The day he turns a ghost by Roland Bastien
Subject – Manuscript Submission
Genre: fiction - I wrote it inVancouverBC,Canada-
Previously published: no
Name: Roland Bastien
3530 Rue
Durocher apt 24
Montreal QC Two chapters from `The day he turns a ghost
H2X 2E5
Email: rbastien1234@gmail.com
Phone: 514-887-6053
Based inVancouverand now inQuebecfor a special project since 2 years-
I have a degree in Visual Art in 1979 atQuebecUniversity– I won a 1rst prize in poetry at firstwriter competition – see ref:
http: //www.firstwriter.com/competitions/poetry_competition/previous_winners/4thpoetry.shtml
http: //www.aec.at/de/archives/festival_archive/festival_catalogs/festival_artikel.asp? iProjectID=11969
http: //www.kunstradio.at/SD/SD_PROJECTS/FRONT/front_d.html
http://www.articlesbase.com/culture-articles/our-post-numeric-society-979960.html
http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/SCPA/clartrio1.html#OBCPno
http://www.redbubble.com/people/rolandrimsky
I am seeking representation for my novel manuscript “The
day he turns a ghost,” completed at 78,069 words. This novel is about four mix couples (including Asian) who journeying during an ecologist disaster that targetsL.A. Two hours before the disaster, the Quebec Black Muslin party Leader,
Addim Bass, a charismatic Sufi Imam and artist gives a lecture inHollywood’s hip club. Extremists from the Islam Nation kidnap him manus militare. American officials decide to cram people into a tunnel until the sort the problems. Without
any comfort, people squirm and face their Human nature under high pressure-
This fiction, “a cutting edge issue,” contains sharp dialogues and socio cultural issues. The multi-racial and trans-cultural aspect has a post- modern flavour.
Some sights reflect a strong hyper real vision. People who read the N.Y best seller “Let the big world spin” by Colum Mc Cann published by Harper Collins and “The girl who fell from the sky” by Heidi W. Durrow published by Algonquin
Books of Chapel Hill and “Dragon Chica” by May-lee Chai will like “The day he turns a ghost. “
I am sending you two chapters for consideration.
I look forward to hearing from
you.
Sincerely
Roland Bastien
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost-
Chapter 1
- July 16
The sun light is very bright. In the middle of the narrow rural road, two little white rabbits grab on their fast run some vegetables pulled out by the last van and run back to their lair, a safe place under branches and dead trees.
Only colours can make the difference Joan will utters- a green sea under a blue sky. Jade and cotton - an eternal “object de désir.”
Paul takes his place on the right front seat of the Volvo beside Joan.
He turns on the radio when the car starts running. A male voice comes through the two speakers behind the back seat and hits his ears: “Police arrested a woman this afternoon for having poisoned a man with a love philtre two months ago. The coroner
classified the case as a passionate crime. A fuss atmosphere reigned inside the courtroom. People are complaining about that fact, the crime has been committed in a bar. That was the first time she saw the man. They did not exchange words, the barman confirmed.
This is not a passionate crime, men shouted.”
Joan turns off the radio, rotates her right hand to the back seat direction. Picks up the CD Dein ist mein ganzes Herz singing by Placido Domingo. She puts it on the
CD player.
Dien ist ganzes Herz!
Wo du nicht bist,
kann ich nicht sein.
So, wie die Blume welkt,
Roland
Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Wenn
sie nicht küBt der Sonnenschein!
Dein ist mein schönstesLied,
Weil es allein aus der liebe erblüht.
Sag’ mir noch einmal, mein einzig Lieb,
O sag’ noch einmak mir: Ich hab’ dich lieb!
Paul pays attention to his emotion. The music creates characters into his mind and generates templates to format a plot. He has now two temporal lobe memories into his brain with
their own semantic structures. They refer to what consciousness cannot easily appropriate, the virtual reality. Some nebulous images emerge into his visual cortex and tell him that they are not what he perceives. Joan touches his left hand with
a keen gesture while driving the car to ease him. She smiles. Paul bows the gesture, kisses her hand, and brings his mind to a neutral ground. A deep inner silence takes place between them.
Wohin ich immer gehe
Ich fühl deine Nähe.
Ich möchte deinen Atem trinken...
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
The 99 Volvo runs fast on the tiny road for two hours. The air conditioner’s sound replaces Placido Domingo voice. It isten o’clockin the morning in
July. The sun
radiates a milked summer light. It reflects its rays on Paul’s blue silk shirt and over Joan’s yellowish face. Paul turns on the radio again to skip the motor’s monotonous sound. The same voice says; “Paul Desmarais
is back, four months after heart bypass surgery. The controlling shareholder of Montreal-based Power Corp of Canada has launched the most audacious takeover attempt in a long career marked by big deals.” He nervously turns off the radio again. Subtly
Joan giggles and coughs. She drives the car off the road and gradually stops it. Paul opens the door and gets out.
“Good idea Joan, good idea” he says. My legs were stiff.
“The view is wonderful here,” Joan notices.
‘The mountains look like a Cezanne painting. Colors might be added progressively with a knife, one beside another.”
“Actually, in the angle I stand, it looks more like a Rodin sculpture,” Paul argues.
Slowly, the volume of the mountains begins to decrease. Clouds take over their form. They shape a half painting, half sculpture or between both, with an 80's aesthetic. The alary sky navigates above the ocean, carrying clouds without fear.
Pixels shine like stars over the salty water and five wave’s lines – a score. Paul starts a qigong circular swimming movement to relax his back and legs. Joan gazes at him, coughs again, and does the same. After five minutes,
Paul kisses her neck and takes the driver seat.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
It istwo o’clockin the afternoon. Paul turns right and takes theL.A.highway direction. A busy traffic spanks his car. The heat tugs at anyone.
It injects into sounds and toxic gazes warm pixels. Joan pulls up the window and turns on the cooler again. She eases her shoulders stressed by tension and deeply inhales the fresh air coming up from the cooler. Stem cells flow into her woozy body.
“I hope your dad will have compassion for you. I presume he still has a bitter feeling any time he thinks of you,” Joan asserts.
“Well, my mom always tries to make things move positively in our family. She will know
what to do in such situation. I hope Uncle Albert will be there too. When he is around, there is no place for doubt, mom always said. He will be there for sure,” Paul, utters with conviction.
Joan’s cellular
phone rings twice in her red leather bag. She twists again her body to the left and picks up the phone with her hand virtually under stress. She pulls back her arms and eases her shoulder again.
“Hello! ... Hi Philip .
. . No, he expected to sell MB’s assets… possibly, it is an event. The private Timberland assets increases shareholder value …He focused the company on fewer new products . . . yes for sure . . . He also expected
to make changes in the MB’s corporate offices. That must change the company’s long record of mediocrity. . . . Well probably, I presume that . . . Ok Philip, I have to go . . . Do no call me until Tuesday,
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
okay. Bye, for now.
She drops the telephone in the bag. It rings again. She repeats the same gestures.
Hi!
Marcel! I just talked to Philip . . . Well; he wants me to write a paper about that. . Not really. Maybe… not in the sort of gimmick . . . who knows . . . not Marc Williams Smith! . . . I will be
surprised . . . Tuesday for lunch! OK. Come pick me up at the office . . . yes . . . do it by E- mail attachment . . . Surely . . . bye, now.”
Paul takes the Laurel Grove exit. A deep silence freezes
his tongue. Meeting his father after thirty years at a Museum opening hinders him more than anything else does. He already knows the scenario. A minimum “imprévue “might change the situation. At least, he holds
two major cards in his hand: her mother Sophie and Uncle Albert. Joan shares the same idea too, but she likes controvertible situations. Hence, she ought to perk up the plight. The games could be very complex, Paul thinks. Uncle
Albert finds a young audience and gets busy talking about anything-young people like to hear. Sophie competes with her husband popularity. The Mayor lobbying for his new election isolates Gustave, his father to the public. Paul could be in
a hot fire alone with him. Joan would be the only alternative. She would mingle into the wimp and shed light upon the moment - questions to control the situation. Who knows what will generate these hypotheses?
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Two blocks away from the Laurel Grove exit, Paul stops the car and gets off. He reaches a small 50's style snack bar and orders a diet Coca Cola’s box. On his
way out, he faces an old friend driving a BMW, right in the left corner.
“Hey Bob, long time no see.”
“Well, you moved out without calling friends. Brenda told me your software is having success inHollywood. You
must be a rich man now,” he utters with ticklish his eyes.
“You know how it works. That depends on your share in the company. By the way, take my card. I have to go, give me a call.”
“Have a pleasant
day Paul,” Bob says, waving his hand.
Paul lopes to join Joan. She is looking at two little girls dancing with two ropes turning on the opposite directions of each other. Their feet mark some five/eight beats and shoulders
at four/four emphasized over their postures and gravity centers. Their hands designed in the air subsequent circles, from small to large.
“They must greet them,” Joan blurts out with a bright light in her eyes. She opens
the door, crosses the street in the middle, when a young white man pulls up her bag and runs away. Paul observes the scene in the opposite side. He leaves on the sidewalk the coca cola box and runs after the man. In a brief gesture, the fugitive
pulls up an automatic gun in his jacket’s pocket, while running, he shoots in Paul’s direction. Paul’s body jolts and slowly falls on the macadam. Promptly, Joan goes beside him and calls for help.
* * *
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
After five hours or so, in the emergency hospital room, a doctor comes to Joan and says.
“Your friend is a lucky man. The bullet that crossed his right
shoulder did not damage any muscles. His nervous system is on stress. We gave him a zylocaine portion. He can go home later tonight. Two police officers want to talk to you miss Joan Liu. It is a formal procedure,” he says.
“Please followme.” He gestures.
The police officers were waiting in a small room, close to the emergency entrance. The doctor introduces Joan, who is apparently seething.
“How do you do Miss Joan Liu?” A
police officer asks.
Joan nods an approval. Her eyes brim with tears.
“Have your bag, Miss Liu. Here is your bag. Check for yourself and tell us if everything
is there. We captured the fugitive. He was not far from where he committed the crime. He is behind bars now.”
After one minute, Joan says:
“Everything is there. Can I go now?”
“Please,
sign your declaration” the female police states and gazes at her to dissimulate evidence.
Joan takes the paper and signs it.
“Thanks for your collaboration; we may contact you in four months,” she says gazing at Joan’s
eyes.
Without saying a word, Joan leaves the room.
“Miss Liu”, the male police hisses, “take the left exit. The parking
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
lot is just there.” She nods and walks to her car direction.
She sets the Yoshimatsu symphony number one on the CD driver and gazes at the retroviseur.
Her taut face has been spoiled by stress. She scolds herself. The music spreads a blithe sedative waves into her body and reaches her mind’s set up. Crystal tears swamp over her cheeks and capture in their brief passage the afternoon
golden summer light.
Joan drives through the downtown area streets and searches for a coffee shop. She notices the “Bohemia café” just in the corner. She parks her car, stops the music,
thrusts the door, and gets out. The circle square’s CD: standing on the marbles, creates a 50’sHollywood film atmosphere around the empty chairs and tables in that room. She scans the topo and walks straight toward a table
close to the window. The server comes to her and says.
“Are you new on the block?”
“I am just a tourist who looks for a clean and calm hotel for the night.”
“People like the California Hotel here.
I prefer the Pamela. I worked in both. She gazes at her and says
Do you want something to eat? You look so tired.”
“Yes I am. I want a seafood Somoza and a glass of French white wine, Mouton Cadet if possible.
Can I use your restroom?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Go straight and turn on your left.”
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
An
unusual feeling hits her body.
Her wan face bleats like foe around a battlefield.
Mysteriously - the air shrinks.
Her eyes flit and cross the line draw by hopeless means.
She smells death around her and sees Paul’s body rested over his dry blood surrounded by vultures.
She gazes at her face in the mirror and captures a shadow of herself.
Her legs flutter.
She opens her small bag, picks up a red lipstick and mascara, designs a make up on her face to stop the actual illusion she becomes.
She goes back to her table.
“Your sadness is gone now. You look better.
I added more salad for you,” the server says with a blithe smile in her eyes.
“Hum! Let me try it,” Joan replies, gazing at the plate.
The server alleges.
“You look familiar to me. Are you a
TV news reporter?”
“Occasionally Joan replies, I do report for CNN.” She gazes at her plate and says,
“I must go now. I am too tired to enjoy the meal. Can you pack it for me? She asks while paying the
bill and adds, what is your name?”
“Linda. I am Linda Reeves,” she nodes. “I am a visual artist. It is my part time job”.
“Okay Linda, I will look for your name in galleries.”
* * *
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
A gorgeous summer light flows at four clock in the afternoon and leaves so little place to uncertainty. Joan takes place at thePamelaHotel. The room lays shadows from furniture
over the carpet like some mysterious guests. Joan contemplates the evening sky through the windows. A Magritte painting is alive in her eyes. Paul’s strained slow motion fall flutters in her mind again. She sees him falling down
like an angel from the sky. He smiles at her while falling. She shakes her head to escape the vision, shuts the windows, and calls Gustave Gray, Paul’s father.
“Hi Gustave, this is Joan, Paul’s fiancée.
How do you do? Nervous.”
‘Oh yes,” Gustave replies.
“Still nervous forty years after your first opening?” Joan says. “Bad news” she continues “We cannot make it on time. Paul had
a minor accident. He will be released from the hospital late tonight. I am now in thePamelaHotelat Laurel Grove, room 705. It is an insignificant injury on his right shoulder. Call later around8pmat 785-5555, he will be here. Okay.
Bye now.”
Joan notches her heart. As usual, she faces reality with a certain equable attitude. Life must be the yore that navigates over an eternal sea of tranquility. She never reaches that state and never tries
either. She remembers a Fu Lun’s poem and recites it:
Never shed blood over fleshes
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Fade down neurons
Love will end.
Her mind is on that level now. The image of Paul falling down from the sky in slow motion and the girls five/eight
beats, melt into one frame in her mind. She lets herself fall on the bed like him and immediately sleeps.
* * *
Paul sits on a rolling chair in the hospital’s lobby room escorted by a pinoy nurse, Aurora Ramon who looks after him with compassion. Simultaneously, Joan packs her car and waves her hand at him.
“Did you
find a quiet hotel room?” Paul asks. “I have a sleepy head, he confirms. The zylocaine is still ruling my system.”
“Yes, of course yes” Joan nods without any evidence in her voice. It will elate
you. By the way, your family will call you in three hours.”
Paul looks very doleful. He strains the reality. His eyes display a sort of inertia. They tingle time elsewhere beyond moon and stars. His
lips stanch the verb. Joan stops her car at the hotel parking. The door attendant helps Paul to get off.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
“Wait a minute madam, he says. He will slump. Let me get him a rolling chair.”
Paul’s limp arm takes support on Joan’s hand. He slowly stands up
and feels dizzy a few seconds after.
“You will feel better soon” Joan grins to soothe him.
They take the elevator with the crowd standing behind them.
“Please press seven.” She
hoots at the elevator boy.
The blood’s smell disturbs everyone. An old man turns his face in the opposite direction to escape the foul odour.
“Can I get off now, please? I will take the other one,” he says
with a temper tantrum.
When the door opens Joan, Paul, and the boss boy lodge alone in the elevator. They step into room 705. Joan gives five dollars to the young man. He gazes at them with surprise while closing the door. Paul promptly
runs his chair and goes on the comfortable bed direction. Joan helps him to take place and covers his body with a tiny white blanket she pulls out from the closet. She kisses his lips, and whispers in his right ear – “sleep well
my angel.” She closes down the window’s curtain, opens the TV set, and turns the sound off. She views a soap opera, lying on the small dark red sofa beside the bed. She slowly eases her head on the left arm, and lets her
body fill the chair. She promptly falls asleep a few minutes later. Unconsciously, the girls’ dance mixed with Paul’s falling down images comes again in her dream.
*
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
At8:30 pm., inches by inches, pixels from the TV set colour on Joan’s pastel silk pyjamas.
Some images reveal the
true nature of impression. At sixty-five degrees, between the bed level and the wall, a pillow on his back heaps, Paul watches the panorama. The disclosure ends with a breathless veil muted by a stifled mind. The implicit plot shows Joan’s
right hand lying beside her body, softly holding the remote control unit. Her neck’s muscles curve a sensual line. Under her open “corsage,” her breasts, at Paul’s eyes, appear to be a ready made. Her mouth half open, writhes.
Dusts, the light captures- organic particle’s molecules surround her face. A bright aura rises. She snores. Images rip by illusion drape her body; shiver it into a cup he cannot hold. Paul covets the spur. His mind recalls the
fire’s color from the gun shut, a second before the bullets hit his shoulder. Fast running- blood reaches what it makes it real-
*
* *
La rencontre
-
The hotel telephone rings twice.
“Hello!” Paul answers.
“Mister Paul, Your mother comes to see you,” the voice informs.
“My mother! Let her in,” Paul replies with enthusiasm.
“Thank you mister Paul,” she is on her way to come up.
“To whom are you talking to?” Joan asks soon awaken.
“Mom will be here within one or two minutes.”
“Oh my God!” She promptly
stands and turns off the TV set, runs fast to reach the toilet room and makes up her face.
“She is here at the front door,” Paul hisses at her, while seating on the bed “Go! Go! Joan. Open the door!” Anxiously
he shouts.
Joan promptly opens the door. She adjusts her clothes, gripes a fake banana smile to greet her.
Sophie stands at the door entrance with a striking bouquet.
“Hi Madam Gray, Joan bows. I am happy to meet you.
This is a beautiful bouquet you have here,” she alleges with an idiotic tone of voice.
“Well, these are Paul’s favourite flowers. You did not know that?” She utters with an attitude.
“I do not know him as you do,
Madam Gray” she shuts the door while displaying the bouquet to Paul’s eye level. She displays it on a jar over the small worktable.
“I got them at the next-door shop. How do you do Paul? She goes arms open in his direction.
Your dad does not tell me anything really. I came to see with my own eyes,
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
she says,” ignoring Joan’s presence.
“I do not remember exactly the facts. Joan will tell you better than I.”
Joan began to tell her the
entire story, while Sophie caressed Paul’s face.
“You should let him go with the wallet. He is like that,” Sophie says to Joan. “When he was twelve, he rescued a young boy from drowning. He is such a heroic
man, full of ethical values and virtues, she affirms with proudest. He is like his father. By the way, he will come to drive you car safely home. How do you feel now Paulo?” she asks again?
“I do not feel any real pain,
he replies. I have to see a physician next week, just to check my nervous system. How is dad?” Paul asks.
“He is very nervous. In thirty-five years, I have never seen Gustave like that. When he heard that you
had been injured in an accident coming to his opening, he felt guilty. It is an important day for him, you know. He only exhibited works he did inParis, two years after our marriage. The curator did a good job. He is unhappy by the
fact that the catalogue does not show my pictures as a young woman. It does not matter to me; I identified my memory, my personal objects, and the savour of kisses into the painting secret codes. It is only about us, you know!”
“I
understand him for that. I am sure you were a pretty woman at that time. Vietnam War started then. Isn’t,” Joan, asks.
“Indeed. We lived inMontmartre. Gustave was a Maoist who liked free jazz and Miller. Archie
Shepp was his best friend. As a white American living inParis, Gustave always pointed out that he was not as courageous as a black panther could be.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Shepp said
that once, people like him created more problems than K.K.K members do. They take advantage on Negroes reality and get famous more than them, when they state on their own matters. He referred to some Brazilian painters and Haitians who were making a strong
articulate art form inParis. That was true. Nobody cares about their past works, even black intellectuals. Gustave took bad that remark. We had often those artists at home for several months, fed them and stored their works in our home until
they find a loft. Gustave said Shepp was an immoral; he always wanted to have an affair with me. I never noticed that.” After a fifteen second pause, Sophie continues: “I really want to know where those works are now”.
“An archaeologist will probably discover them in “3000”and will classify them as unknown artists, like their African ancestors” Joan jeers.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Paul asks his mom.
“No,
thank you. I have to go shopping and get my airplane on time.”
“Give me a big hug before you go,” Paul requests.
***
Paul and Joan leave the hotel room attwelve AM. Gustave Gray decides to drive Joan’s car to make sure they will safely arrive home. The Gray family lives in Park Hall, a small town
in the American West Coast, near the ocean. A rich Greek contractor built the house in the mid-nineteenth century. It was in a very bad condition when Gustave bought it with his father’s heritage, in 1974. Twenty-two years later, it
looks like avillageMuseumwith its huge sculpted doors, and its exotic gardens. Last year, the house has been classified as a National Monument by the Park Hall city council. For one month,
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
People from Great Mills,LexingtonPark, andCaliforniacame to see its doors and gardens. The Hooper Ville Mayor honoured them with their faces on a silver medallion.
Gustave and Paul’s fiancée Joan, reach the central room, a one thousand square feet large. It is a sort of exhibition hall with several paintings hanging on the walls. Three Basquiat drawings among the best he did in 1986 occupy the entire
north wall. On the south, two David Salle early works awe anyone who approaches them. Moreover, beside them, a Clemente watercolour self-portrait on paper sneers at the rest. The east wall holds an Ottara painting dedicated to Basquiat.
Twice a year, for Sophie and Gustave’s birthdays, new paintings from their collections replace the older ones. At that occasion, they throw a party in a ceremonial mode. Two sofas positioned back-to-back stand in the middle of the room, flanked
by a rolling liquor table with bottles and glasses beside. they leer at the rest. The living room is alive.
A two thousand square feet anterior garden with its movable glass ceiling connects the kitchen to the north and the
living room to the south by a central asymmetric stone garden arrangement on the ground. On both sides, some admirable magnolias and citronellas which produce enormous white flowers and scents in July, flare the air. A variety of hemerocallis radiates
their splendours when the morning light diffuses its rays. So do the callas and arum lilac (white and yellow) at night when the moon and stars awake. Usually Sophie takes her “petit déjeuner” on the garden table flanked on the North,
beside the camellia trees. She did that in memory of her mother who planted camellias in her garden to honour Alexandre Dumas. When the lion sunrays fade out and the moon
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
gradually appears in the sky, Sophie likes to rest on the pergola beside the living room windows, and listen to music.
“We can take these chairs behind the
table,” Gustave asserts. Joan moves them one by one and places them on the front yard, a sort of entry beside the main door.
The milked summer light glides
and fleeting the air.
Soundless
poetry flows rhyme
Perhaps, the day is not a day, maybe a parcel of light.
A noise comes from the back yard.
“This is mom,” Paul utters with enthusiasm. Like a boy, he stands up and nervously
gazes at the entrance. She went toCaliforniaearly this morning to buy sushi materials for lunch.
“Let me help her,” Gustave utters, pulling his chair back and promptly goes in the car direction.
“How do you feel
today, Paul?” Sophie asks while she shoves the car’s door to get out. Gustave takes the package on the car back sit. Sophie attires a large summer hat, a beige linen ‘tailleur” and that luxurious white pair
of summer shoes, a birthday gift from Gustave.
“Better than yesterday mom,” Paul politely replies “Thank you for these beautiful flowers.”
“I knew you like the aquilegia columbine and the digitalis foxglove.
I made a bouquet with the two,” she alleges. “Gustave” she hisses, “leave the fishes on the kitchen table!”
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
She turns toward Paul’s direction again and utters,
“Come in my arms, my boy.” She hugs him with care and does the same to Joan, but less
Longer.
Gustave prepares a “fruit de la passion” with Barbancourt rheum for guests, a glass of its special martini combo for Sophie and pour an Oolong teacup for himself. They heed at the ocean choreography from the
front gallery and sip their favourite drinks. Sophie alone moves to her bedroom and changes clothes.
The view over the ocean enchants everyone. Joan gazes at the sea wave’s movements and says,
“Illusion
is like a dream. I feel like being that illusion today,” she continues like a fledgling who wants to ease others.
“You seem to appropriate that phenomenon without questioning other factors,” Paul alleges, following Joan’s
idea. “If you mean self and others are purely illusory like that sea’s waves, I am agreeing with you. Nevertheless, your greatest error is to believe in a solid and permanent reality. Sea waves impressions are not from our consciousness,”
Paul argues.
“The same thing for the Coca Cola Logo too, it has an inner extension,” Gustave adds.
“It is okay, Paul confirms. You will not identify a soda as a Coca Cola if you do not know Coca Cola’s taste.
Perception and cultural fabrics via the sensory memory do the big work. They are powerful tools.”
Joan takes a strong breath, looks at Paul with flame in her eyes and goes to the kitchen where Sophie is alone, preparing the sushi lunch.
Gabriel Fauré’s “melodie “interpreted
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
by Barbara Hendricks and Michel Dalberto flees in the air and hit her ears.
“Can I help you? “ She asks with her exotic Taiwanese tone of voice.
“Well,
you can fix the table in the interior garden. Use those plates there.” She points some hand painted porcelain plates fromEngland.
“This is all you can do. Do not forget to open the roof by pressing the button on the
left wall.”
The music lilts. Sophie’s fingers hold the knife as an archer over the raw fish, a viola perhaps. Thereto, she mimes the melody and does some waltz’s steps. Joan recites with low tone of voice her favourite
poem while contemplating the moment
Five notes brim tears
All the hisses let out
An empty shed twinkles
Butterflies peer at the light
Paul and Gustave
are alone.
“Do you think consciousness can format data about what is hyper real or not?” Gustave asks with a profound doubt.
“As I said, the cultural does the great part using its perspectives technique through our
consciousness. The cortex records the information and states on it. The consciousness is the judge, the rule builder. It can re-appropriate or avoid certain cultural aspects,”
Roland Bastien: The day
he turns a ghost
Paul girths to secure his father.
“Then, a pop icon like Warhol is a hyper real character too.”
“Of course, according to Beaudrillard, they all are hyper real icons as some super logos are,”
Paul giggles with a quip.
“Paul, I am a sort ofSt. Thomas. I have a hard time believing my love can be a hyper-reality or a virtual emotion. If you add in the top, the transmigrated minds concept, and the Tulku reality, I burn in hell.
I prefer to feel the world like a nineteen-century man without all of those heavy theories.”
“Better, like a pre-middle age man inAfrica. Saying you are beautiful to a country African woman at that time could be only a poetic form for her,
nothing concrete. She can only see her portrait blurred over water’s ripples,” Paul utters. “Scientists can only appropriate the virtual world. Occasionally, the public via some marketing firms snaps the rules. Now
with the genome evaluation, one can have product designs for him like a glove. They can make you feel, smell, and desire accordantly through your brain’s pin number. Junk data will flow as if you are a hotmail.com E-mail address- if not to
make you commit crimes on their behalf“
“We still can send and delete them,” Gustave giggles.
“I hope so,” Paul utters with a smile in his eyes.
Joan appears in the back yard. She picks up two chairs
and goes back to the kitchen again.
Let me take the other one, Gustave asks, running fast to reach her pace. It‘s too heavy for you.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Paul nodes and gets inside the living room by the front door.
*
* *
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Sophie’s lunch tastes like the Yukio Mishima dinner on her novel translated in French by Gallimard in 1965, ”Après Le Banquet.” She only
changes the “Médaillons de seiche“ by aBritish Columbia salmon. It has a particular flavour that raises souvenirs. Paul prefers her mother’s Miso soup than the Japanese one. Gustave relates the meal to his
love affair with Sophie, back to the 50's. For Sophie, the family heeds the real link. She compresses all that into a pearl she keeps secret. Joan, the only one who has less interest in that moment, perks up over some dense emotions; similar
to a Steve Reich 3 bares repetitive motifs. Paul gazes at her and with two fingers touches her left hand and says tenderly in her left ear:
“I will rest in the room up stairs. You can go for a walk without me if you whish.”
He cuddles her mom, bows his dad. Joan moves his chair when he stands up then. He leaves the table. He crosses the main room. Takes the stairs straight up. He notices that, each room has a particular name graved on silver plaque on each
door, in a fashionable way: Nuptial room, Guest tearoom, Apollinaire room.
Sophie and Gustave designed the nuptial room for couples who visit them. The walls are covered by printed impressionist lavender flowers’
motif on wallpaper. The room has a large comfortable bed and basic furniture: office table, glasses and water pot on a shelf. The view over the sculpture garden through the large windows reveals its secret interest to visitors. Planted above
the large windows, some lavender herbaceous plants and their mauve and blue flowers, the magnolias with its citronella scent, spay their fragrances into
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
the room and
accrete guest’s sexual desire for a journey deeply rooted in “mille et une nuit” tales. Albert and Zian are the most popular there. Zian used to say,” in that room, you could feel birth and agony in the same
time. Orgasm is no longer temporal but an extension to death.”
Sparingly, the Apollinaire room is a shrine. A purgatory. With a bright red wall. An eighteen-century Tibetan Green Tara’s picture on
fabric dominates the space. Few asymmetric cushions face the ocean through a large slit glass door. they rest over the floor like flying carpets and welcome anyone who gets in for a journey. They will fare and grope for an omen that will
heal selves. The room has no bed. No furniture. Only cushions. Directional tin lights create an ambiance at night. Nevertheless, the view over the ocean in daytime glints for a happy moment.
The guest’s tearoom (with
a six-inch naga yojo), an old style rectangular four-mat room with a fire pit foists into the host and guests. They hang two scrolls in the alcove, and lay out several utensils (tea scoop, tea bowls-ladle – raku ware) on the ledge. They use
that room only when they feel like sharing a silent moment with others. Tanaka, Gustave best friend, himself from a traditional tea ceremony masters designed that room. Most of the time, Sophie comes here with Gustave as guest to drink tea and
escape her abstruse perpetual grave for sounds. Sophie addles for the first minutes into that room and slowly reaches peace. She comes alone sometime to improve her fearlessness of silence.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
The next. Gustave and Sophie’s private room. Sophie in a hybrid mode told people about the chair beside her desk. Apparently, her mother bought a Louis XV antique
to a German officer, the year he leftParisafter the occupation. The chair has a thin gold line that moves from the top to the legs, combines with the beige wood colour, and creates a fest for the eyes. The desk is an old early twenty-century furniture
that has been his grandfather-working table until he died. Her mother never used it. At the time Sophie started University study and turned it to her personal worktable.
She still has all the Chinese silk pyjamas, her
mother’s wedding gift, packed into an acajou wood commode. Not mentioned all the jewels and porcelain dolls she keeps in view over an alcove. Gustave confirmed one day to a close friend: this is a woman room, but in the top of the bed, you
can see my Sophie painted picture with a strong brush stroke.
The tidings make Paul eschews all of them. He decides to dwell in the library where he can lay on the sofa, flanked in the south wall’s corner. The library
contents seven hundreds thousands titles divided in three categories and a few west coast African masks and sculptures most of them Senoufo, placed between books. Art books are in the middle rank, Social, Ethnic studies & religions display in the
east side. Poetry and Philosophy shelve in the west side, a perfect brain setting.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Paul lies on the sofa, picks up a photo album in a box at the sofa’s right leg. In this present moment, there is no limit between the past and the present in Paul’s mind.
He knew by evidence these images say more than his mother’s short-term memory data, delivered to him by aurality. Faces carry masks and meanings. Paul slinks each pages and stops on his grandmother pictures. Magdalene appears
to be for him an oral fiction character. Sophie told him so many stories about her French white Mother. Now he contemplates her picture. He can only hear her mother’s voice saying: “My mother was a laboratory director at the Louvre
during and after the German occupation in France. She rescued works that has been neglected for years. She was the first woman affected at this post and realized with her team the first important show after the 2e war, in France: `”Oeuvre
d’art et methods scientifiques “ in April 1949, including works of Vinci, Van der Weyden and Rembrandt. She was also the first lady from her rank who married a Black man, your grand father, Mr. Alphonse Diop, born inSenegal.”
Paul‘s maze memory swathes souvenirs. Her mother voice means more than the image itself. Without it, the reading goes like a banal description of time and space, faces and objects as Roland Barthes can do. This situation
reveals Paul’s personal dilemma. Everything here is according to other’s point of views. He cannot take the mask off and see by himself what it is look like being an African officer in France Army or an art Director after the occupation.
He follows that trap.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Just behind the picture, an old hand writing documents in French illustrates the image.
Paris Le 6 novembre 1964.
Madame,
Comment ne pas être
impressionné, ainsi que je viens de l’être en vous lisant, par tout ce que les méthodes nouvelles d’investigation, mises au point dans les services que vous dirigez avec tant de compétence, révèlent sur
les ” Secret des chefs-d’oeuvre “!
Vos émissions télévisés avaient déjà levées Le voile sur de bien surprenantes et passionnantes découvertes. Votre livre,
admirable tant par le texte que par les images que vous avez choisies pour l’illustrer, m’a également sur ce point paru plein d’intérêt. Je vous en fais mon bien sincère compliment.
Je vous remercie
de me l’avoir adressé et vous prie d’agréer, Madame, mes respectueux hommages.
Charles de GAULLE.
Roland Bastien:
The day he turns a ghost
Paul continues to hear her mother’s voice narrates the story:
Without dad, mom will be an ordinary art historian. He created a secret language for the French resistance based on talking drum syntaxes,
(far away from the Shelta used by the Britannic.) After the liberation, he became general of the French army. He lobbied for his wife at the Louvre. Dad used to say, the African aural transmission codifies net memory and
stores them in the synaptic strengths. They create also tools to reach them anytime. Westerners call that “aurality.” I am not sure about that. The talking drum rhetoric is a system.
Paul smiles and turns
the page. Somebody knocks on the door.
“Get in,” he recommends.
“How do you feel Paul?” Joan asks with an innocent timber voice to please him.
“I am disappointed,” he alleges. “I
expect mom instead of you.”
“Do I disturb you, honey?” She says with the same tone, a little bit more submissive than before.
“Nope.” I felt mom presence behind the door, but you are not her.” He
says a bit nervous
“I will take a walk with Sophie and Gustave. Probably we will go to the beach. See you later.” Silently, Joan closes the door and goes like a cat.
The next page displays his first drawing. I remember
that picture he murmurs into his mind, my father prepared colors for a new painting, and he tested on paper the fluidity of the new medium call acrylic. He said to me, would you help me son. Take this brush, do a fast stroke without too much pressure
on the paper, watch the color field you are
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
spreading. Stop when you feel like. I did so. Dad said: Great son, Acrylic transparency and fluidity are like watercolour. It only dries faster. That was a
revelation for me too. He allowed me to do some lines on his new canvas at the age of eight years old. Paul takes off the drawing from the album and frames it with an old lay he finds at the button of the right wall. He hangs it on a tiny
place left between two shelves, at the eyes level. He switches to the past without any mask this time, in a land where meaning lives, no matter what form it will take. The library room glares under the sun bright light. Shadows on the left
wall shape an African Senoufo mask profile over Paul drawing that creates a contemplative association. Only light can create such gyre around form. Light can say what it cannot do. We are so often be fooled by it, Paul remarks.
* * * *
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
A Tuesday summer light glides in the air. Paul takes a seat in front of the large window at Joan apartment
in Vancouverand notes in his dairy: “The cloud shapes the mountains in different metaphoric forms. This time, I detect voodoo icons from another historical time reaping sham. Animals sculptured by clouds make me feel, I am standing
over a dragonhead, watching yore in action. Transferring meaning is not necessary.”
The telephone rings.
“Allo!” Paul answers. “Qui va la. »
Suzanne!
“I am happy to
hear about you. I am hindering now. I feel better at least. I have to meet my doctor Thursday. You will like to see me. . . . Well, how come . . . In one hour! . . . I will be down stairs in the lobby.
The Anita Diap’s book? I am not sure. I will delve into the library or call Joan if I can find it . . . Do not worry it is somewhere here . . . It is a pleasure for me. See you later Suzanne. “
Paul rests on that ugly pink sofa in the lobby, not too far from the glass’ window. He picks up the lastVancouverSun on the table. Apparently,Montrealpolices try to put down the black resistance, the colonist affirms.
The leaders cannot be criminated by white women assault or drug deals. Most of them are holy men. They do not have either contact with overseas Islamist groups, or terrorist networks. They have in program to change the youth’s perspective.
They have around them clean black boys and girls with high scores at school. Most black leaders keep contact with them through prayer’s circles, fasting and Koran studies. They are not terrorists. They stop their street
Roland
Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
interventions, which consist to target street people with their literatures, question to avoid any direct provocation. Police were surprised to realize they do not find any criminal records
on the organization members. They may have a new system to commit crime, the head police officer, Bernard Desjardin affirms.
Paul, I am here Suzanne hisses through her car’s window parked in front the building. She bends her body to
the right and opens the front door.
Paul closes the newspaper and goes to Suzanne’s car direction.
Ah! Hip-hop’s hairstyle! You look twenty-five now black girl, Paul greets at her.
“Get in stupid albinos.
I am thirty-five. How do you feel? Do you recover a little bit?”
Paul takes a seat, girds himself, and says:
“Actually, I do enjoy the situation. The weekend was great. I had time to light some of my obscure
points.”
“GUANYIN was with you,” Suzanne sneers at him.
Paul smiles and says,
“Now I am happy to be with you. Should we go to Parsley Restaurant now?”
“Of course. I planed to go there.”
“Good.”
*
Suzanne takes the West direction, crosses theBurrardBridgeto get fourthWest Avenue, and turns right. The light is radiant. Flower fragrances enchant the afternoon and make the day unique. Most of the people are in vacation
now. Japanese tourists photograph
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
the street activities inGranvilleIslandarea. Suzanne curiously gazes at them. Paul smiles and utters
“A Japanese
man I met inParislast years told me having photographed one thousand trees inFrance. He did the same thing inItaly,Germany, andYugoslavia.”
“Some are stupid.” Suzanne replies. “Look at this one here; there is nothing
to wit on.”
“Well, who knows some secret crypts?”
“Do not try to be so smart. Accept that, men are stupid;” Suzanne impels to close the conversation.
“Here is the restaurant,” Paul points
with reluctance.
Suzanne cannot park the car due to the stress that paralyzes her shoulders.
“Relax Sue, relax, and do not fret. You cannot get rid of tourists by being harsher. Let us try another place. Maybe in a lower
West side.”
“Good idea. We will be far away from the crowd. Japanese drove me mad.”
They find a small café terrace at kitselano beach and have a soup, a croque monsieur with salad Caesar and
French white wine.
“I just got the Anita Diap’s last book, “water falls.” She is more radical than Bell Hook.”
“Of course, Paul replies, African American writers have to get rid of their traditional masochist
attitude and litanies. Diap is a new type of Black Atlantic writer who does not need integration or acceptance from anyone to be a good writer. Her cynical critic states on some big problems, the 90's black consciousness, specifically inCanada.
The new generation has no deep root in this country. Their transparent Canadian identity can also disappear anytime. Ben Johnson case was a good bell ring for them. Youths are
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a
ghost
questioning the army solicitations and advantages now. Dying as Canadian soldier under American control, and being bombed by them in some third world country is not a proud death. Anita understood that very well.”
“It is harder in Quebec Suzanne confirms. Blacks are divided into Francophone and Anglophone with two solitudes, a Canadian shame. The Quebecnationalists, with their “psycho affective technique” keep them under control.
Anita Diap breaks the pattern.
Her slogans say more than any subjective action.”
“It is true Paul asserts. Black Francophone intellectuals must question their Eros’ appropriation. Dany Laferriere confused them.”
“It is not only that, Black females, according to Diap are too girly with the white partners, she utters. The black lesbians still duplicate from hetero their domestic role into their mix couple. Let me read some paragraphs for you, Suzanne
hisses with an enthusiastic attitude. Listen.” She pulls her book in her bag and starts reading.
“What we have now, is a gay attitude that established it’s self as a dogma. The pattern has some deep
roots into the black consciousness. The game’s rules, perverted by the fact sex gives access to integration and career, make the parameters evident. Black women follow that with success, more than men do. Under white males control as
copartners, their contribution to the social transformation, (which consist to rebuild the black consciousness), takes another tangent, far away to the departure point. They have to struggle hard to state on what they perceive, being themselves filtrated
by the white copartners. Bell Hook points them as a victim. We are far away from Fanon point of
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
view, which had the 60's revolution all over Africa and Asia to stigmatize the colonial dilemma. We do not want any litany and any more victims. We want to explode this standing
phallus from the top and let black women act freely.”
“Is that strong enough for you Paul? Suzanne asks with fire in her eyes. Another quote, she says”.
“We learn from Malcolm X how to
build up a new consciousness. What we need to know now is when to cut white clitoris and penis and get free from that effective manipulation and dependence. “
“This is a good metaphor Suzanne applauds. She does spur me.”
“Oh my God! I will never think about that. It is horrible, Paul remarks with indignation.”
“I love it, Suzanne assumes. She got this kind of street drive that turns me on.”
“Not me, Paul replies.
I understand that, she is fromQuebecwhere the lyrical nationalism is still active. “Quebec’s quite new revolution” uses that kind of outrageous metaphor like Chartrand, the leader from the 70’s.”
“It is
not only someQuebecproblems. It is a Western problem. Minorities succeed faster if they married a white person. Third world Asian women with their pragmatism status can tell us more about it. More than 60 per cent of single Asian women
living inAmericawant to marry white men and 40% did it. InSeattle, Philippians’ women beat the world record. Most of the time, they ended with a rude red neck or a pervert bisexual man with low ethical principle.”
“Black
people might get rid of their consciousness if they want a complete liberation, Paul confirms not by cutting penises and clitorises.”
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
“What do you mean by
that Paul? Susan asks with flamed eyes, ready to attack.”
“They have to review codes that govern their speech and deed. Addim Bass shown Black people can empty any system.”
“Well Paul, this is a very Buddhist
point of view. The reality is not that simple in the daily basis. The equity never takes place the way it supposed to. Xenophobes and Racists always stigmatize any incidents dictated by that duality. Now the extreme Nationalist right
wing in any occasion rationalizes their deeds. Parizeau, form the Quebec Party, after the second referendum disaster accused the immigrants to be the architect of that infectious result, instead of acknowledge his lack of leadership and take responsibility
for it. They lynched some immigrants in the street that night and burned their locals and businesses. He might feel in peace when he knew what happens.”
“Facing that prejudice all
the time, Suzanne asserts, in any social fabrics, makes it hard for blacks to be a part of a National plan. In the white people mind, they will be Canadian only after three generations, whenQuebec, in the other side wants them to be by force like them.
OCanada.”
“To avoid victimization, Paul unfolds; black Atlantic people have to cultivate their mind. The liberation process is very long and difficult for those who choice to be Canadian. To see into prejudice a challenge
and reach a liberation goal, have to become a natural attitude. The mind does understand that, life is an illusion. Sometime it acts like giving us the unknown code to decrypt facts. We often fail. It is like being a paper boat over
the ocean in a rough wind - a spate. Cutting illusion and empty the consciousness it is what we may do. Someone might ask how we can re-format our consciousness. How
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
can we feel things without that link to the harsh memory? I ask myself often those questions too. Do I have to deny my existence to get in that encoded system? The answer is inside this crystal bowl here. We may see things without
their own contain, as if they were empty and trust our process to make them empty.”
“Do you really believe in that? She hisses. Her eyes shine fire and her lips erected.”
“I do. I want a total liberation
without being slunk into so call human conditions.”
“Moreover, you think you can get rid of it that way.’
“My experience with Joan has no link to any historical past, no hash memory and I feel liberate from attachment
to that kind of suffering we develop into the Western world.”
Susan jumps through that door Paul opens and hisses with a strong hormonal drive full of jalousie.
“She does not have time for you.” Moving her head both side
like a python, she continues, “it is that simple. This is what they call Taoist pragmatism. The duty must bring assets. Love is not real enough. Chinese women do not know about love. They only experience arranged
marriages in their far away village. There is no magic in their world. Perhaps they have a sort of hope with an over tone of melancholia.”
“Let me explain,” Paul alleges to escape the tension.
“She is egoist”
Suzanne hisses. Wake up your mind. Joan is not the type of woman you need. She loves her cellular telephone and money.” She blurts out by gazing Paul’s eyes. “You are there for her, not the opposite. Your
case has nothing to do with Anita Diap idea of mix marriage.”
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Paul takes his breath and says.
“Joan is now on her apogee. She has the best place in the international financial world as an Asian economic analysis and reporter.
She will travel six times, in Asia,Paris, andNew Yorkfor the next three months. I have to design a new orientation for my career too. We have an excellent relationship now. Her reality is my challenge.”
“Without excuses, it is
a big word Paul. She is your illusion, your excuse to not being in life, maybe your Tara Deity, why not the White Tara.”
“Do not be so sarcastic Sue. I am facing reality not emotion.”
“I whish
you the best. Good-bye. She stops the car.
“I must go home now Paul affirms with a dry sound.”
“Addim Bass will give a lecture at U.B.C. this Friday night at8:30 P.M. Let me know by tomorrow if you willing to go.
I will pick you up.”
“It is a good idea. Thank you for your attention. I will call you then.”
“Suzanne drives Paul home and says before he leaves.”
“I am happy to see your interest in black
political movement. Now is the time, she expresses with a wink in her eye.”
Paul smiles and gets off her car, walks to the front door, takes the elevator and gets into his loft.
* * *
Roland
Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Paul’s soundproof apartment is a loft with twelve feet high ceiling. It sets like a concert hall, without of course the appropriate inclined floor and armchairs. The sound from
wireless speakers standing on two North side’s corners and two others on the East enlivens any objects and flowers in the room. Paul lets his eyes waft like a butterfly on each leaf, each object and capture the essence of beauty. Being home,
he repeats into his mind is a grace. He never feels loneliness when he listens to music. The presence of others vibe into his mind and body. From strings, breathes, note he feels more than one. Each note creates its own character in
resonance with others from a scale. Read scores while listen to it in real-time, transform you into a modem.
The door opens on a three thousand and five hundred square feet open space with four huge windows on the West side.
Three others in the East and the South, dominate the entire space. Two bedrooms. One above the computer’s office in the West side scans the sea and mountains. And the other, over the library with a panoramic view onStanleyPark, lets your eyes float
over greens. One who comes to visit him feels like riding the fickle horse in his mind. Eclectic furniture from art deco to minimalist, art objects, and plants, installed in a strategic concept, create a strong visual effect. At night, the lighting
system reconstructs the space and extends any inches into a Museum piece.
Paul lies on the sofa. He feels happy to be home after a journey elsewhere. A scarlet ray from the late sunlight changes the red color on Robert
Nicolas’ painting, on the unique South wall, into a Filipino volcano. Paul pulls out from a box beside the lower shelf the
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
J.S. Bach’s six cello Suites. From the suite number two in D minor, he plays the Minuets 1 and two. He stands up and goes downstairs in the kitchen, takes some water
in a jar to feed the plants. This act, he repeats it without questioning the meaning. Paul looks at the water falling slowly into the soil and increases its volume like a young mother’s breasts full of milk. He contemplates the soil
changing color and volume while the music blesses each leave
* * *
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
University of British Columbia Conference Hall.
Youngsters crowd the UBC hall to attend the Addim Bass’s conference, a Sufis
leader from theBCMParty. They are fromOntario,Nova ScotiaandMontreal. The South Pacific Asian Student Community here inVancouver, mainly Malaysian Muslims, Pilipino, and Pakistanis organized his first conference in BC.
A
dense crowd with red banners and warrior flags acclaim Addim presence. Female youngsters, apparently lesbians, chant like a mantra, an Anita Diap’s slogan:
The light behind you is a fake light.
Up side light is the real light.
Heterosexual men respond, flashing the hip-hop power mudra:
Yieh sista, we will burn them.
This chant starts the ceremony. A random polyphony choir sets on 7/4 beat supported by percussions, turn- tables and clarinets, that keeps the energy up. A trance fuel drives bodies to
a convulsive warrior dance. Paul and Suzanne enter the room at that moment. On the stage appears Addim Bass, escorted by four apparently armed bodyguards. He goes to the microphone, chants this motif, in counterpoint to others, with hands
up.
Roland
Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
I
am still in life.
I have my two arms.
My two legs
My neck
My ears
My mind
My memory.
ALLAH
is the winner.
A frenetic acclamation
electrifies the room for five minutes. They chant Allah is the winner several times. He says, Please be seated and he pulls down his arms.
We bow to night the spirit of our three brothers and one sister who died by high magnetic charge
and bullets in Quebec. Brothers and Imams Ali Massed, Saoud Saaso. - Brother Brown Samuel and Anita Diap who was not a Muslim.
When Addim Bass says Anita Diap, the youngster’s lesbians clapping their hands, hit their chests, beat the floor and chant another Anita Diap’s slogan:
When light is on
Cockroaches
run away. (Several times)
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
A few people, perhaps Buddhists or Catholics light candelas in silence.
We are not afraid, Bass continues.
The present is our concern and we are
free of history.
We are in process to be free of self.
The present shivers the past.
In that moment, we are virtual character in someone computer and our minds are under stress. In our cells, organs and brains, electromagnetic
charge fights with our metabolism. From that process, we also receive self-destruction data transferred via our brain setting. When we sleep, others flaw our short-term memory with subliminal thoughts to build us a new sub consciousness. They can
control, zombify our mind. We paid these equipments with our income taxes. In our daily life, we face what I call: “état de siege.’‘ They can anytime design characters and debit our short-term memory with them.
We are not for them what ourDNA says about us. We are what their fantasy states and accepts as real. We are not schizophrenic. Their plan never works the way they want it. They are now our enemies. We do not believe in any long tern success
to such practice. Afraid mind is limited in action. Tranquil mind can do miracle. They will fall in part, our enemies. The mountain will collapse. They will die.
ALLAH IS GREAT
ALLAH IS GREAT - ALLAH IS GREAT.
Thank you, he says.
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
A security guard takes the microphone and says:
Please hold on a minute. Polices and secret agents are all around the place with their pit bulls and horses. Do
not give them a chance to kill human beings. Please do not talk to any white people present in that room. You can be charge for sexual assault. Go home and read the Koran. Do not stay in the street. This is the only way we can
protect you and keep them away.
Furiously, men chant like a loop by clapping hands, beating chests and legs and bleed their skins with knives:
Let them burn in hell.
***
It isseven o’clockin the evening. TheCBCTelevision announces an interview with Addim Bass recorded in his Vancouver Hotel. The program starts on time. Addim Bass wears a grey raw silk suite and a black silk
shirt. His dark face radiates a permanent half smile with a point of irony in his eyes. Is he absurd?
“How do you do Addim Bass and who are you?” The white Anglo-Saxon male’s voice asks with a rude Canadian raw attitude.
“There is no secret about me. I am a public man. You can download either on my brain or on internet my profile.”
“Why do you choose the West coast for you first public speech?”
“The date
was comfortable for me and I accepted the South Asian Students Association invitation without any rectitude.”
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
“Do you think your thought will have success here?”
“Thought cannot be related to space or success. Only time can answer.”
“Do you expect
people to react?”
“Not to react, but to resonate.”
“Do you think The Black Muslim Party will have some deputies one day in the Canadian Parliament?”
“Not in its present constitution. We do not
need a Queen or monarchic set of law inCanada. Canadamust be free from its pass too. We live on the present time. Now I am here and the party is a virtual.com net party.”
“Are you in harmony with The American Black Muslim?”
“We share the same believe, the same consciousness, the same power.”
“Where do you get your money?”
“You must consult the Revenue Canada for that matter. They will enlighten you better than I.”
“Are you Canadian or Quebecois?”
“As far I am concern, I use a Canadian Passport when I travel. I might be related to them. I remember the Ben Johnson case. I might be temporary Canadian.”
“Do
you see pleasant future for the Blacks here inCanada?”
“Of course, yes. They will always have Black Muslims inCanadain a near or far future. We are all concern about that. The assimilation and alienation plan will not work.
Islam
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
as a faith will survive.”
“On an economic basis, do you expect Kaddafi or Ben Laden for example to support your movement?”
“There is one Islam.
Prayer support and religious didactic materials are always welcome in our community.”
“What do you think about people who compare your Party to the FLQ?”
“The FLQ was a Quebecois white Nigger terrorist group, their own
words. The Black Muslim Party is a Religious clean Organization, mainly leaded by Sufis contemplative Imams and supported by laics. We are superior.”
“Starting in the provincial first will be easy for your Party, instead of losing
time in the federal.”
“Our political agenda has not limited to space and time. We are one Nation, the Islam Nation.”
“Thank you mister Addim Bass for your presence.”
Bass politely bows and the light
fed off on him.
*
Sophie and Gustave watched the program with interest.
“It is hard, expresses Sophie to understand his goal. He is like a Dadaist. He just provokes and no real substance on his thought.”
“This man
is Malcolm X and Gandhi in the same time. The Dalai Lama will like him.”
Roland Bastien: The day he turns a ghost
Gustave replies.
“Dalai Lama is a “puppet” in the westerner’s hands. Did you see the Black Muslim Party web site?” Sophie Asks.
“Not yet. What it looks like?”
“It is a real Fluxus piece of Art. Gary St. Martin designed it. I do not know what they are talking about. It is a sort of labyrinth for numeric mind, not forme.” She
says with disgrace.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, I do not have enough knowledge to size their impact. To be honest with you, I presume they are trying to free themselves to theMiddle Eastpredominance and the Jihad.
They set up a concept based on their own Haitian stories, literature, and religiosity without breaking the Koran in part.”
“Addim is far away from that. I can see on him a sort of Shang Shih. It seems Pétion,
Dessalines and Magloire St Aude are his models and the Koran his guide. He is a real Sufis man. Only one thing is permanent, the truth he says on day. Where the Buddhist truth starts? And where the Sufism truth ends?”
“I
cannot speculate on that. You have to go and see by yourself their web site." Sophie concludes.
*
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