War/Peace: Part IV: Shadow Down Under

By Matthew Vandenberg

A shadow government attempts to influence international happenings, from below the ruins of the Sydney Opera House post-World-War-Three, in 2014.

Eminem is unofficially present, along with the cast of Victorious, Sarah Silverman, and Pussy Riot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Jun 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685834326

Book preview

February: Enter Sarah

INT. SYDNEY - BPTP - BO[RE/AR]D[-]ROOM - DAY

(TIM, SARAH, HAILIE)

TIM'S IN BED WITH HAILIE.

SARAH K SILVERMAN, HAVING RETURNED TO AUSTRALIA, SITS ON A SEAT TO THE RIGHT OF THE BED WITH A BED-TIME STORY OF SORTS IN HER HANDS.

WE FLOAT DOWN LIKE A BLANKET OR BURQA TO COVER THEM ALL JUST SO.

TIM KISSES HAILIE.

SARAH SMILES, AND THEN BEGINS TO READ.

SARAH

I can't remember just when the feelings first arose in me, the intense ones, this pleasant pressure inside my bosom like butterflies were engaged in some kind of peaceful protest against hate and together were pushing against my breasts so that I had a divine, tingly feeling running through my entire body, and this was only when the feeling was singular. This was only when I merely 'thought' about her, about this exuberant, graceful duchess of my dreams, and when I had not her body pressed against mine, complimenting the forces within me. When this woman herself was not actually beautifully entangled in me and my thoughts of her, and these thoughts and her both wrapped well around me: we a single qubit.

Was it when I sat, staring blankly at a computer screen during a statistics class at a university somewhere, and she popped into my peripheral vision, and our gazes touched like butterfly wings in flight . . . and then my computer crashed?

Was it when she met with me in a small study room where the walls were mirrors at a western Sydney university, practically naked for she was not wearing her hijab, and we talked for hours about intercultural relations?

Was it when she introduced me to Facebook [1.] on our trip to Wales, and I was sitting for hours, staring at my many faces, and trying to decide which to use as my profile picture? And I gazed at that one of her shearing sheep, so sweaty, so beautiful, removing the sheep's coat of conformity, like she would hers later that day, but only in the privacy of our Swansea sea-breezed home.

I don't know.

Perhaps it was when I was younger. Eighteen maybe.

She is the same age as me. The same exact age.

And when we stare at each other we know that we're the same person, the very same person. I would not be anything without her.

When we're alone together, inside our dwelling, it's my Jewish nose she loves, she licks, and I hers after she has lifted, but not removed entirely, her hijab, and revealed her breasts below her underlying burqa - her large brassiere.

She wears them out because she can't be seen. For we're famous, you see. We try to avoid fans. For our own protection. And to build up a sweat. A new sweater, one not for conformists.

She works hard all day shearing sheep, for this is something she enjoys, and when she comes home, and finally begins to undress, I begin to masturbate from the smell alone: this heavenly scent emanating from every pore on her body, truly intoxicating.

Lying on this foam mirror, playing a Jewish and Muslim beauty all at once, I pleasure myself in ways unimaginable, at once getting closer to God, finding satisfaction, and bridging the gap between two popular religions. God wants more than anything for us to come together.

This I know. And this is why I love myself so so very much.

The end.

HAILIE

Remarkable.

SARAH

There's an incredible shortage of nose porn and Muslim/Jewish porn on the market. I feel somebody has to say something.

HAILIE LIFTS THE BLANKET LIKE IT'S HER BURQA.

TIM WHISPERS.

TIM

Come.

SARAH CLIMBS INTO BED WITH THE TWO, BREATHLESS AND READY.

******

- Perfect Night - Sarah Silverman and Will.i.am (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2KYHLLIRYk)

- Calling All Angels - Train (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaG9SDxwPBg)

- [1.] Facebook (www.facebook.com)

- Udall, B. (2010). [p. 142; p. 146]. The Lonely Polygamist. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, United States: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

- p. 142 . . . the only thing that gave him a moment's peace was not the comforting touch of his faithful wives, or the sweet sight of his children come to meet him at the door, or his faith in his God. It was the thought of a woman - a dark-skinned stranger, probably a whore, with round calves and wide feet, whose image pulsed brightly and often in the foggy reaches of his mind.

- p. 146 He asked Weela if she was okay and she made a noise - he wasn't sure if it was a laugh or a sob - and pressed her cheek against his. Even in the cold water, he could feel the heat of her, could feel every part of her body that touched his: her thigh clamped with a rigid strength around the top of his hips, her breasts against his chest, her cheek against his, her breath hot on his ear.

- Thompson, B. (2014, January 26). Shearing contractors turn to migrants. The West Australian (Online). Retrieved February 1, 2014 from https://thewest.com.au/business/finance/shearing-contractors-turn-to-migrants-ng-ya-364692

******

INT. SYDNEY - BPTP - BO[RE/AR]D[-]ROOM - DAY

(TIM, SARAH, HAILIE)

WE STEER UNDER THE COVERS AND DEEP INTO THE BED LIKE IT'S THE MARIANA TRENCH, AND FOR A MOMENT WE'RE THE SWEAT THE COPULATORS ARE DRENCHED IN.

THEY ALL OSTENSIBLY RISE, LIKE MERMAIDS FLYING, TO TOUCH THE GRAPHITE SUEDE BEDHEAD WITH THEIR HEADS.

THEY'RE BREATHLESS.

WE'RE THE BREATH.

WE COVER THEM LIKE A REPORTER A STORY.

HAILIE

If we consider coitus a bicycle, it's like - the energy comes from the people themselves, rather than from oil or an atomic bomb.

SARAH

Women are like handlebars [1.]: They can be good to hold onto, and can encourage turn taking when you get to a fork in the road. #Discussions

Just like how sex is powering this soliloquy. Ha ha.

TIM NODS.

HAILIE

And when women are looking up to these handlebar icons [2.] [3.] this will undoubtedly be great for their sexual health.

TIM

I like it. Male worker bees, female honeybee queens.

SARAH

At least we need to give it a try.

We're perpetually seeking change, but not changing the gender of our leaders. That's not to say men are different to women in any significant way. However, it is a difference which - for most heterosexual people - drives the urge to copulate, and perhaps procreate. So this difference is probably greater - in general - than any difference between races and creeds.

I'm talking major overhaul.

Jesus is not someone intent on coming again in order to kill whoever doesn't admire him, he's a beautiful hippie woman who wants to bring peace to the world. We demonstrated that.

And God - God, unfortunately, is patriarchy gone crazy, psychopathic. God is nuclear war [4.]. God is the absence of Yin entirely.

We replace most male leaders and senators and such with females.

I'm thinking maybe Hillary Clinton for US President since she currently has the most support. And as much as I like Jon Huntsman junior, I'm thinking Abby should run against Hillary, so that whoever wins we have a dramatic change taking place.

TIM

So we should accentuate the differences between males and females to distract people from the lack of difference between the Democrat and the Republican running for office?

SARAH

Too right.

Get everyone hyped up about change.

And we'll make sure that real change takes place. Even if this change isn't the direct consequence of having a female leader we will make sure the public thinks it is. Because we have a message to get out to the people, a message that will change the world.

TIM

Hmmmm.

I like this a lot.

But there are Republicans out there who despise any change.

SARAH

Abby Huntsman is the solution. We'll have her dad praise her, as he always does anyway, and also tell the public that he will be assisting her whenever possible. This will alleviate fears of a complete loss of the patriarchy.

And it's this issue - patriarchy versus matriarchy - that the public will be discussing. Not the economy: it's beyond repair and the population of America is half what it used to be and so people believe there is enough cash to go around now. Not health care - no one gives a fuck about that anymore unless it concerns insurance against the effects of radiation from nuclear war. And it doesn't.

While Abby can encourage change in many ways, she can please Republicans because she has a great, strong father, and comes from a stable nuclear family and - for now at least - she's not gay. Step by step.

I think we can do this if we work hard enough. I'll have to pledge my allegiance to Hillary given she's a Democrat.

TIM NODS.

TIM

I'm in.

You know I love working under women.

SARAH AND HAILIE KISS HIM, THEN EACH OTHER.

******

- [1.] Handlebars - Flobots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLUX0y4EptA)

- Heartbreak Scorsese - Snob Scrilla (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtnMoAyaHTE)

- Udall, B. (2010). [p. 256; p. 290; p. 309-310; p. 311-312; p. 312-313]. The Lonely Polygamist. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, United States: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

- p. 256 Though boys were prized for their potential to one day bear the holy Melchizedek priesthood, to be leader sin the church, and soldiers for Christ, they had a significant downside: they were boys. Until they turned twelve or so, the mothers agreed, they were as inconvenient and as thoroughly useless as a pack of feral cats. Girls were better in just about every way: more helpful, calmer, more responsible, smarter. A series of distinctions which, unfortunately, didn't seem to change that much and girls turned into women and boys to men. Though they discussed it only among themselves, and more often than not treated it as a joking matter, the women of the church considered it one of God's great mysteries: why He, in all His wisdom, decided to put the boys in charge.

- p. 290 Twelve was when you received the priesthood, when you became a deacon in the church and were supposed to do things like pass the sacrament on Sunday, paint the houses of the less fortunate, and start being a man. The prophet would put his hands on your head and give you power from God. . . . The girls, they didn't get any power, they could not have the priesthood. For them, their special birthday was when they turned eight, the age they could be baptized in the church. As far as the church went, that was the best they could do.

- p. 309-310 Roy [an atomic bomb], meanwhile, was just getting started. The crest of his robust cloud, still lit from within by pink and amber nuclear fires, had ascended to thirty thousand feet - five and a half miles - into the atmosphere. He moved quickly west across the lunar hills of the great desert, borne aloft by warm air currents, spreading in slow-boom like a drop of ink in tap water, blocking out the light of dawn. Over the flat-pan playas and crumbling cinder cones burning orange with the new sun, the cloud flattened out as it butted against a rogue crosswind that sent it diving into the canyons and sand washes, where wiry free-range cattle smelled something foul on the air and went bucking crazily into the brush. Over Ely and Buck Valley, across the broad Lincoln County Range laced with its ancient, wandering game trails that had been appropriated by humans and their livestock, ever-deepening grooves that crisscrossed the surface of the land like the creases in the palm of an old sheepherder's hand.

- p. 311-312 She did not see Roy's great flash that lit up the heavens, did not hear the boom minutes later, did not notice the growing light of dawn or the malignant cloud that came over the horizon and tailed her like a slinking dog. Only when she felt a prickling on the back of her neck did she open her eyes and look back, and when she saw the cloud, already on top of her, it seemed nothing more than a manifestation of the dark churnings inside her head. She thought nothing of it at all until her skin began to burn. She was already coated with a layer of fine ash that had gotten into her eyes and mouth. She tried to run her way out of it, moaning and digging at her stinging eyes, until she skidded into a ditch and covered her head with her arms, praying out loud for forgiveness, begging God to spare her, to let this avenging angel pass her by.

- p. 312-313 Roy continued on, stalking the countryside, sowing his swarms of radioisotopes like seeds: cesium 137, which infiltrates the fleshy tissues; strontium 90, which masquerades as calcium and goes directly to the bones, iodine 131, which has a particular fondness for the thyroid glands of children. Born of raw cataclysm, the ruin he would deliver now was of a variety more delicate, sophisticated: he would coat the roads and pastures and reservoirs with his radioactive powder, cling to homemade undergarments drying on clotheslines, drift like dream-dust through open windows to settle in bassinets and couch cushions and cracks in the floorboards. He would inhabit this place and its people like a ghost. He would insinuate himself into the food chain and into the bodies of the hapless tenants of this land, and he would hide there, in their muscles and brains, breaking them down with exquisitely measured patience, day by day sipping at their bones' marrow, setting their nerves to smoldering and fouling their blood, allowing them all the while the privilege of watching their poisoned children wither to nothing, and only when he had his fill of their suffering would he usher them quietly, mercifully, from the precincts of the living.

- [2.] Bike's handlebar level can affect women's sexual health (2012, July 9). CBC News (Online). Retrieved February 4, 2014 from https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bike-s-handlebar-level-can-affect-women-s-sexual-health-1.1247886

- [3.] Partin, S. N., Connell, K. A., Schrader, S., LaCombe, J., Lowe, B., Sweeney, A., Reutman, S., Wang, A., Toennis, C., Melman, A., Mikhail, M., & Guess, M. K. (2010). [Conclusion: Handlebars positioned lower than the saddle were significantly associated with increased perineum saddle pressures and decreased genital sensation in female cyclists. Modifying bicycle setup may help alleviate neuropathies in females. Additional research is warranted to further assess the extent of the associations.] The Bar Sinister: Does Handlebar Level Damage the Pelvic Floor in Female Cyclists? The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 9 (5), 1367-1373. doi: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02680.x Retrieved February 4, 2014 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2012.02680.x

- Lurie, R. [Writer and director], Oldman, G. [Actor cited, playing Sheldon Runyon], & Allen, J. [Actress cited, playing Laine Billings Hanson] (2000). [Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most... in time of war or calamity. I can't ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were men created by their times. What I... What I can ask for... is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator... you don't have. - Sheldon Runyon; Well, then... I just wouldn't be using sex as leverage... if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there's one thing you don't want. It's a woman with her finger on the button who isn't getting laid. - Laine Billings Hanson] The Contender. Universal City, California, United States: DreamWorks.

******

INT. SYDNEY - BPTP - BOARDROOM [ON SCREEN - NEW YORK - NEW YORK - NEAR NOHO - 770 BROADWAY (AT E 9TH ST/WANAMAKER PL) - HUFFINGTON POST MEDIA GROUP* HEADQUARTERS - STUDIO ONE] - DAY

(TIM, HAILIE, JAMIE, RUSSELL, ABIGAIL)

IT'S A CIGARETTE END ON FIRE, . . . IT'S A TAG OF TAHRIR SQUARE TOTALED AND ABLAZE, . . . NO, IT'S A BALL OF WEED IGNITED.

WE HIT THE GROUND NEAR THE SCREEN AND THEN RISE AS SMOKE TO COVER THE ROOM: TIM AND HAILIE SITTING AT THEIR CIRCULAR TABLE, AND A LIVE HUFFINGTON POST [6.] DISCUSSION ON SCREEN.

RUSSELL BRAND SPEAKS. HE'S SITTING AT A TABLE SHAPED LIKE A WAVE, WITH JAMIE GOLDENBERG, AND ABBY HUNTSMAN.

RUSSELL

Framing a revolution as effective is instigation. This urges people to act. Every conceivable square can be circled [1.] if the crowd is large enough and the framing - through plotting and plodding - performed just right. It's about making every square, every Kremlin [7.], every White House [8.], every diamond, into a round table drenched in fruit, not labor . . .

JAMIE

and sex, and not always women in labor.

RUSSELL

Indeed Jamie. Though I like to focus on revolution rather than sex [2.] [10.] sometimes. Having sex on the Gaza Strip may get you killed. Be careful Jamie.

JAMIE

Ha ha.

ABIGAIL

Yes, but sex is what we should be promoting. Rather than violence.

RUSSELL

Whatever gets the job done I think. There needs to be change. And change is occurring. Sometimes, unfortunately, there are casualties. More if we start having sex on the battlefield.

JAMIE

Why a battlefield at all? If the framing is done right, we can push for peaceful revolutions.

I agree with less of a focus on acquisitiveness [2.] [10.], but there's no reason why we should neglect all urges [2.] [10.]. You just said revolution is like an urge, or should be.

I know you used to be a sex addict [3.] Brand, but I don't wanna have to call you neurotic now: at the opposite end of the spectrum, equating sex with death [4.].

I don't sleep around by the way, not that there's anything wrong with that if it's done right, but I'm just saying that sex sells and we should be using it to promote peace.

RUSSELL

Well, let's look at your latest study, which I found very interesting. Why did the show Falling Skies [5.] [9.] see a sudden surge in popularity post nuclear war? It's about control. On this show, the people are armed. The people are under control. They have the ability to fight the aliens. Whereas in reality, after the bombs were dropped, no one could do anything about the radiation. The nuclear bombs had already been dropped on America, on Australia. Everyone was helpless or dead.

You found that people closer to the affected areas were more likely to be viewing Falling Skies [5.] [9.]. They were thinking about death - because of the nuclear attacks - and so viewing Falling Skies [5.] [9.] must have been a way to give them a feeling of unity, belonging, and a sense of purpose, and offered them a solution to their problems at least in theory. This was a particular framing of a revolution seemingly appropriate and effective. They want their guns now more than ever. The people need to fight the powers that