SIMULTANEOUS TIME : 1984 or 1980
A novel was my reality
reality and novel-movie flip sides
of a Coin of Life
falling from a purse which
was my own
God presented me with many
purses
like clouds
I chose one called
“Curriculum of Freedom”
It was multi-coloured
including manna, manure
madness
Betrayal was a primary
green note therein
not one, many
I could count them
the Judah biblical
story being a trigger
year was 1980 not 1984,
as in novel
political activist
was my label
my country, South Africa
Big Brother
their Ideology of
Separation Self-Hate Ignorance
Mind-Control
projected onto us who had taken up
a call for political freedom
lesson 101 before lesson
1001 which was
Unity Consciousness
I forgave them my torture
long ago
Did I have a mission ?
Or was the mission
that of a Party strategising
somewhere in a London hotel ?
2025 another movie of self
created missions
Living novels we know
not we create, for experience
AI making creation easier
yet more complex
candid overlays
with a million more
Big Brothers
My mission to bring them to
their feet ? No, not I
rungs across
thousands of ladders
skipping or hobbling
across hundreds of
screens
Chief Interrogator
looked like Hitler
walked like him
this was his movie
Hitlerism self-actualised
costumed himself likewise
same moustache same colouring
presenting no presence
except a khaki uniform
an actor in a modern day
Shakespearien play
his aura was
death
of which I held no fear
fearlessness, a gold chip in
my purse
they flickered images of Hitler
across a wall
his nickname being
‘Spyker’
meaning Nail
his refrain :
‘Ek gaan jou Spyker !’
Afrikaans for
‘I’m going to nail you’
bashing the table
with a loaded gun
he loaded pistol thirty centimetres
from my pupils, as they dilated
slowly counting bullets
fascinated by bullets I had
not seen before
Yes, saw a gun through a car window
a second near-rape I escaped
when resting for a kiss and
chilli hamburger
as activist distributing
freedom pamphlets, Sechaba’s
Afrika ! a People’s History
our special compilation
in boxes pass midnight
3am
that was an external gangster
on a township street
near Athlone shopping mall
this one was in a room in
Interrogation Centre
Caledon Square
Security Police Headquarters
Cape Town
I had seen several movies
about Hitler
read Orwell’s 1984
both did not prepare me
for torturous interrogation
Time was simultaneously
rotating and stationary
a strange phenomenon when
spaced out
vision : freedom
mission : freedom
objectives strategy tactics :
freedom
too asleep to know any difference
sleep as innocence
a cavewoman
I watched the pistol
being loaded, whilst
walking down a campus
road furtively glancing at
a police vehicle
A L L A T O N C E
time simultaneously equated
ignorance twinned with knowingness
the interrogation room was smaller
than movies depicted
had no chairs
I could never sit like Winston
and fellow inmates
cameras were alive
hidden, I sensed them
I was to stand for
twelve hours on end
no food no water
questions, questions
this was my working day
my comrade’s animal
screams of pain I heard
his voice which first attracted
Self was circling the
Interrogation Centre
or was it someone else’s ?
had they simulated his voice
to scare me with endured agony…
Big Brother was astralised
where was he… I cared not
my body wanted water
water water
they roared with laughter
threw a glass of water
against a wall where
Hitler marched
I sank to the floor
told to get up
they said he was in the room
next door, had already spoken
flashed his cracked
lips across the wall which
cracked my Heart in turn
I felt my blood dripping
through my veins
into an empty stomach
like glucose drips in
hospital transfusion theatres
“Kla gepraat” (already spoken)
betrayal was not a word they used
I knew though how it felt
it was snug in multi-coloured
purse God gave me
Did he speak, betraying
our Comrades ? Or was
Freedom-Love victorious …
did he think only of his own
survival like Winston and Julia
in Orwell’s 1984 ?
he diffused out of my life
like the novel’s protagonists
evidence of answer
a facet of Big Brother
one down, many to go
I flushed a green betrayal
note down a toilet drain
long after prison release
I had more
they were shattering my mind
a wet blindfold, wires, cords
I saw nothingness
piercing electric shocks
rippling my nerves, nerve nodes
meridians
My mind lay in pieces
all over Cosmos
I held bits together
with filaments of oxygen
sequinned across blackness
of space decorated with
dolphins, canons, tented villages
prisons, fences, ballrooms
castles, shacks, meals
muck, ice-cream, Buddha
lifetimes upon lifetimes
what was sanity or insanity
where was my mind
was this for real ?
I saw Jimmy Carter’s eyes
Self as slave on
a peanut plantation
a shamanic cave
jigsaw puzzles torn
they took blindfold off
and on, off and on
checked my pupils
like ophthalmologists
Yes. They confiscated spectacles
thought I would slash my
own wrists with its glass
when attaching
wristband electrodes
I was to look at sheet
of paper and pen on table
in middle of room
it shone, spoke robotically
saying : “Come, cover me in ink
zeros and crosses”
I never liked shining things
they were for magpies’ nests
the pen voiced that it was
a ticket to an operetta
Ego wanted to ask whether the
opera would have
my name on it
names and more names
I forced mind not to
recognise them
No, I did not know them
Silence silence silence
this was my training long ago
in a monestry
Interrogator upon interrogator
walked the room, round and
round boots batons
large hands
ape hands projected
onto four walls
Why did they not project feet ?
an internal giggle
feet could not throttle throats
I had to keep nerves together
with my mantra
“It’s a game. I’m OK”
I stood in a corner
then in middle then
in next corner, then
spine to door, table pressed
into empty stomach bruised
musical chairs without chairs
or music, windows painted
black, some painted white
perhaps they ran out of
black paint
their inner truth
black and white, no more
seemed to enjoy OppArt
male and female
thin fat tall short, nothing between
skilled to rattle
make stew from minds
stir their pot with my brain cells
cerebral fluid the coconut oil
then seek their reflection therein
removing stainless steel lid
Could they ?
My resilience made them
take lunch
I had none
whose knees did I want to bring down ?
Just my own, to rest my joints
There were Reptilians in a linen cupboard
they played body part games
that is a next chapter
I was holding onto my mind
somewhere Universal Mind
cradled it
flickered a pen torch
a dotted mite light years away
I saw it as point of focus
dancing across a black
Gothic clock for milli seconds
appear disappear appear
Was pen torch seeking cracks in my
Heart where it could wrench an opening
to filter through more Light atoms
feed its fractal within ?
under interrogation this thought was
fascinating
I tried to visualise tapestry
stitches mending a broken mind
piecing together red, mustard, green
it was splintering, splitting
not yet shattering
I had to concentrate on
not fainting, on knees
not buckling, muscles not
cramping, not blacking out
nausea intense
I had no food to vomit
liver near collapse
lungs constricted
Heart was wholly Red
it whispered beating
‘You are alive. The sky is
blue outside. There is no mission.
Big Brother is a clock called Ben
It enjoys life watching the Thames’