So guess what, Murdoch? You're on mine.

All this added up and I shouldn't even have been thinking about lying down on that couch, fully clothed. My eyes closing, heavy with the world, thinking about how this story started; Mandy coming out of that all-night Vurt-U-Want, dodging dogs and cops.

Christ! I was playing it back already.

I got up suddenly, startling Karli, who was playing with Twinkle. "Fetch me some paper, kidder," I said, whilst searching my pockets for a pen. I had some debris from the trip in there, and I placed them all out on the table top. My birthday card. The Tapewormer feather that Beetle had given me. The fool card. Put that down as well. Took a long stare down at the collection.

My mind was like a stranger.

Twinkle put an old school exercise book down on the table, and then reached for the birthday card. "Aw! Scribb! You got a birthday card! Who's it off. Let's see --"

I caught her with a hard slap to the face.

Shit...

She backed off, holding her cheek, her eyes dribbling.

Oh Christ... shouldn't have done that... what was happening to me...

"Mister Scribble..." Twinkle's voice.

Did my best to ignore what I'd just done, picked up the pen, opened the book, and then scribbled down some words, the first I had written in weeks. And I remember thinking, that if I ever get out of this with body and soul still connected, well then I was going to tell the whole story, and this is how it would start:

Mandy came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.

Okay, so this is twenty years later, and I'm only just getting round to it.

I closed the book, put down the pen, picked up the birthday cad, read Desdemona's message, put down the card, picked up the feather, and the tarot card. I was moving like some cheap made-in-Taiwan robo.

I went back to the couch, lay down, the feather in one hand, fool's card in the other. Twinkle's voice, "Mister Scribble..."

I didn't look.

"What're you doing?"

"Going in."

I took one last look at the fool's card; the young man stepping it lightly towards the abyss, all his world wrapped up in a shoulder sack, his dog snapping at his heels, trying to stop his fall. I'm getting the picture, dead Suze. Cheers for the card. So you thought that I was a fool? Very well. I'll act like one. I'll be what you wanted, Suze.

"Can I come? Can I?" pleaded Twinkle.

"This is private," I said to her, and then sucked the feather in real deep, down to the shaft. I know my times and my places. And this was a time to get out. Out of that time, out of that place.

The Tapewormer feather was halfway down my throat and I could feel the waves approaching over the music's swelling main theme, intercut with the credits. But then the waves were moving backwards, taking the music with them, so I was getting the fade, and then the hit of each note, and I was in there somewhere, losing the sense of trouble, the sense of now. I was being inverted.

Mandy came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.

That's fine. It's just that sometimes we want to change things a little. We want things to be better. How they should've been.

That's no crime?

That's just a moment of stupidity. That's all.

I mean who hasn't, at some time, wanted this? To feel the fade before the hit?

I gave the feather one last push and then I was gone, wave deep, swimming the surf back home, as the main theme and the credits dropped away... TAPEWORMER

Desdemona came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies. There was no trouble, a nice clean pick-up. Des is an expert and we love her for that.

We rode the stash back to the flat, the fearless four of us; Beetle and Bridget, Desdemona and I. The Beetle was up front, the van pilot, Vaz-smeared for extra performance. I was on the left side wheel housing, Brid was on the right. She was fast asleep, so what's new? Desdemona was sitting between us, slightly forward, with the treasure sack in her lap. It was a smooth road.

"What's in the bag, sister?" I asked her.

"Beauties," she replied. "A Yellow." Her voice sent a shiver through me.

Just like...

"Let's have a look," I said.

Desdemona pulled out a feather, a pure and golden flight path.

"Oh wow!"

"What is it, Scribble?" shouted the Beetle, from the pilot's seat. "Did she do good?"

"Oh Christ! Did she!"

"What's she got, Scribb? Ask her for me."

"What you got there, sweet sister?"

She was moving the sun feather in her hands, gazing at it tike the relic of a god.

Which it was.

A sun god.

Light shards thrown off the passing streetlamps, changed to black by the van's mirrored windows, found themselves caught, for a second, upon the feather's one million flights. Then they were reflected, in fractals of gold, bouncing off the sides of the van like ricochets from the sun.

When Desdemona spoke -- with her face so pretty in the feather light -- her voice was inlaid with gold, and burnished to a fuck-me-please shine.

Just like... just like she's...

"Takshaka Yellow," she said, all quiet like.

There was a suck of breath as we all breathed it in, all those perfumes, those pleasures to come.

"Takshaka?" I said, unbelieving.

"Takshaka fucking Yellow!" screamed the Beetle, letting the wheel slip for a second. I felt the van careen over to the pavement, and then the jolt as it took the curb at speed. For a second or two we were travelling in chaos. Then the Beetle popped a Cortex jammer, and grabbed the wheel like a murderer his gun. So we were back on the track, the road, the King's highway, with a vengeance.

"Beetle! You shouldn't be doing that!"

"Tell me why, little man?!" he screamed. And then; "Awooooooh!!!!! Let's rock!" And he drove that van into a let's all go out in a blaze of yellow glory.

"Because this is supposed to be perfect, Bee," I answered. "That's why."

"Fuck perfect! Let's ride this sucker!"

Bridget was still fast in sleep. Desdemona was foreplaying the feather, getting it on strong.

"This is my trip, Beetle!" I said. "Let me ride it."

Why was I saying this? It wasn't just me. I wanted the group with me.

"Nobody goes alone, Scribb," he replied. "Nobody goes in alone." "This is private!"

This is private?

I was getting voices. Outside voices. Where the fuck were they from? And in my hands I found a pasteboard card, the image of a young man, a sack of things on his shoulder, a barking dog at his heels, the edge of a cliff beckoning.

Where did I get that from?

"This is beautiful," whispered Desdemona. Takshaka Yellow. The marinade of God." Her voice was saffron-rich. "You read the Cat on this one, Scribb?"

"Kind of," I answered

"Utanka was a young student..." Desdemona started.

"What's she saying, Scribb?" shouted the Beetle. "I can't hear her properly!"

"She's telling us a story, Bee."

"Woh! What story?!"

"Story of Takshaka."

"Woh! Keep telling it!" the Beetle screamed, jamming that van through the Curry Paths. All the scents of India assailed us, as we rode that jasmine chute. Desdemona was talking with a saffron tongue, and I wanted to kiss my sister's voice, because it was so very beautiful. She told us the story of young Utanka, the Asian student. He travelled into the realm of snakes in order to steal back the earrings of the queen. The king of England had forged these jewels out of the most precious ore, as a birthday gift to his beautiful wife. Utanka had been given the task of carrying the earrings to the queen. Unfortunately, upon the way to the royal bedchamber, the earrings were stolen by Takshaka, the king of the snakes, who was as long as a river, a violet and green river. His bite was deadly to human flesh, carrying poisonous dreams along the veins until the mind was polluted with violence.