AZOTUSLAND chapter thirty nine

When Jim had said goodbye and did the dishes he heavily slogged down to the Silo and plopped down on the floor.

He unfolded a piece of paper he had printed out for himself and also Matisse and read the following poem:

In the Tea Garden
Your young life troubles you.

Rumbling if not

Tumbling

A rock-sadness

in your eyes, like

cool green stones lying in the shallows,

waiting

to be drawn up the shores,

Up the warm sands of laughter.

We pocket these stones. warming them

polishing them

against our denim jeans

preparing to drop them

in the emerald waters of a Japanese tea garden.

We watch them silently sway

and descend

Settling on

a mountainside of coin.

In the pools they lay down

like the 12 stones of Jordan

Watching you

hold your teacup

like a prayer.

It took him back a long way.

He heard a first. An actual knock at the door of Silo 2.

He figured who it was and opened the door.

Maugham was standing there, his bright green eyes intense and he seemed in total warrior mode.

"Hello brother,"Jim said. And led him down after he had locked the door.

"I didn't know Jim what the protocol..."

"I know," Jim said. "We never got to that. We'll work it out...like Alfred and Batman, only you are the Bat."

"As impressive as your batcave is, it wasn't just for another peak that I came down here."

"What's up?"

"You remember that old British series you are so keen on...the subversive one?"

"Yeah. So?"

"You ever share that with anyone but me?" Maug asked.

"Lot's of people. I even did a whole class on it back in the late 90s."

Jim grabbed the remote and lighted up HAL and went through a couple menus on the big screen.

The sky flashed dark, not unlike the night sky Muagham had seen on his way down earlier. Then a car came out of the distance and the drum beat came up and it was the opening of The Prisoner.

"Isn't every episode about a certain aspect of human nature?" Maugham asked as Patrick McGoohan pounded his fist on the table and tendered his resignation.

"Yes," Jim said. "Some of them are absolutely brilliant and timeless."

"What's your favorite?"

"A, B & C" Jim said easily. "Then Hammer into Anvil."

"Can you cue them up in the theater for me for later viewing?"

"Not a problem. Why? What's up?"

"It may be nothing but I taunted our haunter earlier and she sent a midget in a suit to view all my handiwork."

"Damn!" Jim shook his head. "Top hat?"

"Yep," Maugham said. "I was fucking furious until I thought about it deeper."

"Good work brother," Jim said.

"Let me ask Jim," Maugham said, " What is your least favorite episode?"

That's easy too, The Girl Who Was Death."

"Cue that one up too."