Subject: CODY: KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S GATE
From: mithryl@walrus.com (Mithryl)
Date: 1997/03/30
Message-Id: <5hm7q1$j1r@alice.walrus.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage,alt.sex.stories,rec.arts.prose
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S GATE
by Cody Ann Michaels
c. All rights reserved
"This earth is about to be recycled." -- Do
"You must leave now,
take what you need you think will last
but whatever you're going to take
you'd better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with a gun,
burning like a fire in the sun."
-- Dylan (quoted from memory)
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Don Juan said that adventurous men, faced with the choice of dying
in the world of ordinary affairs or dying in unknown worlds, will
unavoidably choose the latter, and that the new seers, realizing that
their predecessors had chosen merely to change the locale of their death,
came to understand the futility of it all; the futility of struggling to
control their fellow men, the futility of assembling other worlds, and,
above all, the futility of self-importance. -- C. Castaneda, THE FIRE
FROM WITHIN
"We just wish you could all be here and doing what we are doing."
-- woman on video left by Heaven's Gate, Class of 97.
*
Howdy. There for a while you were posting nearly every day, then,
poof. <bye> Gone. Just wanted to make sure you were still around. I'm
still here, still having fun... -- Ole Joe (email)
*
Dear Joe,
Thanks for your concern. Yes. I'm still around. I think I got
sort of burnt out, though. The fact is, I don't want to keep writing
political stuff, because it just doesn't seem to make any difference.
Also, no matter how bizarre my stuff is, I can never keep up with the
world. I started to work on a pornographic novel, but it bogged down.
Then I got sick. I'm better now. But I still don't have much to say. A
lot's been happening. There's a thunderstorm going on right now. I
enjoyed your story about the door. It reminded me of Gran. When I was
there, she got it into her head that one of the screen doors on her
trailer was broken. The door did what most doors do, it opened and shut,
but not quite all the way. But once Gran gets something in to her head,
she's like a pit bull with lockjaw. She just couldn't leave it alone.
She would spend hours opening and closing the door, to see why it wouldn't
shut all the way. It was supposed to go click, like you know, when you
plug a cord into a phon e outlet, and it didn't. It just shut. But no
click. I thought she would drive me crazy. Of course, I told her to have
someone come and fix it, but she didn't want to spend the money. She kept
asking me to look at it. I didn't see anything. I think the frame was
bent a little. But if you pulled it, it would stay shut, but she didn't
want to do that. It was supposed to shut on its own. Anyway, that's what
your letter reminded me of.
Since I got back, I think I had a brain hemmorhage, because I
can't seem to remember anything before last week. The pills I was taking
for my cold. Tylenol. It makes you spacy. At least it does me. I think
I spent the week in a coma. When I woke up , the first think I heard
about was Heaven's Gate.
That and O.J. At first I thought they were the same story. But
then I figured it out that Heaven's Gate had nothing to do with O.J.
Simpson. I was watching this video, you know the one where Do is telling
everyone that it's time. If you want to survive... etc. The other
thing, the sheriff's deputies were cleaning out O.J.'s rec room, carting
away his memorabilia. It was good Friday. Somehow, the image of the
Brown and Goldman families casting lots for the crucified O.J.'s old
footballs was deeply satisfying.
Of course, the burning mystery is what happened to the Grail...
oops, the Heisman? I thought, maybe the Higher Source people had it.
Wouldn't that be a kick?
Of course, I didn't know the people in Heaven's Gate, but after
watching the videos, I feel like I did. They were very convincing. I'm
very grateful to ABC for televising them to a national audience,
especially one composed of highly impressionable peo ple who are just
looking for a sign like Hale Bopp to, well, bop.
Hail Mary, Hale Bopp. I don't know why I can't remember anything.
Isn't that odd. I'm just starting to realize the last three weeks are
almost a total blank. That's odd, isn't it? I'm sure it's not the
phenobarithal I took to sleep. It's almost as if I went to sleep one
place and woke up in another. That's another story I'm working on -- if I
ever get the time. About waking up in different places, and never knowing
if you're awake or not.
It's odd about Hidden... Hale... Higher Source. I don't mean that
they're dead, or that they are supposed to have killed themselves. I
mean, that, well, maybe they were angels. I could believe that. I mean,
aren't we all, really? We've just forgotten it. And they remembered.
And split.
I can't say that I blame them. I mean, enough is enough. One of
them said, "If the humans were told the truth about what was going on on
this planet, they'd be shocked and wouldn't continue in their 8-to-5
slavery and ignorance." That may be a little idealistic. Actually, I
think the humans know exactly what is going on, or at least have a good
idea, and they are keeping their heads down and shitting in their pants,
hoping they won't get called on.
I mean, it's true, I don't know what happened (much) during the
past three weeks, but let me guess. A new memo disclosed Clinton rented
out Chelsea's bedroom to the Chinese ambassador in return for a fifty
dollar campaign contribution. The Holocaust Cloning project is up and
running. Newt has still not paid his fine... My mind's blank. What's
going on?
Earlier today I was livid. What happened? Now, I couldn't care
less. But what was I mad about? Oh yeah, software strategy games. You
know what I found out tonight -- I think that's what did it. Why I feel
like I've been hit over the head. The Oscar equivalent of the software
awards is called Cody. Okay. It's spelled codie, but when you say it...
Now I remember where I've been for the last three weeks. Playing
software strategy games. This was on Computer Chronicles. I turned the
set on, and there was the most hated man in America. Stewart Cheifet, the
guy who runs Computer Chronicles. Would n't you just love to kill Stewart
Cheifet? And to see him standing there, saying my name, while he handed
out prizes to software programmers was more than I could bear. My whole
system crashed.
I wanted to see if someone would get a prize for the most
difficult software game. The one that is the most mind numbing. I mean,
getting the hardware and software that you paid for to work. And making
phone calls. The phone calls are the worst. Let me explain, nobody
answers the phone anymore. Phone answering is a dead language. Back
there with the Sumerians. And the Hitites. No. Instead, now it is all
done by robots. Speaking robotic. First they tell you about their
website. You are like c alling to get a price on say, a CD Rom drive, and
this cheery woman is mouthing dot this and dot that. Then they go into
the numbers. I can't tell you. It is too painful. Then they find out
you have a rotary phone.
I have to tell you, rotary telephone users take a beating
nowadays. I can see why a lot of them commit suicide, go Hale Bopp. Like
life on a comet cannot compare to life on a rotary. I have two. AND I
WILL NEVER GIVE THEM UP. I will give up the Greg orian calendar first.
There was an article in today's paper about how they are trying to get the
Gregorian and the Julian calendarists to agree on Easter. Fat chance. I
never knew how Easter was computed before. It's the Sunday after Passover
as it wo uld have been computed in Jesus's time; that is as beginning on
the first full moon after the vernal equinox. But, since the equinox
comes on different dates in the two calendars, so does Easter. The next
time the two great divisions of the Christian re ligion will celebrate
Easter on the same day will be 2001. Which is the first year of the next
millenium. Not 2000, idiots!
I noticed the Times didn't have the guts to come right out and say
that. It sort of hemmed and hawed around the edges without trying to
offend anyone. I mean, if you can move the international dateline, why
can't you actually move the millenium itself. Was that a dream I had?
Someplace out in the Pacific, someone moved the IDL east about two time
zones, wrapping it around some little island, yeah, Christmas Island, so
the millenium would start there. So essentially, they were moving
themselves into the future. Right? By two hours. So let's see, how far
into the future do you have to stretch the line to get it to January 1,
2001? I mean, you'd have to go around a lot of times. 365. 2000 is not
a leap year. So it would only be 365. Not 366. Y eah, if you hooked the
dateline over the year 2001, you could get 2000 to be the millenium. Or
is it the other way around?
Maybe that's why I get these ideas. Watching my rotary spin
around. It's so resting. Mesmerizing you might say. It sort of calms my
nerves, as I make the next call. Briefly, the story is this. I bought a
Divot 3040 laptop at Christmas. Okay, Gran bought it. No. Before that,
I bought a Packard Bell... It's no use. I can't talk about it.
Everything is jumbled together. Those people at Heaven's Gate
were computer people. I thought, wouldn't it be nice if all computer
companies were cults who would eventually commit suicide. When their
programs ran out. I thought that was what had happ ened at Divot. They
were all dead. And all that was left to answer the phone was this stupid
robot who was giving me shit about having a rotary. First of all, she
gave me the entire dot routine all over again. Visit us on the Internet
at dot.shithead. dot.asshole.dot.let me speak to a fucking humaan being
you asshole turkey whore. Dot calm. Be calm, Codie. After all, they
named their prize after you. Dot calm. Just cool it. It used to be if
you just waited them out, eventually they let you talk t o a person. But
now they have a new gimmick. Voice recognition. Say one. Say two. Say
I hate your fucking guts. But if you do that, they make you start at the
beginning. So it's best to go along with what they tell you to do and
relinquish all mind control. Say one. I did. But I made a mistake. I
said "one, please." I was only trying to be polite. But they made me
start all over. I'm telling you, it's like having a dominatrix. In fact,
it is a dominatrix. She sounds just like Kelly when sh e's making someone
lick her cunt.
Dot calm. What I wanted to ask was ... I forget. That happens a
lot, too. You get so engrossed in following orders that when someone asks
you what you want, you forget. Oh, geez, what was it. Now I remember. I
want my pcmcia card to work with my so ftware.
Is that too much to ask? I mean, I paid an extra 200 dollars for
this card because the fucking computer didn't come with a modem installed.
The Packard Bell did, but it didn't work. Nothing on the Packard Bell
worked. It was totally the most trumatic week of my life. I thought I
would kill Gran, she kept interrupting while I was trying to get it to
work. And on top of that, they didn't have an 800 number. To get
customer assistance, I had to pay long distance to Utah. I ran up a two
hundred dolla r phone bill. Gran nearly shit. Well, actually, Gran shits
all the time. That's all she talks about. Shitting her pants. It drives
you mad. Especially if you are trying to configure Windows. I hate
Windows. As far as I am concerned, Bill Gates is the anti-Christ. When
it comes to getting people to stick their heads in a noose, Herff
Applewhite is a rough amateur compared to Gates. Windows is the worst
computer game I ever tried to play. (They even gave the top Cody to
Microsoft Explorer. I cou ldn't believe it. That piece of shit. I felt
totally violated. Used. Integrity is as dead as the Sumerians.) Which
takes me back to Stewart Cheifet. If Bill Gates is the a.c., Cheifet is
the anti-pope. Okay, maybe that's a little melodramatic, but I bet you
Stewart Cheifet never had to hang on a rotary and wait for some asshole
robot to finish reciting numbers before he could find out why some program
didn't work or wasn't even the fuck there. I bet when Stu can't get a
program to work there are about a dozen asskissers instantly there,
massaging his machine with free software.
I have still not reached Divot. When I finally got to the final
obstacle in this computer strategy game, I was told that the Customer
Assistance Center was closed, and that business hours were from seven to
eleven on weekdays and eight-thirty to five oc lock on Saturday. This is
Saturday. At least it is in my calendar, but apparently Saturday does not
mean the same thing to the people at Divot as it does to the rest of us --
you know, like the day after Friday -- or they are all dead. God, I hope
so.
Someone told me that what I needed was a socket program. The
software with the XTC pc card determined that I did not have a socket
program or a pcmcia controller. At least, it couldn't find it. They said
I could buy one or Divot would send it to me. This is not sick humor.
This is what is. (One program is called Hard Wizard by System Soft. If
anyone knows where I can get it, please let me know. I'm serious.) What
I wanted to ask Divot was why, since they had sold me a two thousand
dollar compute r with two slots in it, they hadn't thrown in a controller
at the same time. I mean, come on, be a sport. I'm only a little girl.
This is child abuse.
You can see why Do and his friends killed themselves, can't you?
Actually, though, maybe they knew something we didn't. Like the guy said,
if humans knew what was really going on... What did he mean by that?
Maybe he didn't mean International Jewish Conspiracy like everybody
immediately assumes. Maybe he was referring to something even worse.
Like Rock 1. Out there coming towards us. The big pie in the sky in the
face routine. Splat. I'm splitting. You must leave now, take what you
need...
What's it all about, Alfie? You mean we're going to die? You
mean it's all happening in our lifetime? The Living Dead. The big bang.
High Resolution TV. I was watching an ice skating show the other night
and I thought, boy, HR tv is not going to do these people any favors.
Wait until my grandmother sees what Peter Jennings really looks like. The
Beast from 20 Fathoms.
My mind keeps bouncing off of something. Something I don't want
to look at. Oh yeah, the gun. It doesn't matter how you leave. You just
do it. And the game's over. Isn't it? It's funny, you know, no one ever
noticed that what Castaneda is describi ng when Don Juan and his party of
sorcerors "disappear from this earth" is what the New York Times would
call a mass suicide. People in Argentina used to disappear, too, but that
was because the Army was dropping them out of airplanes into the ocean.
Bu t Don Juan and his friends just disappeared. Right before his eyes.
Or so Carlos tells it. No messy burials. No bodies. Nothing to clean up
afterward. Of course, the people at Heaven's Gate were neatly laid out,
but still, the sheriff's department h ad to come in and take them away.
But that's not their fault. They would have made arrangements ahead of
time, I'm sure, but they knew if they did they would probably have to
answer a lot of questions, so it was better not to.
Who can blame them? Why make a fuss? Just do it, and get on with
it. I can understand that. What I can't figure out is what were they
doing here? I mean, if they were angels. Angels writing computer code.
Seems strange, doesn't it? I checked thei r website. It's very
professional. They even did something for Madonna. I mean, they had to
be good, if they could afford the $10,000 a month rent on that house they
were living in. Right? I wonder if they got an award. At the Codys. I
would have l iked Do and his crew -- that's what they called themselves, a
"crew" -- to have had a Cody before they went. Something to take with
them. In Castaneda's book, it's a woman named Carol. Carol is the
naghual woman. She accompanies the party of the old n aghual when it
leaves the earth. In other words, she dies. With them. Like queens in
ancient Egypt and the middle-east. They follow their husband to the
grave. The difference is, Carol is of Castaneda's party. Not Don Juan's.
She's like a blood sac rifice to the elders. And Castaneda forgets her.
It takes many years before he remembers her again. By that time, he is
trying desperately to remember what happened between him and Don Juan. He
has even forgotten he has his own party. A company of wa rriors who must
figure out how to escape the Eagle. The Eagle is Hale-Bopp. It is
something. Don Juan calls it an Eagle. But what it really is is a
devourer of souls of the dead. The strategy of the naghual's party is to
escape the Eagle, which is ca lled the Eagle's Gift. Some gift. Everyone
is going to die, but the warrior, don Juan says, has the gift of knowing
it is possible to escape the Eagle. He does this by conserving his
strength -- no sex -- and turning it into energy. You find this in G reek
mythology, too. When you cross the river, you will see a spring where you
can quench your thirst. But when you drink its waters, you forget. So do
not drink. Be warned.
I think there's another spring, too, where you're supposed to
drink, but I forget. I read it once in a poem. So be careful. It's easy
to forget. In fact, it's almost impossible not to. It's like self
annihilation. The only chance is to go with Do. And his friends. You
know, in a certain sense, the media are like blood clotting a wound. They
cover it over and make a scar, putting a spin on it, and it carries the
attention away from what actually happened. All those programs filtering
out into th e internet. Eating subliminally into people's minds.
Spamming America. Yeah, the great globe itself. Like wow. He touched
me. You know he did. I could feel it. Especially when I saw him the
other night. Like I'd known him all my life. The celest ial choirmaster
on Space Ship ... farm animals. He was Bo and she was Peep. Shepherding
us. For what? What happens to animals? Hey, wait a minute, Charlie. If
they were angels, what were we? What do angels eat? I looked at the gun.
Maybe being dead wasn't such a bad idea after all. I mean, I
wouldn't have to sleep with my father anymore, would I? Or,,, skao never
telklk\
i won't
nothing happened
I watched a three stooges this evening. One of them looked like Koch. A
young woman was on trial for murdering her boy friend. She took off her
clothes in court and did a hot dance number. Doors. Someone sent me some
poems from New Orleans. I liked them. Oh no, please don't.
I wanted to write a hot sex story. In it, I imagined I had a
dick. I have a lot of fantasies about that. What it must feel like to
put something in a woman and feel it. I know what it feels like to me. I
wonder what it feels like to a man. I obsess on it. So then I started to
have these dreams, and in them, I had a dick. I wasn't a man. I still
looked like me. But with a penis. It was wild.
That's what I wanted to write. Not this political stuff. Which
is a waste of time. Fortunately I get paid for it. I'm a columnist. I
get to shoot off my mouth in public and have people stick dollar bills in
my g-string. You should try it. What peo ple don't know is under my
dress, I have a cock and balls. Then I get caught, and the shit hits the
fan.
I'm in a bar and this guy reaches into my pants and pulls out my
big dicker and lets it hang down between my legs. How much? What'll give
me for her. two cows. I want the house. That's outrageous. He killed
them. It was mass murder, which is not t he same as mass suicide. Get
it. The information had to come from somewhere. It was a tzumi that hit
Hawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
]at twoi o'clck this morning
I thought I'd die.
I was worth more than a chicken but less than a cow.
I was sure of it.
The bidding was way low. What can you get for Esme?
He pulled her out. How about this one. She's five.
You crime the wings of power over your daughter's clearrings
This program keeps track of the mistakes. Like, how many died? And who
were they? Give him a Cody for that one. I got a Cody. Everyone got
Codies. But if everyone gets a Cody what does it mean? It means you'd
better duck. Go low. Go way low. The y practiced their incantantions in
the vicinity. Property values shot skyward as family values honed in.
Like a precison lens. You have to know what the dimensions are. Look at
this one. What do you see? I see a girl. What's she doing? He woke up
in a ditch. What happened? You had a vision.
I won a Cody.
Doesn't matter. We have to get back to the house./ Carlos is
waiting. Did you ever happen to think, where did Do get his ideas? From
Ti. And where did she get them? Ti was around the southwest when
Castaneda was there. I'm not saying anything. I just think it looks
suspicious. Her having a baby. And then they left. E
You have to understand, knowledge is private. No one knows what you are
thinking. They walked back to the house.
Then what?
He left.
This is his Cody. The one he won for geometrical progressions. Each one
adds one. Bach made me do it. That's all they heard. Bach. Day and
night. In their skulls. Like it was programmed in on a chip. Just
waiting to happen. And then the time ran out. They'll always be there.
Waiting. Hale Bach.
I'll tell you what I want you to do. Imagine it. Just think
about what it all means. Is this the way we want it? Shut up in our own
little coops laying eggs for the literati? I'm going where the climate
suits my clothes. Hell Fire. She walked in. She was in shadow. Her
double had cut out. Like a windows paint program. The colors are
abysmal. And black leather. You can DO this too. Do said. He showed us
how. The formula was in the Times. But they lied. Anyone can do it.
You don't need p henobarbithal. Or wood alcohol. You just move the
assemblage point. Like this.
I thought I'd space. My mind went on like a light bulb. All of a sudden
I knew why I hated so many things, and then I realized I didn't have to.
So I stopped. I nibbled around the edges, just to see what I could do.
Hale Bopp. That's the sound the k eys make when you save a file on Word
Perfect. Hale Bopp.
The rhythm for saving to disk is a little different. I forgot what I
named the file. Knocking. Knock knock knocking on Heaven's Door. Let me
in. Richard. Richard why don't you let me in. Like that.
I was getting nowhere. My victim still elude me. Where was she?
What was she up to? My little demon in the dark. Just don't turn on the
light. aggggg it hurts my eyes. Turn it off. I saw her. What she looks
like. Who has the trophy? That's the mystery? The holy grail of
Football. I mean, where is it? This was the quest. To bring the grail
home. This is it. On old tin cup my father used. When he took me
camping in the deep woods. Don't tell. I won't. How was it? It was
wonderful. I k new he wanted me to say that. But for an old man, he was
pretty good in bed. Especially if you're innocent and can't compare him
with anyone else except your girl friend. How was it? It was gross. You
can't believe what he has between his legs. He s ays all men have it. It
looks like eczema. ooooooo
There is nothing worse than a self-hating chorus girl feeling like she has
to protect her father. And failed. He died anyway. So that just makes
it worse. She did it. She killed him. Having sex with his weak heart.
I'll never forgive myself. Bo sh owed me how to do it. You take these
pills and a glass of water you'd better lie down. Right in the middle of
the courtroom. Dancing with my clothes off. Where did I get the model
for that? I could make my dick turn into a girl. And then I would be at
it. I dressed her in Barbie castoffs. I have all these Barbies which are
the same size as my dick. So they can wear the same clothes. Like this
silver lame skin tight sheath. It's looser on the Barbies. I ought to
lose some weight. And a blonde wig. Dressed like that, I can fuck
anyone. I established rapport with the woman on the other end of the
phone. She was berating me for stealing her man and she was going to fuck
me. She was real abusive, but it was her dime, so I let her keep talking.
A lot of it was hard to take. We manned the hotlines day and night.
Listening to people's troubles. So you can see why we're splitting.
Like, enough is enough. I'll kill you, she screamed. I'll beat your
fucking face into the concrete. I'll ki ck your white ass down fifth
avenue you skinny whore. I had to take it. I was getting paid. I just
let her keep punching me until I couldn't take it anymore. And then I ...
What did you do?
Hit her.
That was a flaw, wasn't it?
Yes/.
I'm sorry.
Being sorry doesn't count. Go back and do it again. It was like
a phone answering machine. A robot. Of course, the woman was dead. She
had to be. I had a lot stored up inside me. Kelly? Oh my God, it was
Kelly. I've been waiting so long to hit h er like that. It was like a
primal energy. All the way back to the Big Bang. Translate this.
Privacy. It means Privacy. The cuniform. See that dot. And that com.
Those are periods and commas. Did you know that? What does this say?
Um,, I can 't tgell. Something about a woman brought on stage and...
and... bull. saveage> Scrifice.? That's it. She was scraficed. ]
Their communications began to warp speed the wep so that things weren
getti gtorght
Stuart handed him his Cody
What does this meaN?
It's assyrian for horse's ass.
People assume that when things don't work, it's the web's vault
but you my dear are something special.
She pulled back and her darling lkittle princess didn't have a head
anymore.
Just like the Barbies.
I pulled their heads off.
I have one hanging on a straw stuck up my prick
it gets macabre after that. Wilmut was with them.
It's just like this. He made one. And this. He made another. We have a
conflict. The program does not recognize one and another as synonymous.
She got across the bridge and started knocking. It was slowing down.
What was happening? What was that? She saw the runway. They taxied in
to the little airport below the house. Just like the plane in
Kilamanjero. Remember how it ends? Then she walked up the gangway to the
schooner and they cast off.
Remember. Don't drink the water.
*
"The new seers burn with the force of alignment," don Juan went
on, "with the force of will, which they have turned into the force of
intent through a life of impeccability. Intent is the alignment of all
the amber emanations of awareness, so it is correct to say that total
freedom means total awareness." ... "Freedom is the Eagle's gift to man.
Unfortunately, very few men understand that all we need, in order to
accept such a magnificent gift, is to have sufficent energy. If that's
all we need, then, by all means, we must become misers of energy."
op.cid.