EROS ZETA and the HYPNOGOGUE

By Steve Kilbey

Eros Zeta is a feckless, flaky popstar living in Antarctica in the year 2054 and he's got a load of problems. He's addicted to an alien drug called Sky, he's got a crazy girlfriend and a nasty old manager, plus nobody understands him. Suffering from writers block and unable to create any new music, he hears about a machine called the Hypnogogue

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Point Books
• Release date: Sep 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218356392

Book preview

2054

Eros Zeta stared out at the buildings and huts and tents and shacks and bio-domes and the labs and the markets that made up Antarctic City. The sun and sky both white. A white flag flapped in the cold breeze. It was summer but still that breeze was still cold. An aircraft wheeled in the white sky. Black birds too, a long way up. It seemed he might have an epiphany then, but the moment passed. He stared out to the dark sea in the distance filled with icebergs the size of small islands all grinding together, melting silently in the emptiness of an afternoon dream.

Dr Shapiro’s office was stuffy and he felt sleepy. He sipped at his lukewarm cup of tea and dipped in a biscuit. Dr Shapiro had the very best biscuits of all the shrinks in Antarctic City which went a long way in Eros Zeta’s opinion.

That’s probably why I chose him, he was thinking, as some mud-splattered military jeep squelched up Ernest Shackleton Street and pulled up outside a bar called ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’. Of course, there were no walruses in Antarctica these days nor had there ever been. Carpenters, yes! They were thick on the sludgy ground. They hammered up houses and crates and coffins all over the place. He watched the Military Police get out of the jeep and march into the bar. A moment later they came out hauling some poor schmuck with them and threw him into the jeep. He watched on, as if from a very long distance, as the jeep pulled away and drove off in a vile puff of some noxious exhaust. He could almost smell it up here, at Dr Shapiro’s. He turned back towards the doctor. He smiled a dopey vacant smile.

Eh…what was that?

Dr Shapiro breathed out a subtle snort.

Eros, are you back on the Sky..?

Ha ha I was never off it…

He looked at the doctor blankly.

No, I’m not back on the Sky, doctor!

Eros, but call me suspicious but your eyes are kinda Sky-like…

I am absolutely not on the Sky…

Eros paused, oh, do you mean today…?

The doctor did one his snorts again but this time more emphatically, ending in a little chuckle.

Eros, what in the frozen hell…are you playing with me…?

No doctor, but I’m sure as snow, fucking paying you though.

Eros, we can’t get anywhere if you take drugs and I already told you that.

"The Sky was the only thing…I only ask one thing…it’s not too much, is it…? I mean, everybody in this world loves something…

something that I did while I was on Sky…it made the songs just…and people didn’t say then oh Eros, stay away from the Sky…

It loved me, the Sky…yeah the stuff loves me and I love it back…you wanna take it all away but you still want me to…you want me to do something in a way I’ve never done it…not without Sky…look, I know there’s some truth in what you say…but that doesn’t seem to reach my, uh, under-standing…so stop worrying about the Sky…and worry about my bloody writers bloody block..!"

The room was very quiet.

He paused for a long moment. A mangey emperor penguin was pecking at something in a bin. It made him sad, watching it root around for some scrap that would surely be bad for it. A lot of penguins were losing their feathers because they were pecking up french fries and bits of burgers and their wrappers; the warm sea had brought all the wrong fish.

Eros, we are outta time here…

Yeah, yeah, Zeta mumbled and shrugged, see ya next week then..?

I suppose so, said the shrink and then, stay off the drugs...please..?!

Yeah, Zeta said or maybe he just thought it…

The elevator was chilly he could see his own breath.

He could see his reflection in the glass, too.

His blonde and long hair looking dry and ratty.

Maybe starting to be ever-so slightly thin on top…

His white face.

Insolent eyes, staring back at himself angrily.

His communist workers get up, pretty funny considering he has never worked a day in his life.

Nor would Zeta, in his wildest dreams, be able to tell you what communism actually was.

They had great clothes… he’d tell you and really what else matters in these days of the most post-truth..?

Zeta loved a lot of stuff in the past. He loved that Russian classical composer and he loved some traditional stuff too: The Beatles and Roman music and Indian music and a bit of that 2030s ‘Histrionica’. Most of all though, he loved ‘Pandora Mod-Z-Art’ who only broke up a few years ago, after the main guy, Ipso Facto died some predictably stupid death and overdosed on Sky. Sky was a drug invented by the Chinese military in the 40s. It was the best fucking feeling in the world and it was pretty fucking bad for you too..! Some new substance T95322…or something…did something to your pituitary gland. Pandora’s first album was called ‘On Sky And On Gland’. A billion streams every second on the day of its release. It redefined everything and Zeta had been listening real close.

Every minute that passed, he entertained a fleeting thought about Pandora Mod-Z-Art. The sound of their music, like a cross between a building site and the most heavenly symphony… how did they achieve that..?

Fucking drugs ruin everything, he thought. But knowing that…wow..!

He stared vacuously at the black buttons in the elevator. He had not yet selected the G floor. And the lift just sat there humming,

waiting for a command. Zeta’s reveries were legendary amongst the people who had to deal with him.

Uh oh…I think he’s off on another one of his reveries..! they’d complain to each other. People like Joe Palumbo, his manager and Albert Ross, his faithful guitar tech. Or the guys in his band. Especially, some of the guys who used to be in his band, like Wim Flange-Watkins, who’d be happy to tell you what an empty headed narcissistic time wasting prick he was. Inside the reveries, where he used to find the songs just waiting. But now there were no more songs. Just long strands of confused thinking, like unravelling dreams that held on, with tentacles into the real world.

Which real world is that? he thought. There’s real and then there’s really real. And music so close I can almost taste it. And its cavernous music and yet it whispers in my ear. Extravagant and yet austere. Chaotically organised, like a profound mathematical theorem. And the words…the words I hear me singing back to my self…those words of magnificently sacred nothingness that seem to mean so much and threaten to reveal everything…yes, your heart’s desire and more…to lift the curtain on mundanity forever and show the whole world the sublime and shining nature of…something …well, I’m working on that bit…aren’t I..?

The lift found its own way to floor G and discharged him.

Eventually he left the doctor’s office block and jumped on a tram, which skidded up to a big building on Mawson Parade.

The apartment foyer was cold and empty. He pressed 11 on the elevator and rode all the way up to the top floor, the cables groaning.

Opening the door to his flat, there was no one home. The place was a bloody disgraceful mess too, although he hardly noticed. It was like a warehouse, divided up with those Japanese screen thingies that he loved. Everywhere was an explosion of clothes and musical instruments and drug paraphernalia and masks and recording equipment and books and magazines and gadgets, both arcane and brand new. Coffee tables with ashtrays full of butts and cardboard coffee cups and broken bits and pieces of jewellery or sprockets from a watch. The busts of the Caesars and the Hindu gods of love and devils, angels and horses heads on shelves. A pair of flippers and an ancient surfboard. An albino snake in coils in an aquarium, its pink eyes piercing the muted afternoon light. Imitation black suede boots and a gossamer kilt. His Data-Maskin computer, one of the most expensive of its kind, glowing in the corner, endlessly creating music and art and news content and chucking em out into the room in a non-stop stream of crazy random avant garde infotainment.

Paintings fought for space on the wall. A few Picasso originals (women with 3 eyes and square heads) and hiqual prints of Botticelli and some other 14 century Italian geezers who Zeta loved but had forgotten their names. Diagrams of machinery. Music scores printed out in negative. Charcoal on butchers paper traced some buxom lady’s curves. Portraits of himself done in all kinds of ways and mediums. Photos of him in action with the Perfumed Guitars. Trophies for platinum streams. Fake elephant-ear ferns and fake palm trees. Dead flowers withering in vases. A cornucopia of treasures and a load of old junk. Take your pick.

He waded through the underwear and shoes and lay down on a settee considering his next move, going over it all in his brilliantly befuddled mind: what would be the next move..?

Zeta thinks: No songs in so long…does it really even really matter? Yes, it really does matter…I mean, how much is in the bank..?

Dunno exactly…maybe a million in crypto and a few hundred thousand laying around…that won’t fucking last long…fucking tax man and fucking alimony and fucking insurance and bills and tickets and statements and commissions and fines and…

The soft purring of his phone device interrupts his torrent of torment.

Joe Palumbo. He picks up and winces as he hears his managers voice distorted and cartoon like.

Eros, the doc says you’re still taking those drugs and spacing out and both of ya are going nowhere..

Yeah Joe, the whole thing’s so predictable, isn’t it?

No Eros, that’s not what I’m sayin’. Why you gotta be so damn argumentative all the time..?

Joe, this ain’t an argument! But..I’ll give you an argument..!

They both laughed.

Come over to my office, I need to run you through some stuff…

What stuff…good stuff or bad stuff..?

Well, it’s stuff that could go bad and that wouldn’t be any good…

What stuff are ya talking about Joe, why can’t you tell me..?

I can tell you but I’d rather discuss it in my office…

Zeta sighed. I don’t wanna have to go all the way there in this bad weather…

How’s 9 AM tomorrow morning sound, Eros? Think ya can manage that..?

What the fuck…that’s so bloody early…

Okay, just be there before lunch, I got an appointment so 10.30 at the latest.

Yeah mate, whatever, sure, sure, fuck, okay.

The line went dead and the drizzle was falling outside.

He switched the Data-Maskin around and watched a thing about a Korean woman who’d made a lot of money lately on the pop charts. Everything she’d been releasing had gone to number one all over the place. She’d invented something. Sun Kim Jong. Yes, he’d heard of her vaguely before. His friends had talked about her. She had developed something called the Hypnogogue. It was a place where very successful music had been made. A studio but much more than that. Zeta had never fully understood what it was exactly she had dreamt up. It seemed like it was part machine and part building and part drug and part some sort of tantric sex and a whole lot of other things as well. He hadn’t really listened properly to what they had said, but he remembered them saying about all the number ones she was scoring.

Hey! he called out to the computer. Play me some music made by the Hypnogogue.

Immediately the screen swirled to reveal the face of a woman with the whitest skin and the blackest hair. A whirling sun, the Hypnogogue logo. A city, lit up at night, the lights moving like birds from building to building, in a pulsating murmuration. The music began.

God, it’s perfect…he thought…I hate it already…arpeggiating harps and pizzicato strings, a deep throbbing bass, noises and sounds collated from non musical things…creatures moaning and screeching…arctic winds howling, chorused and tuned, multiple entwined melodies…a voice starts up…a foreign language…but it doesn’t matter…it’s a love song…the singer is neither man nor woman…they sing in weird microtones, yet adhering to a melody that is at once mysterious and obvious…the percussion rumbles like thunder…and it rises up to a crescendo, a vortex of orgasmic violins falling from a velvet sky…

Suddenly the song stops and he gasps. That’s it! That’s the answer…

And he sits there, rubbing his hands and tapping his feet and watching the drizzle as it runs