus crowd had weathered in quite some time, dropping out of seats to the sticky auditorium floor, convulsing while foam pours from mouths & eyes roll up into heads, sending personnel charging forward prying apart jaws & saving errant tongues.

A pack of costumed hooligans kicking a wizened hobo in an underpass, flocks of weeping rabbi administering synchronized self flagellations with barbed lashes before a bronze idol; crowds of deal hungry shoppers stampeding through a freshly debuted department store, leaving the broken bodies of several clerks in their wake

crushed skulls pulverized genitals, mountains of severed limbs- all the garnishes of wanton destruction offered up on gore encrusted platters for a hungry congregation of the willing & able, dining on the crème de la crème of the septic tank of mankind: Ravenous, insatiable-

Army of fanged rats descending on a bustling retirement home, black bodies ablaze as teardrop eyes locate available foodstuffs; city police in full riot gear quashing a motley lot of starving orphans, focusing their tender mercies on one little lame girl in particular, nightsticks snapping undernourished limbs like breadsticks while heavy black boots tread through spilled brains; sauntering slabs of human Melba toast fleeing their Ground Zero in slow motion, mushroom clouds and flaming flags of stars & stripes in the distance-

It was a gourmet garbage pail binge, each & every viewer's frontal lobes taking coffee break while the lizard contingent in the nosebleed section wasted no time in pinching the front row, gorging itself silly after years of slap & tickle, succulent morsels of caveman conduct dangled before wet snouts then yanked away after measly bites- more, more, more.

Faster & faster went abattoir imagery, dregs of humanity condensed into a single symphony of montage, scored by a dour commune of musical post modernists from deepest Asia- calamitous procession of clicks & whirs & other unidentifiable noises that made as much sense as the sight of one species committing genocide, accelerating forward to warp speed & beyond...

And it was here, this exact point in the presentation-scenic smorgasbord of near subliminal scenery flashing past at roughly the speed of sound, patrons flattened back against seats, palpitating hearts lodged half way up parched throats- that the real method to the Alchemist's madness made it self known.

So far he'd played the test audience like a fiddle, ratcheting up the gruesomeness while the running time progressed, purposely entwining their pulse with the movie's, massaging & tweaking the right levers to have the small group arriving hand-in-hand on the cliff side to climax, overdosed to the point one final injection of junk would be all it took, all that was required to send each & everyone of the little pissers rocketing into the final 5 alarm crescendo, endorphin inferno breaking the camel's back & wiping over taxed hard drives once & for all, FIN.

...But then what kind of sheppard would he've been, flinging members of his own troubled flock into blue yonder, racked & shaking with a monstrous gorilla on their backs, bringing together its set of cymbals with a toothy grin? Ringleader of this stale bread & circus he was not.

Terrorist to some, prophet to more, his expertly crafted ideology (& who renounces the outside world in their art? Didn't they know the personal was always political!?) roared fore at the very moment the entire effort threatened to trip the divide & spill into the grind house gutter like so many a provocateur before. It was the finest of razor sharp divides between art & obscenity, transcendence & the bottom line & Now was the time for the Alchemist to unveil his expertly composed balancing act, pulling out the big guns & zeroing in.

Together the ushers braced themselves, free agents & anti-bodies within the larger body politic true, also makeshift midwives to a buckling party of potential initiates, atop their own tripwire soaring over the brink, moment of clarification imminent. The task lay in stoking that newborn flame to full blown blaze & if the newly set kindling failed to catch...Several gloved hands pulled at the garrote wire extending from fake watches, jaws taut.

Onscreen modern Babylon, skyscraper a blaze, bright orange dagger jutting up, up into the night sky. Trapped inhabitants lean out windows & columns of smoke pour out behind, faces terror stricken & soot covered. Adventurous types leap from sills into the twilight, taking their chances with mistress gravity rather than hanging out for the giant barb-b-q, transversing hundreds of feet in seconds & welcoming the ground with open arms.

Just as the camera fixes in on the outcome, zooming through hordes of horribly fascinated onlookers, just as the money shot splashes across the lens, sending the screening audience into near cardiac arrest now, brain damage or worse-

Shades drawn. Black sunglasses around vulnerable corneas, brilliant flash of light momentarily scrambling even the ushers' sensibilities, open palms raised against the dawn. Those minus the benefit of protective eye wear meet the light head on, hitting the illumination with the same force as the impromptu skydivers, their bodies spared instant liquefaction and grey & atrophied minds pulped instead, stiff from years of sensory abuse, inside mimicking outer simulacrum, bureaucratic edifice in place of working imagination, experience transmitted in dry stentorian fashion instead of crisp full pixilation, the flattest bandwidth available.

Autocratic rule of the vaunted rational mind- substrata's of reason, sense, logic- unmanned & unrestrained so long dictatorships of stultifying reason usurped mastership- in a moment torn asunder by the light of Revelation, parched landscape of dry schematics, predictable geography & mathematical routine submerged in wave after wave of Affirmation, rich in vitamins long denied.

In seconds the inner workings of consumer choir transform from monochrome black & white to torrential downpours of blues, blacks greens, reds; all the shades of a long suppressed rainbow, rusty cogs on the way to early retirement spring to life, bathed in a fresh injection of lubricating oils.

Cries of ecstasy ripple through the ranks of newly initiated as the Pattern finally emerged from a chaotic entanglement of otherwise unrelated mise-en-scene, touch of true magic encoded in the foreground of stimuli-

Left to take root in frightening & hostile topsoil & undetected till bloom, the true essence of the Alchemist's art, motivation behind untold hours of pruning & precision: a dawning second when the dreamers woke & looked out on the joint with fresh eyes....

This was the wonder in which his new disciples beheld their place in Things; all fears and fleeting moments of wholeness uncovered, growing pangs from peek-a-boo glimpses afforded by one in the Know, the Alchemist tracing outlines of the tapestry in which they spun Their web, not separated by impossible distance like they'd once feared but connected intricately.

4

They may have entered the screening profane, lost in a sea of coincidence & conjecture but they left with Purpose, new perspective easily the most precious weapon in this battle.

The ushers exited the screening room lastly, replacing sunglasses & garroting wires with a hearty sigh of relief.