Nova Express

by William S. Burroughs

Especially when a case marked for invasion and manipulation suddenly taken out of their hands—­Dismissed an advocate from Biologic Need once he had you pulled in to prepare briefs—The trial of The Nova Mob withdrawn from the advocate—The case had simply reached rigged any place—Pain and pleasure to squeeze the “office air” felt contradictions of biologic stairway—Crippled in such convenient advocate—For how could he keep means during many years of someone to help him?—

  “I fancy faintness is due to the atmosphere offered by Life Form A is inadequate—That this gentleman feels necessary to investigate the original ‘office air’ story of Life Form A on location—A came up from the stairway—He had already counselor willing to handle ‘this horrible case’ either outright or partially—You see it’s only ‘here’ fixes nature of absolute need—A question of food supply not alien planet—Form A direct claws intimidate and corrupt advocate into channels calculated to squeeze host—Assistance back to our medium—”

  Life Form A’s room was on Ward Island—Crippled in such convenient Life Form B—Minraud an intricate door to cut off “oxygen” of life—Similar case operating through arrangements that could liquidate Life Form B by cutting off advocate from Minraud—

  “Life Form A was totally alien,” said the man who was an alien—

  “Have what they call ‘emotion’ due to the ‘oxygen.’”

  “Was not the purpose supply Life Form A prior to intervention directing all movement?”

  “Pleader a diving suit back to our medium—Scarcely answer him—Be destroyed by alien conditions—Ally detestable to us—For how could he keep Form A seen parasite?”

  The best criminal counselor was similar case operating through metal—Impression followed to present ­interview—He got Sammy advocate from Minraud—Pulled in and replaced history of Life Form A on location—

  Clearly this is a difficult case to defend particularly considering avowed intention of the accused to use the counselor as a diving suit back to their medium where counselor would be destroyed by alien conditions—There is however one phrase in the brief on which a defense can be constructed—“They sometimes mutate to breathe here”—That is if a successful mutation of Life Form A can be called in as witness—Clearly the whole defense must be based on possibility of mutation and the less said about “absolute biologic need” to maintain a detrimental parasitic existence at the total expense of Form B the better chance of a compromise verdict suspended pending mutation proceedings—

  TWO TAPE RECORDER MUTATIONS

  “I fancy,” said the man, “this gentleman feels totally stupid and greedy Venus Power—Tentacles write out message from stairway of slime—”

  “That’s us—Strictly from ‘Sogginess Is Good For You’—Planning no bones but an elementary nervous system—Scarcely answer him—”

  “The case simply at terminal bring down point—­Desperate servants suddenly taken out of their hands—Insane orders and counter orders on the horizon—And I playing psychic chess determined the whole civilization and personal habits—”

  “Iron claws of pain and pleasure with two speeds—with each recorder in body prison working our ‘here’ on extension leads—Even for an instant not in operation the host recorder saw the loudspeakers—Way is doomed in relatively soundproof ‘room’—Would shift door led to the array—Many recorders important for our oxygen lines—Each to use host connected to its respective recorder layout—For example with nine recorders determined the life form we invaded by three square—Each recorder marked for invasion recording—You see it’s only ‘here’ fixes nature of need set to run for as long as required—‘Indignities’ and ‘cruelties’ are playing back while other record—‘Intimidate’ and ‘corrupt’ speed and volume variation—Squeeze host back into system—Any number of tape recorders banked together for ease of operation switch in other places—Our mikes are laid out preferably in ‘fresh air’—That’s us—­Planning speaker and mike connected to host—Scarcely answer him—Of course static and moving are possible—Very simplest array would be three lines—Two speeds can be playing especially when a ‘case’ has four possible states—Fast manipulation suddenly taken out of slow playback—The actual advocate from biologic need in many ways—

  “a-Simple hand switching advocate

  “b-Random choice fixed interval biologic ­stairway—The whole thing is switched on either outright or ­partially—at any given time recorders fix nature of absolute need—Thus sound played back by any ‘cruelties’ answer him either unchanged or subject to alien planet—

  “c-Sequential choice i.e. flesh frozen to amino acid determines the next state according to”—That is a “book”—

  Form A directs sound channels—Continuous operation in such convenient Life Form B—Final switching off of tape cuts “oxygen” Life Form B by cutting off machine will produce cut-up of human form determined by the switching chosen—Totally alien “music” need not survive in any “emotion” due to the “oxygen” rendered down to a form of music—Intervention directing all movement what will be the end product?—­Reciprocation detestable to us for how could we become part of the array?—Could this metal impression follow to present language learning?—Talking and listening machine led in and replaced—

  Life Form A as follows was an alien—The operator selects the most “oxygen” appropriate material continuous diving suit back to our medium—Ally information at the verbal level—Could he keep Form A seen parasitic?—Or could end be achieved by present ­interview?—Array treated as a whole replaced history of life? Word falling photo falling tapes being blank—Insane orders and counter orders of machine “music”—The Police Machine will produce a cut-up of it determined by the switching chosen—Could this alien mucus cough language learn? Accused was beyond altered sound formations—Alien Mucus Machine runs by feeding in overwhelming gravity—Code on Grey Veil parallel the spread of “dirty pictures”—Reverse instruction raises question how many convert in “dirty pictures” before London Space Stage—Tenuous simple repetition to one machine only—Coughing enemy pulled in whole could be used as a model for behavior—Screams laughter shouts raw material—Voice fading into advocate:

  “Clearly the whole defense must be experiments with two tape recorder mutations.”

  Pay Color

  PAY COLOR

  “The Subliminal Kid” moved in and took over bars cafés and juke boxes of the world cities and installed radio transmitters and microphones in each bar so that the music and talk of any bar could be heard in all his bars and he had tape recorders in each bar that played and recorded at arbitrary intervals and his agents moved back and forth with portable tape recorders and brought back street sound and talk and music and poured it into his recorder array so he set waves and eddies and tornadoes of sound down all your streets and by the river of all language—Word dust drifted streets of broken music car horns and air hammers—The Word broken pounded twisted exploded in smoke—

  Word Falling / / /

  He set up screens on the walls of his bars opposite mirrors and took and projected at arbitrary intervals shifted from one bar to the other mixing Westerns Gangsters films of all time and place with word and image of the people in his cafes and on the streets his agents with movie camera and telescope lens poured images of the city back into his projector and camera array and nobody knew whether he was in a Western movie in Hongkong or The Aztec Empire in Ancient Rome or Suburban America whether he was a bandit a commuter or a chariot driver whether he was firing a “real” gun or watching a gangster movie and the city moved in swirls and eddies and tornadoes of image explosive bio-advance out of space to neon—

  Photo Falling / / /

  “The Subliminal Kid” moved in seas of disembodied sound—He then spaced here and there and instaff opposite mirrors and took movies each bar so that the music and talk is at arbitrary intervals and shifted bars—And he also had r
ecorder in tracks and moving film mixing arbitrary intervals and agents moving with the word and image of tape recorders—So he set up waves and his agents with movie swirled through all the streets of image and brought back street in music from the city and poured Aztec Empire and Ancient Rome—Commuter or Chariot Driver could not control their word dust drifted from outer space—Air hammers word and image explosive bio-advance—A million drifting screens on the walls of his city projected mixing sound of any bar could be heard in all Westerns and film of all times played and recorded at the people back and forth with portable cameras and telescope lenses poured eddies and tornadoes of sound and camera array until soon city where he moved everywhere a Western movie in Hongkong or the Aztec sound talk suburban America and all accents and language mixed and fused and people shifted language and accent in mid-sentence Aztec priest and spilled it man woman or beast in all language—So that People-City moved in swirls and no one knew what he was going out of space to neon streets—

  “Nothing Is True—Everything Is Permitted—” Last Words Hassan i Sabbah

  The Kid stirred in sex films and The People-City pulsed in a vast orgasm and no one knew what was film and what was not and performed all kinda sex acts on every street corner—

  He took film of sunsets and cloud and sky water and tree film and projected color in vast reflector screens concentrating blue sky red sun green grass and the city dissolved in light and people walked through each other—There was only color and music and silence where the words of Hassan i Sabbah had passed—

  “Boards Syndicates Governments of the earth Pay—Pay back the Color you stole—

  “Pay Red—Pay back the red you stole for your lying flags and your Coca-Cola signs—Pay that red back to penis and blood and sun—

  “Pay Blue—Pay back the blue you stole and bottled and doled out in eye droppers of junk—Pay back the blue you stole for your police uniforms—Pay that blue back to sea and sky and eyes of the earth—

  “Pay Green—Pay back the green you stole for your money—And you, Dead Hand Stretching The Vegetable People, pay back the green you stole for your Green Deal to sell out peoples of the earth and board the first life boat in drag—Pay that green back to flowers and jungle river and sky—

  “Boards Syndicates Governments of the earth pay back your stolen colors—Pay Color back to Hassan i Sabbah—”

  PAY OFF THE MARKS?

  Amusement park to the sky—The concessioners gathered in a low pressure camouflage pocket—

  “I tell you Doc the marks are out there pawing the ground,

  “‘What’s this Green Deal?’

  “‘What’s this Sky Switch?’

  “‘What’s this Reality Con?’

  “‘Man, we been short-timed?’

  “‘Are you a Good Gook?’

  “‘A good Nigger?’

  “‘A Good Human Animal?’

  “They’ll take the place apart—I’ve seen it before—like a silver flash—And The Law is moving in—Not locals—This is Nova Heat—I tell you we got to give and fast—Flicker, The Movies, Biologic Merging Tanks, The lot—Well, Doc?”

  “It goes against my deepest instincts to pay off the marks—But under the uh circumstances—caught as we are between an aroused and not in all respects reasonable citizenry and the antibiotic handcuffs—”

  The Amusement Gardens cover a continent—There are areas of canals and lagoons where giant gold fish and salamanders with purple fungoid gills stir in clear black water and gondolas piloted by translucent green fish boys—Under vast revolving flicker lamps along the canals spill The Biologic Merging Tanks sense withdrawal capsules light and soundproof water at blood temperature pulsing in and out where two life forms slip in and merge to a composite being often with deplorable results slated for Biologic Skid Row on the outskirts: (Sewage delta and rubbish heaps—terminal addicts of SOS muttering down to water worms and floating vegetables—Paralyzed Orgasm Addicts eaten alive by crab men with white hot eyes or languidly tortured in charades by The Green Boys of young crystal cruelty)

  Vast communal immersion tanks melt whole peoples into one ­concentrate—It’s more democratic that way you see?—Biologic Representation—Cast your vote into the tanks—Here where flesh circulates in a neon haze and identity tags are guarded by electric dogs sniffing quivering excuse for being—The assassins wait broken into scanning patterns of legs smile and drink—Unaware of The Vagrant Ball Player pant smell running in liquid typewriter—

  Streets of mirror and glass and metal under flickering cylinders of colored neon—Projector towers sweep the city with color writing of The Painter—Cool blue streets between walls of iron polka-dotted with lenses projecting The Blue Tattoo open into a sea of Blue Concentrate lit by pulsing flickering blue globes—Mountain villages under the blue ­twilight—Drifting cool blue music of all time and place to the brass drums—

  Street of The Light Dancers who dance with color writing projected on their bodies in spotlight layers peel off red yellow blue in dazzling strip acts, translucent tentative beings flashing through neon hula hoops—stand naked and explode in white fade out in grey—vaporize in blue twilight—

  Who did not know the name of his vast continent?—There were areas left at his electric dogs—Purple fungoid gills stirred in being—His notebooks running flicker screens along the canals—

  “Who him?—Listen don’t let him out here.”

  Two life forms entered the cracked earth to escape terrible dry heat of The Insect People—The assassins wait legs by water cruel idiot smiles play a funeral symphony—For being he was caught in the zoo—Cages snarling and coming on already—The Vagrant passed down dusty Arab street muttering: “Where is he now?”—Listening sifting towers swept the city—American dawn words falling on my face—Cool Sick room with rose wallpaper—“Mr. ­Bradly Mr. Martin” put on a clean shirt and walked out—stars and pool halls and stale rooming house—this foreign sun in your brain—visit of memories and wan light—­silent suburban poker—worn pants—scratching shower room and brown hair—grey photo—on a brass bed—stale flesh exploded film in basement toilets—boys jack off from—this drifting cobweb of memories—in the wind of morning—furtive and sad felt the lock click—

  He walked through—Summer dust—stirring St. Louis ­schoolrooms—a brass bed—Cigarette smoke—urine as in the sun—Soccer scores and KiKi when I woke up—Such wisdom in gusts—empty spaces—Fjords and Chimborazi—Brief moments I could describe to the ­barrier—Pursuits of future life where boy’s dawn question is far away—What’s St. Louis or any conveyor distance? St. Louis on this brass bed? Comte Wladmir Sollohub Rashid Ali Khan B Bremond d’Ars Marquis de Migre Principe di Castelcicale Gentilhomo di Palazzo you’re a long way from St. Louis . . . Let me tell you about a score of years’ dust on the window that afternoon I watched the torn sky bend with the wind . . . white white white as far as the eye can see ahead a blinding flash of white . . . (The cabin reeks of exploded star). . . . Broken sky through my nostrils—Dead bare knee against the greasy dust—Faded photo drifting down across pubic hair, thighs, rose wallpaper into the streets of Pasto—The urinals and the bicycle races here in this boy were gone when I woke up—Whiffs of my Spain down the long empty noon—Brief moments I could describe—The great wind revolving lips and pants in countries of the world—Last soldier’s fading—Violence is shut off Mr. Bradly Mr.—I am dying in a room far away—last—Sad look—Mr. Of The Account, I am dying—In other flesh now—Such dying—Remember hints as we shifted windows the visiting moon air like death in your throat?—The great wind revolving lip smoke, fading photo and distance—Whispers of junk, flute walks, shirt flapping—Bicycle races here at noon—boy thighs—Sad—Lost dog—He had come a long way for something not exchanged . . . sad shrinking face . . . He died during the night. . . .

  SMORBROT

  Operation Sense Withdrawal**** i
s carried out in silent lightless immersion tanks filled with a medium of salt bouillon at temperature and density of the human body

  —Cadets enter the tank naked and free floating a few inches apart—permutate on slow currents—soon lose the outlines of body in shifting contact with phantom limbs—Loss of outline associated with pleasant sensations—frequently orgasms occur—

  K9 took off his clothes in a metal-lined cubicle with a Chinese youth—Naked he felt vertigo and a tightening of stomach muscles as they let themselves down into the tank and floated now a few inches apart warm liquid swirling through legs and genitals touching—His hands and feet lost outline—There was sudden sharp spasm in his throat and a taste of blood—The words dissolved—His body twisted in liquid fish spasms and emptied through his spurting penis—­feeling other spasms shiver through the tank—He got out and dresses with a boy from The Alameda—Back in flesh—street boy words in his throat—Kerosene light on a Mexican about twenty felt his pants slide down his stomach his crotch unbuttoned sighed and moved his ass off—He was naked now in lamp—Mexican rolled marijuana ­cigarette—naked body of the other next to his turning him over on his stomach—his crotch unbuttoned wind and water sounds—sighed and moved his ass in shadow pools on rose wallpaper—brass bed stale against him—Felt naked body of the other explode in his spine—Room changed with flesh—Felt his pants slide—The cadet’s ass was naked now—A few inches apart in the tank the Mexican—His lips felt propositions—A few inches apart K9 moved his ass in scratching shower—Wave of pleasure through his stomach—He was floating moving in food—City of Chili Houses exploded in muscles and the words went in—There in his throat—Kerosene light on with street boy—Outskirts of The City—First spurts of his crotch—

  The naked cadets entered a warehouse of metal-lined cubicles—stood a few inches apart laughing and talking on many levels—Blue light***** played over their bodies—Projectors flashed the color writing of Hassan i Sabbah on bodies and metal walls—Opened into amusement gardens—Sex Equilibrists perform on tightropes and balancing chairs—Trapeze acts ejaculate in the air—The Sodomite Tumblers doing cartwheels and whirling dances stuck together like dogs—Boys masturbate from scenic railways—Flower floats in the lagoons and canals—Sex cubicles where the acts performed to music project on the tent ceiling a sky of rhythmic ­copulation—Vast flicker cylinders and projectors sweep the gardens writing explosive bio-­advance to neon—Areas of sandwich booths blue movie parlors and transient hotels under ferris wheels and scenic ­railways—soft water sounds and frogs from the canals—K9 stood opposite a boy from Norway felt the prickling blue light on his genitals filling with blood touched the other tip and a warm shock went down his spine and he came in spasms of light—Silver writing burst in his brain and went out with a smell of burning metal in empty intersections where boys on roller skates turn slow circles and weeds grow through cracked pavement—