cRAZY kATE sITS oN THE gATE

[Thelema]

The day had started off soft and strong, its hours growing supple and hard until this minute a fruit had finally fallen. For there sat Kate on the gate to her parent's house, surely infected with Misfit-itus and breaking out in the sores of worldly contempt. She swung her legs to-and-fro, and smiled as she sung a tuneless song to herself, gazing up at the surely bejewelled sky above her. Kate sat on this very gate at exactly 3 o' clock every day. Her mother, who cared for her the rest of the day, was in the shower, flapping her wing like a chicken, the reason for which I do not even want to know. Understandably and thus Kate had been declared crazy by the visiting psychiatrist about 3 years ago, so ever since then she had dwelt in her parents house, usually doing nothing but tending to the chickens and chasing the dog about. She had fed the chickens some potato peelings and rotten carrots a few hours ago, so her chores were done for the day. She had been itching to sit on the gate ever since then, but her mother had sternly advised her not to. "What will people think", she said, "if they see you sitting on the gate an hour too early? I tell you, it just wouldn't be normal." So Kate had sullied about the house, whereupon she asked her mother whether or not it was right to be feeding chickens the remnants of their own used eggs. "Kate, dear" her exasperated mum began, "they need the calcium." Kate then asked whether it would be a good idea for human females to gather their used eggs from their menstrual blood and then later consume them. Maybe a bit like caviar. Her mom replied sternly "It's different, Kate, my dear, for they are bloody chickens!". Maybe Kate's mum knows what it's like to be a chicken - I wouldn't be surprised, would you?

Some schoolchildren came along the wayside, and giggled amongst themselves upon seeing Kate sitting on her gate. One of them approached her and bowed down grandiosely, asking "and how are you today, my dear Kate?". Kate looked at him in the eyes and replied "well, young master, the sky is strong and the ground is moist, and here I am sitting on my gate doing nothing, so I would say everything is just dandy."

"Didn't you do nothing yesterday, too?" asked the petulant schoolboy. He turned around to catch the interest of his friends.

"Aye" replied Kate. "And it's very time-consuming too" she added, "for if you do it just right hours can pass in the blink of an eye."

"My dad calls that laziness" another boy from the group objected.

"And my dad would call it laziness too" retorted Kate. "But whoever listens to their father might well as not live their own life but borrow it off the generation before."

The boys began to bore at this. So one of them said "sing us another one of your crazy songs, Kate."

Kate said "I have an interesting one about a dragon and a wizard."

The boys looked at each other, unsure.

"Well, OK then" said the boy who had asked, cautiously.

She immediately began to recite:

THE POEM BY KATE

this is a poem about a dragon and a wizard

the end.

Kate looked up at the boys.

"Is that it???" the last of the boys answered. And remained silent. The boys moved uncomfortably in their sitting position. Soon they looked up. "Well".. began one of them, but Kate interrupted him.

"NOW that's it" Kate said, and hopped off the gate. "Good-bye!"

"Wait!, wait!" called out the boys. One of them objected: "you usually talk to us much longer than this!"

"And do I not usually hop off the gate near the start of our discussion and abruptly shout "Good-bye" to you all, yet never actually go?" she asked.

The boy began to remember. "Oh." he said. "I thought that" he said. "I was just acting out a role as you were."

Kate looked stunned.

"You mean you knew?" she asked. "And never said anything?" She paused.

"It figures" she said, "that you are all liars."

"Oh, we are not liars" replied all of the boys.

"We're DOCTORS."

********************************** **

Then and only then did Kate notice the padded walls around her. her arms were tied back into a strait-jacket and four doctors surrounded her.

"We come to help you" said one of them. And unzipped himself.

*********************************** **

The boys laughed. Kate had gone pale. "We frightened her!" said one of the boys. "Are you OK Kate?". They watched her vomit. "Kate!" yelled out the boy. "It's us! Are you alright?". Kate began to steady.

"Oh" she siad, stedaying herself. "I'm afraid I must be drunk" she said to the boys.

Eventually, Kate composed herself. She sat back on the gate. She could see the grass, and birds playing in the setting sun. "Gosh, I don't know what came over me. I had the most awful vision..." she said, and then began to remember.

"Don't talk about it." said the boys. "It bores us." complained one of the boys. "I have this most amazing feather that I found today. Would you like to see it Kate?"

Kate regarded them suspiciously. SHE was the one who was meant to be in control of the situation. She had let her fantasies get the worst of her again. Time for her medication - maybe she had forgotten this morning? No, that was not it, but nevermind. She began to complain.

"Did you see my ex-lover drive past just before?" she asked. "in a white car." she added "...about a minute ago?"

One of the boys said "oh, there was a white car that just drove past. Was that him?"

"No," she replied sarcastically and tediously. "Of course it was, numbskull!"

One of the boys said "Are you single, then, Kate?". He looked nervous. Kate said: "I will not talk to you of that."

"Well talk to us about something, then", began the boys again. "Don't go."

"I'm sitting here, aren't I?" said Kate. "And I shant leave until 4 o' clock."

{authors point: the transition from the

hectic and surreal days of 3 o'clock is

marked with the taints toward

completedness of a stable reality upon

approaching 4 o'clock. But there is no

other math's teacher I am in love with.}

The boys sat down again.

"So I wanted to complain about him. Anyway..." she began, but the skwarking of a nearby chicken distracted her. "We are the same.", she sighed sentimentally. She bit her lip.

The most brave of the boys said: "No-one is the same, Kate. Everyone is different."

One of the other boys thought that that might have been how she got crazy, so he asked.

"Is that how you got to be crazy?" he asked.

"I'm not crazy." she replied, "it's just that people dont understand me."

"But we understand you," replied one of the boys.

"Yeah, I understand you, too" said another.

"So you're not crazy", added the last.

Kate began to swing her feet again. Everything started to seem OK. The anoying chicken had goneoff to peck at greener pastures, and the sun had just come from behind a cloud, with a soft breeze billowing at her face like warm tongues. She regarded the boys pleasantly, and as friends. "I like you" Kate said to the boys.

But she began to hear her mum call

"Kate....,Kate.......'" came the cry of Kate's mum's voice across the lawn. The boys all pretended not to hear. Kate began to stir.

"I have to go" she said to the boys, in disarray because it was only 3:30. But Kate's Mum had gone off to do something else. Kate was free to sit on the gate again.

"We have a story about a wizard and a dragon too" the brave boy said.

"But you will not like it" said the last boy.

Kate was intrigued. "Tell me it" she demanded.

So immediately one of them began to talk:

one day there was a wizard named paul. He

was a simple wizard. Most wizards are,

except not in the way that paul exactly was.

In fact, paul was stupid. It is not even

right for me to call him a wizard. But I

digress...simple paul had a pet dragon named

paul too. The End.

Kate looked around tediously. She began to watch one of the mushrooms growing. the sun was beginning to set.

"Shall I recite you my favourite poem?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eye. The boys looked like they wanted to depart. They HATED poetry. But Kate had never read them poetry before, so it might be fun.

"OK", said one of the boys, and the others shot him a glance. "I like poetry" he said, and settled in his position.

Kate hopped off the fence. "It is 3:58 soon, so I shall must get going" she said, "but before I do I shall recite my poem and leave you with some words."

She began immediately to recite: "This is a poem for Kate by Christian."

THE SARA-MANEFESTATION

this is the sara-manefestation

whether or not you like it

whether or not you care

maybe shall come down and plague you

maybe shall come down & save you

whether or not, i just dont care

whether or not, its just in the air

to me.

not that the sara-manefestation doesnt mean a lot to me.

i reached down and smelt your hair.

The boys truly did not understand Kate now. She was either speaking nonsense, or spoke with a strange symbolism. But Kate had to go shortly. So before she went sahe sia to the boys:

"I shall talk to you about the essence of Magick." And she began:

There are 3 main magickal centres, the body, the emotion, and the cognitive. Understand the limits of each one. Undertake connection between pairs of them in complete absence of the third, for this is the development of magickal power. There are the evolutionary ways of body-consciousness, poetry, and dance, as well as a higher state known as reversibility thinking. There are the involutionary ways, which from the previous higher consists of irreversible thinking, personality deformation through dispoeisis, alienation from ones hereditary environmental response paterns, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Kate began to float home. "Don't go!" he boys shouted, but they were too late. For Kate was now floating back into her own world.

******************************** **

Kate's Mum was hunting frantically around the garden. "Where could she be?" her mum wondered. Then she stumbled through the fern and found Kate, her young daughter of 4, sitting in a ring of toadstools, watching the air in front of her.

"KATE!" she yelled.

"WAKE UP!!!!"

...............................................

[ 09. July 2003, 04:42: Message edited by: Thelema ]

[gomaos]

I read this story in the morning, after I posted mine, and was too tired to answer.

But strangely the story stuck with me the whole time before noon.

I'll have to read it again.

Very eerie, very trippy, excellent surrealism...

keep em coming...

I wonder if she actually ate the toadstools?

[ 10. July 2003, 08:15: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[gomaos]

whereupon she asked her mother whether or not it was right to be feeding chickens the remnants of their own used eggs. "Kate, dear" her exasperated mum began, "they need the calcium." Kate then asked whether it would be a good idea for human females to gather their used eggs from their menstrual blood and then later consume them.

The same question has puzzled me for a long time.

I used to have chickens when I lived in the bush, many of them.

I used to put eggshells in the compost because people told me to, "for the calcium".

Now where I live my neighbour has chickens too which I feed with leftovers.

But he has strongly adviced me not to feed them their eggshells, because then they would stop laying.

Which actually happened before when I fed them eggshells.

They just "went off the lay."

Is it just this particular breed of chickens?

and yes, isn't it some sort of cannibalism for them?

[peas-pipe]

I really enjoyed that Thelema ... Thanks