[Holbrook]

"Sooo... you telling or am I? " Randolph asks the buzzing flitter ball that is Ghanima. The rest of the fairies have alighted on various seat's including Sandra's head. The rear of Matt's collar and Joe's nose. The fairy there seems to be playing a game of make Joe crosseyed.

Evan though, has four or five on his knees and they seem to be enacting a scene from "Two Towers" much to the boy's delight.

"Ok.... "Ghanima says softly... "We are going to Yellowstone?"

"Huh?" Joe grunts and swipes at the fairy on his nose, the creature becomes airborne sticks its tongue out at Joe and lands on his left ear.

"Yogi!" Evan shouts...

"Yellowstone dear, not Jellystone." Sandra chuckles.

"What's there... I " Emily begins...

"Shite, triple... damn.... oh hell" Matt mumbles slapping the steering wheel.

"Oh, you have a good idea then?" Randolph asks

"Idea noooooooo... its oh...." Matt glances at the sign that flashes by and pulls the vehicle over and off the road into a diner. "I need a bathroom break and some coffee."

"Well.." Ghanima huffs then looks at Randolph.

Eyes nods adding "We all could do with a bit of fresh air.

"You are not kidding." Matt snaps and lets himself out of the dodge, slamming the door behind him.

Sandra, too gets out and goes to stand beside him. Matt is kicking at the ground and still swearing.

"What's up?" she asks "Something to do with what lies beneath Yellowstone.....?"

"Oh... yes... shite... Us of all people, us!" Matt's arms go wide and he shakes his head.

[Hereford Eye]

When your eyes perform as they might, the things you begin to see resist description. Outer wrappings flitter away, inner workings send wildly pulsing images in colors included in the visible spectrum but seldom used. The inside of the body, deprived of light and the ministrations of ambient air, seems an alien world of ebbs and flows, burps and starts, pressures built and dissipated. It’s a marvelous heaving canvass in multi-dimensions, endlessly fascinating like a fire burning out of control.
The earth you stride percolates with microscopic life, each step landing on a new universe of bacteria, fungus, animalite. The air around you teems with equally beautifully monstrous life diving at your nose, your mouth, your eyes, your ears, your pores. Images to haunt you finest nightmares. Terror building from the number beyond number of things, tiny, miniscule things that make up your body, make up your world, make life possible. The nightmare can be that they are life and we are impostors. That the day will come when some of them, say mitochondria, decide to they go their separate ways. They can; we couldn’t stop them. Our bodies cannot survive without them. We do not seem to be able to survive without bodies.
A nightmare to compete with Ghanima’s nightmare.
Eyes’ mind churns steadily, like waves breaking on beach, each new thought tumbled through analysis and left lapping on the shores of memory. Ghanima’s nightmare, little Evan’s nightmares, his own nightmares, all horrific, all potentially terminal, all worthy of consideration, all subject to ministration, some more simple and direct than others.
Emily’s nightmare, for example, is easily put to rest. Eyes reaches out, watches the billions of cells in his hand surround the competing billions in hers, the warmth of his ATP abetting the warmth in hers, the vibrations of his vocal chords playing the vibrators in her middle ear. “It doesn’t matter, Emily,” the sound of Eye’s voice high tenor, although grating, paradoxically producing in Emily’s emotional center a soothing effect, “here, there, somewhere else. In his excitement, Matt mis-named the event. Not an earthquake though all the earth will quake as well as all the souls on the earth. They, too, will quake, for seconds, moments, or hours, depending upon their GIS positioning. Yellowstone is a volcano, Emily. Not inactive, as most of the world never asked and many of those who did choose to believe. A caldera 45 miles across. That means the blast zone, the escape door, is 45 miles across. The pie from that pi is around 150 square miles. Ah, when that blows.
“That’s the problem, Emily, when that blows. Not if. Not maybe. But, when. When that blows there is no place safe for Evan. No place. He should be with you when that blows because the only comfort available to any of us will to be in the arms of someone who cares. It will not stop the horror but it may comfort the soul.
“Like most things about our world, Yellowstone is cyclical, regular and therefore predictable. Yellowstone seems inspired by light, uses 300,000 just as light does, substituting years for meters. It blows, on average, every 300,000 years.”
“Yes, you must ask. We all must ask. The cells in our body remember; if we could listen to them the dread certainty is in escapable, not arguable, not refutable. Yellowstone last blew 360,000 years ago. If we place our hands in supplication, when can feel the law of averages weighing down on them as if it were the law of gravity. Yellowstone isn’t the only super volcano; it’s just the most due. Toba erupted just 75,000 years ago applying Occam’s razor to the riddle of our species lack of genetic diversity.
“A friend of mine, a naturalist of another kind, describes it best, Emily: Yellowstone wants to fart. Life-as-we-know it needs to apply socially aware sphincter muscles.”
As predictable as Yellowstone on a much quicker time table, Evan looks gleefully into his mother’s worried eyes. Worry is no fun so Evan ignores what he sees. His smile is a lighthouse beacon warning of the disaster approaching, a child knowing he is going to be doing something wrong, not understanding why it’s wrong, but knowing that it is and still willing to engage in the behavior, negative attention the psychologists call it. “Mommy,” he says, attempting seriousness to mask the delicious fear of sinning in public, “Yellowstone wants to fart.”

[kater]

Not only fart but be the mother of all follow throughs. This is not good, who the f**k does this Eyes bloke think he is, the second coming of Jesus H Christ. While we're on the subject anyone know what the H stands for.
F**k it, I'm pissed now. The old man is too, thats not a good sign as far as I'm concerned, he's been well up for it until now. Save the bloody world, do I look like f**king superman, no faster than a speeding bullet, jump large buildings in a single bound powers here.
Just a petty thief.
A criminal.
Wouldn't ma be proud of her little treasure now.

Never amount to anything she said.
She was right.

Always right.................

There are tears in my eyes, not the crying kind but the all-this-talk-of-farts-has-made-me-do-a-nasty-one type, the type that warms your underwear. Oh god thats bad, Yellowstone will have to go someway to beating that. Heh heh. The young bird's worried about her kid, can't say as I blame her, all this talk of dying wasn't on my agenda.
"But it was."
Oh great he reads minds, I know your blind mate but do us both a favour and f**k off.
"This event disturbs you."
No ****, do I look like I save the world for a living.
"Do you know what the one thing that defines a hero is Joe."
"No but I'm sure your going to tell me."
"Its that a hero never chooses to be a hero. If you asked one they'd probably say they were just the right person in the right place at the right time. But what if someone saw the event where they became a hero before it happened and offered that person a choice about their involvement, do you think they'd do the exact same thing?"
"Well yeah, I'd imagine so."
"So what if I told you I've seen you standing with the others saving the world."
Tricky bastard, I knew there was a trap coming.
"You'd be lying." The old man read my mind and said it, he looks fit to have a heart attack. Sandra's dragging on one arm like she's his old lady and Eyes is just standing there, calm as day, 'specially considering he's just been called a liar to his face.
"You're lying, you're lying, you're lying. There's no way you saw that far into the future, its impossible."
"I'm afraid we're not dealing with the impossible Matt. Simply something different."
"Don't you use your patronising semantics on me."
"Please calm down Matt your going to hurt yourself."
I see the narrowing of the eyes, the athritic fist bunching, the wind-up, its a .......... swing and a miss.
The old man's on his backside, it doesn't look like its sunk in that a blind man just dodged a perfectly decent, if energetic, right hook. What he does realise is that Eyes just saw into the future, the old man's rubbing his hip for dear life.
Please God let it mean we don't have to go on.

[Holbrook]

Sandra made to help Matt up, but the look in his eyes made her take a step back, she good feel the anger, the hurt and the fairies, oh........

There seemed to be more and their clothes had changed, no longer bright colour scraps of fabric, but dark, studded and leather????"Ghanima was wearing leather!!!!!!

She was at the head of a flying wedge of fairies that stood on the tarmac. As one they stepped forward, dipping the right shoulder raised the left arm, stepped left, then right. The right shoulder came up the arm and hand continuing the movement as the left lowered.

"Whowwwww" Evan cried and lay on his stomach watching the small, but very high class production number...


Brother - brother ....
Sister - sister ....
It’s the loneliness that’s the killer

So you want to be free
To live your life the way you want to be
Will you give if we cry?
Will we live or will we die? Oh

Jaded hearts heal with time
Shoot that love so we can stop the bleeding, oh

Solitary brother - brother
Is there still a part of you that wants to live?
Solitary sister - sister
Is there still a part of you that wants to give?

Solitary brother - brother
Is there still a part of you that wants to live?
Solitary sister - sister
Is there still a part of you that wants to give?

If we try and live our lives
The way we want to be - yeah

Oh love - love - oh love - love

Brother - brother - sister - sister
Brother - brother - brother - brother ....

There’s no other love - there’s no other love....
There is no other love, no other love like ours
There’s no other love - there’s no other love....
There is no other love, no other love like ours
There’s no other love - there’s no other love....
There’s no other love - there’s no other love....
There is no love

Solitary brother - brother
Is there still a part of you that wants to live?
Solitary sister - sister
Is there still a part of you that wants to give?

Solitary Brother - brother - brother - brother - brother ....
Solitary Sister - sister
Is there still a part of you that wants to give?



The wedge then burst apart, the fairies scattering in all directions.

"What the "F" and they trying to tell us... that we should be bloody fools and try the impossible????"?" Matt barked as he got to his feet.

"I think," Sandra said, "Yes....."

[Hereford Eye]

Picture what Randolph sees as he looks at Matt. Certainly the outward appearance of a man, the eroded shell of a little boy who grew up too soon. But the rest of him, the life pounding inside that shell demanding protection, preservation. Yes, that life agrees, we are old but not that old. There are decades behind but decades before as well. This stilling super volcanoes is work for younger people. Hell, it's work for faeries for that matter. Why don't they do the job?
That question blinks on and off, lighting Matt's face with anger and frustration.
Randolph knows that, at this moment, Matt is not susceptible to logic and reason but they are the only toools in his arsenal. Perhaps Emily could or Sandra could thrust their femininity into his awareness and argue from that point but Randolp does not enjoy that advantage. He uses what he has.
In a small, soft voice forced into a range below its normal pitch, Randolph starts: "Feel the rage inside you, Matt. Feel the energy devoted to that rage. Imagine if that energy could be converted into real energy as Sandra does. Could she, at her very best, match the energy you contain? You have greater mass, enough more mass to generate orders of magnitude more energy than Sandra. You can see that, can't you?"
The thought diverts Matt, sends him calculating mass and energy ratios, pushing enough realization to open him to the obvious line of reason Randolph pursues.
"That much difference between you and Sandra, imagine the difference between you and Ghanima. How many Ghanimas does it take to fill a Matt-sized beaker?
"If the faeries sacrifice themselves, all of them, they cannot generate the power that just five of us can. But it cannot be any five of us. It must be this five of us. Together, supporting each other with our special skills, we can still Yellowstone. Not forever, not for eternity, but for another 300,000 years anyway.
"That's why the faeries need us, why they chose us. Don't you see? They had no more choice than we do. To save the world, we need to risk this group.
"Maybe the choice is whether to save the world or not. No, the world will survive, new life will take our place, another cycle will begin. The choice is to save life-as-we-know-it. Perhaps, we do not all agree that this life merits preservation but that is the choice we will be making."

[Holbrook]

Sandra looks from one man to the other. Matt grumbles and gets up dusting off his trousers.

He says nothing just looks at each of us in turn..

"Oh man oh *f* " Joe is muttering.

Emily is ruffling her son's hair, the boy is grinning his eyes wide with the joy of adventure. Sandra well she is hovering between making for the bus stop on the far side of the car park or the bathroom. The bathroom wins.

"If this is a bathroom break, then I need it, if any of you are ordering coffee, make mine hot and strong and black"

"Any pie with that?" Ghanima asks as she buzzes round the woman. "Apple and apricot with cream not ice cream"

"Not good for the hips" Matt remarks.

"I gave up thinking about them years ago " Sandra quips back and makes for the ladies rest room.

She does what has to be done and washes her hands, rinsing her face as well. As she drys both on a rough paper towel a cockroach crawls aross the mirror, Sandra's eyes narrow and the cockroach frys. She grins, then laughs... the need to give it a go. have to give it ago. She gathers her self up mentally strapping on her armour and marches out ready for her pie.

As she sits down she asks "When will we reach Yellowstone, or rather how soon do we have to reach there and more to the point can we get any practise in as to what we have to do with each other."

Joe splutters at this. Sandra looks hard at him "You would never keep up boy..."

[Hereford Eye]

Joe’s social skills lack any measure of development. He’s been on his own since he was twelve, living by theft. When he acquired the power, he saw no reason to change things. People are a pain the lower regions and he can do without them, thank you very much! His thinking tends to roam these corridors:
“The old bitch thinks I can’t keep up with her? In anything? Who the f*** does she think she is, Madonna?
There isn’t one of these old farts that can keep up with me if I choose to….what if I just removed her bra? That’d teach her not to mess with me.”
Joe is fairly well shocked to discover the old bitch is not wearing a bra. She notices the touch on her skin of his probe, though, something he hadn’t counted on. He’s ready to dart away as soon as she starts complaining but when she turns on him there is the touch of a most evil grin on her face and a wicked musing in her tone: “you may just have something there, sonny.” Everyone turns to regard the two of them but they alone understand the meaning of Sandra’s near compliment. That’s a double shock to his system. First, she didn’t complain; second, the idea of his mental touch being something pleasing to a woman. Both are more input than his problem solving mechanism can deal with in public.
“F*** off,” he mumbles, turns his back on the group, becomes lost in contemplation of teleportation, touch, and sex with old women. A shiver of revulsion accompanies the last thought. Too weird to think about.

[kater]

Back to the inanity of childish humour, I wonder if there truly is a genetic marker for defense against understanding death. It'd have to be dominant and labelled how to goof around and avoid thinking all you know, feel, touch, taste will suddenly stop and worse - then what. Blackness. That's what gets my vote, the sleep of the unknown, the end to all physical and worldly tribulation. Finito. Nothing. Oblivion. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think.
Thinking is becoming harder, all these emotions at my age isn't good. Its tiring, draining, why did I get involved in this fool scheme in the first place. I knew it was going to hit the fan faster than superman on laxatives. Stupid old man thats what I am. Just a stupid old man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now I have to decide what to do, I mean do I really value this world, or rather all the people in this world, enough to care whether they live or die when I almost certainly won't. Look around, false wars, false prophets, false hope, false emotions, false people. Where is the joy, the sunshine, the hope. Blank eyes staring back at you from blank faces going about their everyday drudgery, one foot in front of the other and all that crap. Its not living, its counting time till the end. So what if the end comes sooner than expected, maybe any survivors will learn a lesson from it. What a proposterous idea, they'd be human after all. Where do we go from here, where is here and who are we. Just when you think life is simple it goes and gets complicated on you, who would have thought it. Not old men chauffering fairies and escaped criminals towards the world's largest volcano thats for certain.
God's I need coffee, intravenously would be preferable.

[Hereford Eye]

Emily heard Eye’s words, everyone, clearly and wondered at the lack of clarity it brought her. Things are as muddled now as when she first entered the car. Oh, she understands where they are going and the general nature of the tragedy they must avert. With Randolph’s assurance, she also understands why it’s okay for Evan to be along for the ride. It’s the inside muddle that has her muddled.
She was accustomed to being the single mom of a singular terror. She was accustomed to having few friends and ill-at-ease with those she had. She was accustomed to sitting on the outside looking in. Now she is one of the “in” crowd and she feels no different than she did before. “Why is that?” she asks herself.
The trouble with asking yourself questions is not always that you tend to answer yourself. When there are a pair of mentalists in the car, you are likely to discover someone else answering a question you thought was private property.
A faerie voice, aloud, responds that Emily is still Emily, nothing has changed. Ghanima’s tone indicates there is solace in the remark, sympathy, empathy, understanding. “Randolph’s voice follows behind Ghanima with “faeries love being cryptic. They do not know how to talk otherwise.”
Emily looks at Randolph waiting amplification she knows he will know she expects. Whew! Dealing with mind-readers makes language complicated.
Randolph, as expected, does continue: “You remain who you are, Emily. Yes, you’ve been added to a group tagged to try to save the world but, no, you haven’t changed a bit. Like our friend, Joe, you still do not trust anyone but yourself.” At the sound of his name, Joe glances briefly at Eyes but quickly returns to his own musing.
Emily is jolted by the accusation. She starts to deny the allegation she trusts no one but doesn’t get the words out in time. Randolph’s words didn’t break for long; that train rumbles on. Trying to determine what Randolph is thinking is a problem. His eyes are no longer windows on his soul. You must try to read the smile lines, the laugh lines, the worry wrinkles, the twitches in the cheeks, the cant of his head. It takes a great deal of work to make Randolph seem human.
“Trust does not come naturally to one who has been betrayed. The betrayal casts doubts on everything, the betrayer, the betrayed, the rest of the world. Your self image flits between assuming the blame for the betrayal, blaming yourself for not seeing it coming, denying yourself the ability to judge any human being’s character. None of these harsh self-judgments are true.
“Every human being is capable of honor but, then, every human being is capable of deceit as well as changing their mind as to which is which. People, like events, are situational. Things they would normally never dream of doing, given the right situation, are as natural as breathing.
“Deciding who you are going to trust is simply deciding who you are going to trust. There are no hard and fast rules to assure you only trust trustworthy people. You just decide that this is a person I will trust. It’s an act of faith. Sometimes, you will be wrong.
“But think of the all the times you will be right.”
They are all in the car now, the rest stop over, the motion of the car momentarily deadening the conversation. In her place, Emily feels a cloud in her mind beginning to dissipate.

[Holbrook]

Again the dodge moved as if at the speed of light. Matt muttered about not being needed at the wheel at all. Eyes assured him that they did, magic could only do so much without a guide and Matt, whether he believed it or not was the guide for the vehicle.

Each sat in in the silence of their own thoughts piecing together what had been said, what they were supposed to do..

Evan dosed on his mother's lap and the fairies and Eyes began to sing again... not loudly, just more to themselves...


I'm trying not to feel you
But you just brushed by
And if you dare to cross that line you know
My toes would step on fire

Ohh sizzle when it's face on face
And skin on skin
I'm trying to keep you out
And I'm trying to keep me in

One hundred million eyes
Behind these walls
Watching you
Hearing you
Knowing you

Keep me a secret
Keep me out your arms
Keep my kisses of your lipstick
Stop me swallowing your charms
Keep yourself a secret
Lock up all your doors
I'll keep you out of my dreams
Just you keep me out of yours

Needn't not to notice you
But you grab my eye
Don't let embraces linger
Try to keep our arms untied

See there you go again
You're making me mad
Cuz I'm drawn to this danger
Oh it's making me mad

One hundred million reasons to ignore
Of wanting to be with you
One hundred million eyes
Behind these walls
Watching you
Hearing you
Knowing you



Evan woke up as the song drifted away, rubbing his eyes and said "Are we there yet?"

"Yes.. Sandra said as the dodge powered down and crusied by a sign saying. "Welcome to Yellowstone."

"What we going to do then?" Joe asked

"It would be..."

"We need a bit of rest and to get closer." Eyes winked.

"With *f* whom?" Joe swore and shifted in his seat trying to ignore Sandra's chuckle.

"Mentally" Eyes said chuckling himself.

"Oh?" Matt huffed.

"You sound disapointed" Sandra quipped as the vechicle turned into a narrow track.

"Huh?" Was Matt's answer as he looked at her, the vehicle swerved, narrowly missing a pot hole and climbing off the track. Matt cursed, everyone swore and Matt hit the breaks.