Straight Jacket - Adrian Deans

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Well, I don’t give a shit. It’s my last chance to see Homo Tarot and that’s more important than answering fuckin’ telephones!’

      Homo Tarot? She was a Searcher and on her way to the Body and Soul Festival at Darling Harbour. I turned to the Amusements section of the Herald and, sure enough, a half page spread informed me how I might experience the rejuvenating power of the pyramid, find my centre through tantric yoga, cleanse my soul with a range of organic books and vegetables and otherwise hand over fistfuls of cash to a bunch of money hippies. Homo Tarot was listed as a short film produced by the Centauri Society of Interstellar Beings (Earth Chapter). I was fascinated that she could take it so seriously.

      She ended the call, promising to call her interlocutor later, and resumed her stare into the grey middle distance of her soul.

      Okay, now I knew where she was going it was time to get out of her presence and find an alternative route. I was still wearing the wig, moustache and spectacles, so I contemplated heading in to work and hanging around some of my colleagues’ lunchtime haunts to find out what they thought of the impending regime. Instead, I simply decided to get off one station early at Wynyard, stroll down from a different direction to that she would take from Town Hall and amuse myself at the Searcher-fest until she showed up at Homo Tarot.

      I left the carriage without a backward glance and strolled up through Wynyard. Yes, I really must try out one of my disguises at work one day — maybe at one of Mandy’s social functions? I could turn up at the pub or restaurant as one of my alter egos and really have a bit of fun with them.

      I was still chuckling at the thought as I made my way down through Chinatown, across Darling Harbour and ultimately into the garish light and colour of the festival. The Convention Centre always reminded me of a giant public toilet, only without the ambience. But today they had essential oils and incense and Enya turned up to eleven to bring on profound insights and ethereal visions and soothe the dollars from the pockets of the damned.

      I removed my glasses (once more altering my disguise) and entered the world of arcane wisdom, fighting to keep the grin off my face. I don’t believe for one second that anyone really lives their life according to the stars or the runes or the crystal-fucking-ball. Plenty reckon they do but, when it comes down to it, it’s money and pragmatism that rule every life, and any life not so ruled is not worth living.

      I strolled the booths and stands for a while, trying not to laugh at the implausible, the obsession, and the naked lust for cash. The stall keepers had much in common with the trolls of Oxford Street — farming the dollars of delusion — and I amused myself with knowing eye contact, which was mostly avoided.

      The Centauri Society of Interstellar Beings (Earth Chapter) had one of the larger stands, with an inner sanctum done up like a flying saucer, where the film Homo Tarot was played every forty-five minutes. I paused in front of the large plastic placard which informed me that the Centaurians were a select group who had been receiving arcane messages from Alpha Centauri for decades. Apparently, they had been given some clues as to how intelligent life began on earth, and why this had been so important for the galaxy. The clues were enshrined (so they said) in the Tarot cards, and they were looking for more people to interpret and spread the message.

      But only special people.

      Only people who could pass the test.

      Two such people were standing at the front of the stand in shiny metallic suits — all green and silver — spruiking to passers by and making notes on aluminium clip boards. They were male and female and looked like shiny blond actors from a toothpaste commercial. As I stood reading the placard, the female approached me with a big fake smile.

      ‘Vilicha Gurbanyi!’

      I turned and stared at her, feeling my cheek go into spasm as I wiped the cynical smile and forced my eyes to go all wide and credulous.

      ‘That’s Centaurian,’ she told me, utterly without self-consciousness. ‘It means: Welcome Home!’

      ‘Oh … thank you,’ I responded lamely, repressing the wisecracks that would certainly have revealed me as an infidel.

      ‘My name is Maia. Did you know we all came from the stars?’

      ‘Really … the stars eh? Good for us!’

      Maia glanced at me quickly to gauge whether I was taking the piss, but seemed satisfied by my gormless (if difficult to maintain) expression and launched into her spiel. I’ll spare the details, suffice it to say that the Centaurians had been started in the fifties by Walter Beamish, a ham radio enthusiast from Wisconsin, who had received and recorded a powerful signal from outer space which he proved, somehow, to have come from Alpha Centauri. The signal had been accompanied, apparently, by a vision and the certain knowledge that the signal was a code containing an urgent message to human kind. Some three years later Walter cracked the code, and what he discovered changed his life.

      ‘… and soon it will change the world!’ she enthused, all dazzling teeth and madness.

      ‘Soon? Why is it only changing the world now if the message was urgent fifty years ago?’

      ‘Aha!’ she said, with a conspiratorial grin. ‘You’re pretty sharp! That’s a good question, but the truth is the Centaurian concept of time is different from ours … the time wasn’t ripe. It’s only now that we’re real y starting to push the message, because the Centaurian Dawn is almost upon us … it is time to prepare the way!’

      ‘And how do you do that?’

      ‘Well,’ she said, lowering her voice and coming nearer, ‘… you may not know this, but some earthlings are actually Centaurians. That was one of the things Prima discovered in the code.’

      ‘Prima?’

      ‘Walter Beamish changed his name to Prima Centaurus … so other Centaurians would be able to find him. Our mission is to identify the true Centaurians and get them all together for the Centaurian Dawn.’

      ‘I see.’

      At that moment I noticed that the Searcher had arrived and was about to be accosted by the male half of the toothpaste twins.

      ‘Would you like to see the film?’

      ‘What? Oh … sure,’ I said, and she led me into the space ship where two or three others were already seated, writing.

      ‘This is just a little questionnaire we ask you to fill out,’ she said, handing me a sheet of paper. ‘It helps us to gauge your Alpha Index.’

      ‘My what?’

      ‘Your Alpha Index.’

      She further lowered her voice, motioned me into one of the chairs and sat very close.

      ‘Many people have some Centaurian genes … as you’ll learn from the film … but Prima tells us there are actually Centaurian purebloods, who have been teleported here especially for the Centaurian Dawn. But the teleportation process makes them amnesic … they lose all knowledge of their true identity and purpose. We’re desperate to find them … they’re very special and the Dawn can’t happen without them. Who knows? You might be Centaurian!’

      With that she left, to recast the net, and I turned my attention to the questionnaire.

       Question 1: Have you ever been aware of yourself as somehow different?

      There was lots of space to answer, but I simply wrote: Yes — despite the overwhelming temptation to amuse myself. Maybe later.

       Question 2: Have you ever felt that there is something fundamental missing in your life?

      They weren’t trying very hard to distinguish the true Centaurians from every other paranoid, schizophrenic, self-worshipping loony toon out there — which is obviously the whole point. I wonder when they’re going to ask for money?

      But again, I wrote: Yes — to make them happy.

      

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