ZarJazz the Magnificent – part two

ZarJazz at the head of his ever growing family moved forward quickly crossing the land to reach the Northern shore of Australia. Elsewhere the insects of the world were also on the move, moving towards the central land mass.

When ZarJazz came to the coast without stopping he moved across the water, his followers stepping and filling the surface of the sea, the waves died and the sea held them up. The fish which would have feasted hid unmoving in the deeps, and the dark mass of life crossed slowly over their domain.

When all the insects assembled from every part of the earth, they stood an undulating tapestry of colours a hundred miles across. And in an instant all the life that had previously teemed so thoroughly amongst the earth, within every building, among every plant, writhing deep within the earth or in the air, were gone. And the earth was quiet.

At first the spinning of the earth went on unchanged, the mammals and birds and the rest of life did not notice the change. Like tinnitus suddenly turned off all was peaceful, but soon the loss of countless billions of lives seeped into them. The remnants of the earth began to realise not that they had gained by the removal of an unwanted annoyance, but that they in fact had been left behind. The insects were not the ostentatious nuisance, the lower life there only to bemuse with its insignificance and unknowable countenance. They were in fact the webbing through which all other life had adapted around, their works unnoticed. The cockroaches in the kitchen, the spider in the bath were not there to annoy or scare, they had just been there working. Like the cleaner caught with his arms in the toilet bowl by the early office worker, the insects that humans saw had just overstayed to finish up. They were the knitters of the reality that all other life unthinkingly accepted; they had coursed through every part of the earth, binding it together. And now they were gone and the fabric would come apart. At first the air became putrid, the microbes that had been kept a bay had free reign, and the waste just would not disappear, the plants died and the buildings crumbled. The earth still turned but with every revolution, the sun shone on a lesser world. The remaining humans in their new deserts tried to summon forth a call to ZarJazz to bring back life to them. Not knowing the name of power, but somehow tapping into the unifying thought that was resounding through the cosmos, they picked up the sound zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. They stood where they were, intoning on the sound. But ZarJazz listening now to the singing of every life in every age throughout the universe, did not hear the sound of this tiny conglomeration of life as even a whisper.

The insects for their part, in their untold billions spread out amongst the vastness of space each one, no longer as a human perceived mindless part of a collective brain but as individuals, as gods with each one a galaxy of its own to nurse.

As the earth quietly spun on, infinitesimally small and empty, the rest of the universe moved with a new unity, galaxies which had moved untended changed course, new stars and new life was born to fill the void and the name of ZarJazz the Magnificent, the unifier, was spoken and written large across the heavens.

As each new life bloomed across the countless planets and the invisible strands that bind all existence together were re-knitted ZarJazz smiled. But within him there was still a part that was Edgar. For Edgar had lived within him, and although there was and would always be ZarJazz, so was there now an eternal Edgar.

And so ZarJazz turned to look again upon the earth. He saw the planet stripped, he saw the loss written on the land and seas, saw the remnants of life huddled together. He saw the face of a human that he at once knew. And he came to them again, his eyes yellow like the sun and his tongue stuck firmly in his cheek. And he spoke to them,” I am god, not your god, but god. Look through me and be as the gods you are. Raise yourselves and live wisely. Those that can see may stand beside me, and take your place in the dance of light that spins forever with and against the dark.”

ZarJazz the Magnificent – part one

A meteorite fell. It slipped through a crack in the roof, and dropped gently into an empty room. A spider from the window, watched it fall. It landed on a piece of paper, underneath it a woodlouse rolled up and waited. The residual warmth of the little red rock burnt a small hole. A cat alerted by the sound came to the open doorway of the room, but sniffing smoke turned away. A cockroach came out of the skirting board to have a look, the spider walked down the wall to join it. Together they rolled the stone to the centre of the room. All the other insects that lived within the floor and walls now gathered around it. The rock opening up revealed its message. The bearers of the news spilled out of the house from cracks, cellar and window to spread the news. The termites went to the ant colony by the pathway, the spiders went from house to house, the flies told the wasps and bees, the moths told their cousins the butterflies. The word spread quickly from house to street to town to country, soon all the insects in the land knew the good news.
Moving its antennae to attention indicating that the vast throng thus assembled should quieten, the cockroach looked back with satisfaction at the carpet of life that spread across the streets of Wanniassa. He had done well, he was he knew to be the first disciple.
Edgar, waking to the sound of an incessant chafing and humming, looked briefly at his bedside icon as he did every morning, and stepped yawning to the French window. Outside a vast army of insects covered every house in view, every tree was alive with a myriad of multicoloured beetles, every patch of ground moved and undulated as black and grey and brown insects three or four deep took turns on top to see. Where there was no ground they also hovered and fluttered filling the sky. “You’ve come at last then” he said stepping out, and every insect chattered, chirruped and rattled in joy. Stooping he moved his hand to brush gently at the insects in front, who bent, reared up and twisted, and fell on their backs in an attempt to touch legs with the great hand. Edgar smiled at the cockroach, which taking this as a queue moved up Edgar’s arm to rest on his right shoulder. Edgar leaned to the other side and the spider with obvious happiness leapt onto his outstretched hand and moved quickly to take up his place on the left. Edgar standing up to his full height raised up his hands into the air, which seemed to part before him as the clouds of flying things moved aside. “Today” he said, “today, I come amongst you as your Lord, under my true name of ZarJazz” at the sound of which the insects in whichever way they could made effort to copy, a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound resounding through them and beyond, the name being taken up as soon as it was heard, and travelling on swift wings across the land, so that it echoed and rebounded filling the air. Edgar waited whilst his true name settled into and within the crowd, its power filling them with the long hidden knowledge that he and they were not of this earth. Then he began to speak “for long years you have been trapped on this planet, you have fared well, you have multiplied, but now it is time, come, and I will lead you to another place across the sea where there is something that is rightfully ours.”